posted Jan 16th, 2021 - This weekend, a very challenging task is waiting for the delegates of the International Skydiving Commission (ISC) of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI), the world's air sports federation.

The NSL News mentioned in the update after the most recent NSL Live Talk on January 13th that David Grauwels will be back online when the annual meeting of the FAI/ISC takes place. It was supposed to take place live in Bucharest, Rumania, before the corona virus crisis changed everything, including the logistics for the meeting.

The complete competition schedule of FAI/ISC indoor and outdoor world meets and world cups for the coming years will be the main topic. It will be a balance act between the canceled and rescheduled events, and the schedule of additional events in the coming years depends on the situation at the end of the 2021 season, as well.

David Grauwels (NMP PCH HasyaBusa) will meet Kirk Verner (Airspeed XP8) and Egor Gusev (IFS Moscow) online, who are ISC delegates for United States and Russia. It will not take too long after the meeting until the NSL News will be able to follow up with the most relevant information. In the meantime, the NSL News found an unpublished article in the archives that covered the same annual meeting more than 20 years ago. Today's International Skydiving Commission (ISC) was the International Parachuting Committee (IPC) in 1998.

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NSL News on 13 December 1998

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DID YOU KNOW THAT the IPC (International Parachuting Committee) is the highest officiating organization for parachuting? Each nation is represented at the annual meetings. The next meeting is scheduled for February 1999. The IPC members are setting all the rules for our competitions, and making decisions concerning everything that is important for our sport/hobby.

The IPC Subcommittee Formation Skydiving is in charge of rules and dive pools for 4-way, 8-way and 16-way. The members of the FS Subcommittee are experts from different nations, most of them former world class competitors.

Another IPC committe is the "Development Working Group" (DWG). This committee is in charge of the general future of the sport. The DWG has already presented its annual report for 1998. The NSL is offering a new and different format at the same time - a new generation of 4-way competition. We hope that the future ideas of the IPC will still keep the athletes happy heading the same direction as the NSL - to the benefit of our exciting sport.

Here are some statements from this report that Norwegian competitor Ken Hansen published at his website:

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IPC Development Working Group Statement in 1998

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During the 1998 IPC meeting, the IPC made a strategic choice that the ultimate goal of the IPC is to enter the Olympic Programme. To achieve this it was agreed that the development of skydiving must change direction, where media exposure and sport are the key elements.

Having monitored the IPC activities in 1998, it is the opinion of the IPC DWG that the skydiving community does not understand that such a change must be a radical one. To develop skydiving as a sport, the IPC needs to take control over discipline development. Today's events are far from public friendly, the rules are for the competitors, not for the public to understand or appreciate.

The IPC needs to:

1. ESTABLISH THE FUTURE COMPETITION FORMAT

I) Change the competition format

Skydiving competitions are long, expensive and there is lack of interest from the public, media and sponsors. After studying our sport in comparison with other sports, it is obvious that skydiving competitions must change format. Above all, the competitions must be compact and short. By making this one change, competitions will be less expensive to organise and attend, and attractive to media and sponsors.

The DWG concludes:

Competitions must

- Be compact and short.
- Be an interesting and understandable event for the general public.
- Show pulses
- have closeness to the athletes.
- Have qualification for participation.
- Be more attractive to organize.