posted Dec 15th, 2020 - The NSL News made several excursions into the archives at the times when the corona virus crisis had the toughest impact on the event schedules across the planet. Previously not posted scores and videos were added to the database and then to the public pages, followed by printed interviews with celebrities of Formation Skydiving competition.

The pandemic is not over yet and continues to reduce skydiving and wind-tunnel activities to an unknown level in history. However, several events took place later this year that provided contemporary content for NSL News updates, which usually have priority over information added from the archives.

There are still several topics of recent events that will be covered as soon as possible, while there will probably be more than enough and not really desired time to add content that was generated at earlier events.

This time, the NSL News goes back to the FAI World Cup 1996, which took place in Leopoldsburg, Belgium, long before the small European country would celebrate their still reigning 4-way world champions of 2014, 2016 and 2018, NMP PCH HayaBusa.

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Sebastian XL - DeLand VNE - DeLand Equanmity VNE at the FAI World Cup 1996

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It was a video of the event that caught the NSL-TV attention. It features three teams from three different countries that competed at the FAI World Cup 1996.

Sebastian XL was the British national 4-way team, in its beginnings to become a serious challenger for medals at the world meets of the coming years. A year later, in Turkey 1997, XL finished already in 5th place, just ahead of DeLand Norgies, their toughest opponent in the near future.

The DeLand Norgies then won the FAI bronze medals three consecutive times (1999, 2001, 2003), always after a battle with Sebastian XL.

DeLand VNE was one of the four teams in the U.S. 4-way delegation for the FAI World Cup 1996, which was headed by Arizona Airspeed's original lineup. Airspeed had just taken the 4-way gold medals away from the French national team of 1995 and won again in Leopoldsburg.

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FAI World Cup 1996			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	Arizona Airspeed	US	24	21	19	16	19	27	21	20	16	22	205	20.5
2	Maubeuge	FR	23	10	14	15	17	25	20	18	17	21	180	18.0
3	Airspeed Vortex	US	22	18	14	13	18	18	18	17	17	20	175	17.5
FAI World Cup 1996			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	20	18	22	21	21	20	16	21	19	19	197	19.7
2	Russia	RU	19	20	21	17	19	18	14	19	19	19	185	18.5
3	Hautes Alpes	FR	18	18	20	18	18	19	14	18	16	16	175	17.5

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It became double-gold for Airspeed, as the 8-way lineup, with 4-way team Airspeed Vortex, won the world cup gold medals, as well. Airspeed's original 4-way lineup would win again in Turkey a year later, where the Golden Knights also won the 8-way gold for the U.S. delegation.

The 4-way and 8-way teams from the United States, France and Russia did not allow any other teams to interfere with their battles for the medals. Sebastian XL and DeLand VNE, who met each other regularly during the first season of the Florida Skydiving League, had their own competition in the lower rankings of the Top 10 positions at that time.

DeLand VNE also competed in 8-way, together with DeLand Equanimity, the South African national 4-way team, with Gary Smith and Solly Williams in the lineup. Equanimity was also one of the first teams promoting the Florida Skydiving League, and they joined forces with VNE (Rob Larsen, Richard Calledare, Ricardo Pettena, Kurt Gaebel, Rickster Powell on camera) for the 8-way competition. It was a pick-up team without any 8-way training jumps at all.

DeLand Equanimity moved on to win bronze medals at the FAI World Meet 1997. Gary Smith and Solly Williams continued with DeLand Majik and became 4-way world champions in 2004.