posted Jan 20th, 2023 - EADS/Airbus lineups have been competing for Germany at all FAI outdoor world championships between 2003 and 2006, and then again since 2016. Thomas Mack, member of the current lineup, competed at the three FAI outdoor world championships in 2016, 2018 and 2022, and his current team mates (Sarah Mertes, Felix Pfeiffer, Alexander Prendinger) completed their first ten 4-way Open Class rounds at a world championship in Eloy last October, with Andreas Trögele still on camera.

AtomiX won the qualification for the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020 at the national championships in 2019, however, the cancellation and rescheduling of the world meet changed the team's plans too much, and they did not compete in Tanay 2021.

Airbus won the re-match at the German national championship of 2021 with a dramatic Super Sequence finish in Round 10. AtomiX did not continue after that, and Airbus competed once again for Germany in October last year, a month after winning their next national 4-way outdoor title in September.

Germany's outdoor and indoor titles are split between two different teams, as the NSL News mentioned briefly after a new NSL Live Talk with Airbus on January 11th. Former Airbus member Christian Schaefer's team, Jochen Schweizer Arena Airfource, won Germany's national indoor championship in March 2022 and will represent the country at the indoor world championship this April.

Germany Indoor Nationals 2022			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		1,17,J	A,O,5,D	9,H,2	10,12,21	E,M,3,C	16,8,K	B,7,P,4	L,15,14	G,19,N,22	18,20,13	Total	Avg
1	Jochen Schweizer Arena Airforce	DE	24	34	29	19	32	23	30	24	23	15	253	25.3
2	Airbus Oceanside Illertissen	DE	24	30	27	17	34	20	26	23	23	20	244	24.4
3	Piteraq	DE	22	29	23	17	31	19	26	19	20	17	223	22.3
3	Paratec-Saar	DE	22	29	26	16	26	17	26	22	22	17	223	22.3
5	Skynamite	DE	21	24	25	17	27	20	24	19	21	17	215	21.5
6	Paranodon 4way Illertissen	DE	21	22	21	15	27	15	23	18	17	13	192	19.2
7	EOS	CH	20	24	21	13	24	18	22	13	14	17	186	18.6
8	NeVa FSZ Saar	DE	16	23	20	15	23	17	23	15	17	15	184	18.4
9	Bardarbunga Flystation Munich	DE	16	22	19	15	21	15	21	18	16	16	179	17.9
10	Buena Vista Tunnel Club	DE	14	20	18	14	19	15	19	17	16	12	164	16.4
11	Funknown Spätis	DE	12	14	19	14	21	16	20	17	14	11	158	15.8
11	Feierabendflieger	DE	16	14	18	11	22	15	16	16	16	14	158	15.8
13	Air-W	CH	13	16	19	12	19	13	18	16	13	11	150	15.0
14	Das KO's Saar	DE	13	14	10	11	18	13	17	13	12	11	132	13.2

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Jochen Schweizer Arena Airforce - Airbus Oceanside Illertissen at the Germany Indoor Nationals 2022

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It is not new that a country has different national teams for FAI indoor and outdoor world championships, even though it is mostly unusual. The same team often dominates indoor and outdoor competition in the same country.

Germany has had this unusual situation already at the previous FAI Indoor World Championship in Weembi Lille 2019. Airbus, with Thomas Mack in the lineup, competed for Germany at the FAI outdoor world championship in Australia 2018, and Airfource at the indoor world meet half a year later at Weembi.

Christian Schaefer, Christian Kautzmann, Elischa Weber and Stefan Wiesner had outscored AtomiX at Germany's national indoor championship in March 2019, less than a month before the indoor world meet at Weembi, and they qualified for the FAI event at the same time. AtomiX then won the national outdoor championship in August 2019.

The German qualification for the upcoming FAI Indoor World Championship in Slovakia was eventually scheduled the same way as for outdoor nationals. The winner of the event the year before qualifies as the national indoor team for the coming year's FAI world meet or world cup. Christian Schaefer, Christian Kautzmann and Elischa Weber won Germany's national indoor championship in March 2022, now with Robin Griesheimer in the lineup, and they will compete for Germany in Slovakia at the team's second indoor world championship.

