posted Oct 7th, 2020 - The NSL Cloud Mondial 2020 includes an 8-way leaderboard too, and it will be a very interesting one. The French national 8-way team and Airspeed XP8 will be posting their next scores and videos a year after the most exciting 8-way competition at the FAI Outdoor World Cup 2019.

However, the first submitted videos came from Germany, where the Airbus 8-way team concluded their last outdoor training camp of the year on German home turf, this time in Fehrbellin, near the capital town Berlin. Airbus complete the whole set of eleven rounds on the extended weekend.

It was a successful training and meet camp with a total of 20 jumps, supervised by Italian coach Marco Arrigo. The same training camp also featured a very special event that was directly related to the German 8-way team. Thomas Spielvogel celebrated his 15,000th jump in Fehrbellin on the same weekend.

Coach Marco Arrigo and former Skynamite member Carola Fietz joined the anniversary jump for a 10-way that was showing the 15 as a freefall formation. The videos of Spieli's 15,000 did not have to be saved until the end of the NSL Cloud Mondial deadline at the end of October, and the footage is showing the Airbus 8-way team celebrating the extraordinary jump number with a special performance.

---

---

Jump #15,000 for Airbus member Thomas "Spieli" Spielvogel

---

His 15,000-jump career started in his home region, the Swabian Jura, in the south-western part of Germany, with his first serious 4-way team Maitre Albstadt in 1985. He had attended his first national championship in 1984 where he finished in last place.

One of his original team mates, Jan Rojek, is still active too and competes with the Paranodon Senior team. Thomas Spielvogel still considers Jan Rojek his 4-way mentor.

He and Jan Rojek eventually joined forces with Kurt Gaebel and Alwin Ampsler to win his first national 4-way and 8-way titles both in 1988. Thomas Spielvogel has been on the national and international stage ever since and for over 35 years.

The 1988 lineup changed after winning his first national gold medal and before competing for the first time at a FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving.

Kirsten Ernst and Norbert Trost replaced Jan Rojek and Alwin Ampsler, and the Moebel Kruegel team finished with a respectable result at the FAI World Meet 1989 in Spain.

It was the first world meet for Thomas Spielvogel, and he has never missed one ever since, except for Australia 2018 where he had to sit on the bench of the Airbus 8-way team due to an injury.

---

FAI World Meet 1989			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	TAG Team	FR	17	16	18	17	14	14	15	16	11	14	152	15.2
2	Russia	RU	16	11	13	14	12	12	13	15	12	14	132	13.2
3	DeLand	US	14	13	16	13	12	13	13	15	11	11	131	13.1
4	China 4-way Open	CN	15	12	14	13	12	13	12	17	10	13	131	13.1
5	Italy	IT	13	12	16	14	12	11	13	14	10	13	128	12.8
6	Australia	AU	15	13	16	14	8	13	13	16	7	12	127	12.7
7	Mobel Krugel	DE	12	13	13	14	12	11	12	15	10	11	123	12.3
8	Switzerland	CH	13	12	16	14	12	11	13	14	4	12	121	12.1
9	Belgium	BE	13	12	14	13	10	10	12	14	9	-	107	11.9
10	Austria	AT	14	10	16	13	10	11	11	12	7	-	104	11.6
11	Japan	JP	12	8	13	12	11	11	12	12	9	-	100	11.1
12	Great Britain	UK	11	9	12	10	10	10	10	11	7	-	90	10.0
13	Spain	ES	11	7	11	13	9	9	10	11	8	-	89	9.9
14	Norway	NO	11	8	12	12	9	8	9	12	7	-	88	9.8
14	Denmark	DK	11	7	11	13	8	10	10	11	7	-	88	9.8
16	Sweden	SE	9	9	11	11	7	9	10	11	-	-	77	9.6
16	Netherlands	NL	11	9	11	9	9	9	9	10	-	-	77	9.6
18	Finland	FI	10	5	8	11	8	9	9	11	-	-	71	8.9
19	Canada	CA	11	8	10	11	8	7	5	8	-	-	68	8.5
20	Czekoslovakia	CZ	10	9	10	10	5	8	7	7	-	-	66	8.3
21	Brazil	BR	8	5	10	9	8	5	5	7	-	-	57	7.1
22	Ireland	IE	6	3	5	6	4	6	5	5	-	-	40	5.0
23	Zimbabwe	ZW	5	3	1	6	5	6	4	6	-	-	36	4.5
23	Iceland	IS	4	3	2	6	3	5	6	7	-	-	36	4.5
25	Portugal	PT	3	4	3	5	5	5	4	5	-	-	34	4.3
26	Chile	CL	3	4	3	6	3	5	1	6	-	-	31	3.9
27	Poland	PL	3	2	3	3	4	4	1	4	-	-	24	3.0
28	Turkey	TR	1	1	3	4	3	2	3	4	-	-	21	2.6
28	Israel	IL	2	2	3	4	2	4	1	3	-	-	21	2.6

---

He has spent the last 20 years with the EADS/Airbus 4-way and 8-way lineups, and he is currently preparing for the next trip with the German national team to the FAI Mondial 2020 next year in Tanay, Russia. The Airbus 4-way and 8-way teams both use the NSL Cloud Mondial 2020 draw to define their starting positions, the 8-way team on the way to the next world meet, the 4-way team to the next national championship.

The upcoming visit to Russia brings Thomas Spielvogel back to a historic event in German history. The "Iron Curtain", which had separated east and west after the 2nd world war in Europe, had begun to soften in the late 80s. The FAI World Meet 1989 took place just a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the leaderboard of 1989 is also still showing a team from Czekoslovakia before the country divided into Czech Republic and Slovakia.

4-way and 8-way teams from Russia had begun competing at FAI world meets and world cups in 1985, and especially the Russian 8-way teams established themselves in medal positions from the very beginning. The visits in the other direction were very unusual at that time, despite the softening separation between east and west.

However, Thomas Spielvogel and his Moebel Kruegel team traveled to Moscow between the FAI World Meet 1989 and the historic events in Berlin in November the same year, and they attended a 4-way competition in the suburbans of Russia's capital city, together with a delegation from former East-Germany. Outside center Thomas Spielvogel has had an interesting and successful 4-way and 8-way career that still continues. He said that he may move to the tail slot when he turns 60...