FAI Indoor World Championship 2019			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		M,K,D,14		Q,4,5		P,E,9,15		3,N,G,2		6,1,8		F,12,11		13,22,J		H,L,B,18		O,20,A,17		21,7,19		Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	39		36		42		35		27		32		29		42	-1	38		31		351	35.1
2	Weembi High Rollers	FR	38	-2	33	-1	44		32	-1	27		29	-1	26	-2	47		37		31		344	34.4
3	Arizona Airspeed	US	39		33		40		30		27		29		24	-3	39		33		27		321	32.1
4	Qatar Tigers	QA	34		30	-2	36		29		22	-3	27	-1	28		36		32		28		302	30.2
5	Airheads	CH	35		28	-1	33	-2	29		25		27		24	-1	36		30		25	-1	292	29.2
6	Black Cat	RU	34		29		39	-1	29		25		22	-2	25	-1	36	-1	26	-3	22	-2	287	28.7
7	Echochamber	SE	34		27	-1	35		26	-1	22	-2	25		20	-5	35		26	-3	24	-1	274	27.4
8	ACM Weembi	UK	32	-1	28		32	-2	26	-1	20	-1	24		19	-2	35		26		25		267	26.7
9	Airfource	DE	33	-3	22	-1	33	-1	25		22	-1	23		20	-3	35	-2	25	-1	24	-1	262	26.2
10	HF Flying Circus	CZ	31		26		28	-1	23		24		22		18	-2	33		19	-5	23		247	24.7
11	Pro Team	FI	27	-2	24		30		23		23		22		22		30		23	-3	22	-1	246	24.6
12	Monaco Indoor Skydive Team	MC	27	-1	21		27	-2	23		20		22		21		29		21		21		232	23.2
13	FlySpot Sky4Four	PL	27	-1	23		28	-1	23		19	-2	20	-1	20		29		21	-1	21	-1	231	23.1
14	Papea Masculino	ES	28	-2	23		26	-1	16	-3	21	-1	20	-1	21		30	-1	23	-2	22		230	23.0
15	Out of the Blue	NL	24		22		27		19	-1	19		19		18		27		24		20	-1	219	21.9
16	H40	IE	22	-1	19		23		17		18		17	-1	17	-1	24		20		19		196	19.6
17	Skydive University Slovakia	SK	23	-2	19		23	-1	17	-2	18		17	-1	14	-3	22		19		17	-2	189	18.9
18	Magic 4	LT	26		15	-1	19	-5	15	-2	17		16	-3	17	-1	21		-		-		146	18.3

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German Airfource at the FAI Indoor World Championship 2019

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The German story became even more interesting after the Airbus visit for the winter training camp in DeLand. It was the starting point for the coming two years, with the next outdoor world championship in Israel as the prime target for the same lineup.

The team mentioned during the interview that they plan to represent Germany as the national team in 4-way Open in 2024, while they mentioned that there is a serious challenge on the way to this goal. They have to win the national championships this year to qualify for Israel, and there seems to be a serious new outdoor opponent.

Airbus expect the German Airfource to add outdoor competition to their agenda and compete at the German Nationals 2023 for the first time. Airfource may not have any outdoor scores in the NSL News records so far, however, the lineup consists of highly experienced and well trained outdoor competitors, who have competed several times for Germany at the military CISM world championships. The NSL News had introduced some of the team members on 9 March 2019, during a winter training camp in Lake Wales.

Former Airbus member Christian Schaefer has trained and competed with the three Bundeswehr soldiers for indoor events, and they will meet Airbus soon for the national indoor championships. Airbus do not expect to challenge the well prepared Airfource for the indoor title. It may become much more interesting at the German Outdoor Nationals at the end of August, where Airbus is still the top contender. However, only the winner will travel to Israel a year later, the main Airbus target...

CISM Military 2022			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Male - Top 5		M,A,19,G		M,22,C,H		M,N,21,R		M,10,E,D		M,B,4,O		M,F,14,Q		M,L,11,K		M,J,17,P		Total	Avg
1	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	33		31	1	28	3	31	1	37	1	34		32	1	38	1	264	33.0
2	Qatar Tigers	QA	32	1	28		28	2	26	1	33		29	1	28		39		243	30.4
3	Germany	DE	28		24	1	23		22	1	28		28		24		31		208	26.0
4	Turkey	TR	25		19	3	22	1	26		28		24	2	23		33		200	25.0
5	Papea Masculino	ES	20	1	19	3	25	1	24	1	30		26	2	23		29		196	24.5