posted May 19th, 2023 - Australia is one of the countries/continents where the annual indoor/outdoor meet agenda does not match easily with the training and meet agenda of any Formation Skydiving competition teams. The NSL News covered the same situation in South Africa a few days ago, after Savolo had won their next national 4-title at the beginning of April.

As it happens every year, Australia's national outdoor championship took place while the national teams in North America and Europe, plus Qatar Tigers and INIT-Y from Brazil, were in their final preparations for the major indoor competition of the year, this time the FAI Indoor World Championship 2023 in Slovakia.

Sas DiSciasio and Gary Nemirovski won their next national 4-way title with a new Ripper lineup at the beginning of March and then skipped the long trip to the Hurricane Factory Tatralandia in Slovakia.

In fact, there has never been a 4-way team from Australia at any of the FAI indoor world championships and/or world cups yet, not even at the time before the indoor events were settle in the calendar at the beginning of the year. The earlier indoor events were also held at different times, however, the world's Formation Skydiving event schedule has never fit well to the agenda of the Australian teams.

Australian Outdoor Nationals 2023		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	6,3,J	P,16,1	17,8,M	18,21,9	N,D,14,20	15,22,13	C,Q,E,L,K	4,H,7	2,19,12	G,A,B,O,10	Total	Avg
1	Ripper	17	14	15	16	15	13	24	13	13	20	160	16.0
2	Whitefish	12	12	13	12	13	9	20	14	10	15	130	13.0
3	Chop Chop!	11	11	11	10	9	9	15	14	10	12	112	11.2
Rank	AA Class	B,13,22	A,20,1	E,J,Q,18	4,F,O	D,8,K	14,P,11	2,N,M	H,21,G	C,L,7	6,9	Total	Avg
1	Airborne Contagion	7	8	10	12	9	8	9	11	10	11	95	9.5
2	The John Denver Experience	7	7	11	10	8	8	7	10	12	8	88	8.8
3	Bellas	8	8	9	11	7	6	10	6	10	10	85	8.5
4	Bruise Brothers	9	6	9	10	7	4	9	10	9	9	82	8.2
5	Rod's Team	3	2	3	3	3	1	1	4	3	5	28	2.8
Rank	A Class	B,J,7	P,Q,A	H,N,D	6,M	4,9	G,L,2	C,21	K,E,19	F,O,8	N,O,Q	Total	Avg
1	Random Fixation	14	14	10	10	9	7	11	11	9	13	108	10.8
2	What's Next	6	6	4	9	3	4	5	5	7	8	57	5.7
2	Lower Light Last Minutes	8	7	5	7	3	6	5	3	7	6	57	5.7
4	Straight Off The Door	8	4	5	7	5	5	7	5	6	4	56	5.6
Rank	Rookie	B,A,F	H,E,N	O,M,K	G,Q,P	L,C,D	J,G,M	D,P,L	B,F,J	K,C,O	N,H,Q	Total	Avg
1	First Date	6	8	6	3	2	4	1	6	4	-	40	4.4
2	RAVSTASS Ravens	0	2	5	2	1	0	3	4	3	-	20	2.2
3	Super Happy Interesting Team	3	2	2	1	0	0	2	8	0	-	18	2.0
4	Animal Kingdom	4	0	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	5	1.7

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Ripper at the Australian Outdoor Nationals 2023 - Video Footage Courtesy of InTime

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4-way teams in North America and Europe can complete their outdoor training and competition when the summer season ends with national and world championships/world cups, and they turn to indoor training and competition naturally in the winter months. The indoor season concludes with the major FAI/ISC events and before teams can switch back to outdoor training.

That's not the same in South Africa or especially Australia, where the outdoor season begins when the North American and European teams turn to indoor 4-way and 8-way. The Australian outdoor season concludes with the national championship when the major indoor events are coming up.

Australia has been a very strong player in Formation Skydiving outdoor competition since 1985, in 4-way and in 8-way both, despite the annual challenges for the national teams to accommodate the schedule of the major FAI/ISC events.

Australia has also hosted outdoor world championships twice, first in Corona 1999, and then again at Gold Coast in 2018. Australia's national teams only missed the world championships in Russia, first in Menzelinsk 2010, then again the Tanay Mondial 2020.

FAI Outdoor World Meet 2022			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		20,16,B		P,D,21,13		17,K,11		E,A,19,22		2,9,M		C,14,F,12		3,6,18		4,10,1		8,Q,O,H		5,7,J		Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	21	-1	28		27		27		31		23		21		20		32		31		261	26.1
2	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	20	-1	25	-2	21		23		28		20	-2	19		17		29		26		228	22.8
3	Qatar Tigers	QA	19	-2	23	-1	22	-1	21	-1	26		18		17	-1	17		28		28		219	21.9
4	France 4-way Open	FR	19		23	-1	22		23		27		20	-1	18		15	-1	20	-5	27	-1	214	21.4
5	Chimera	UK	16		21	-2	19		19	-1	18	-5	18	-1	16		14	-1	23	-1	24		188	18.8
6	Papea Masculino	ES	17	-1	20	-1	18	-1	21		21	-2	18		15		15		21	-1	20	-3	186	18.6
7	Echochamber Oceanside	SE	14	-1	21		19		19		20	-1	17		16		15		24	-1	20	-1	185	18.5
8	Airbus Oceanside Illertissen	DE	16		18	-2	19		16	-1	20	-1	13	-3	15		14		19	-2	22	-1	172	17.2
9	Agera FS 2022	NO	16		16	-2	17	-1	17		18	-1	15		15		13	-1	18	-3	21		166	16.6
9	4Astrophe	CA	15	-1	20		19		15	-2	21		15		15	-2	14		16	-3	16	-2	166	16.6
11	Out of the Blue	NL	16		16	-3	17		17		14	-2	17		12	-1	13	-1	21	-1	18		161	16.1
12	Ripper	AU	14	-1	16	-1	18		16	-1	21		15		12		10	-3	19	-1	19	-1	160	16.0
13	Sky4Four	PL	13	-1	14	-3	14		16		16	-2	12	-1	12		13		21		18	-1	149	14.9
14	HF Flying Circus	CZ	13		10	-7	16		15	-1	18	-2	12	-1	13		11	-3	16	-5	17	-1	141	14.1
15	Sequenz	DK	10	-2	16		15		14	-1	17	-1	12	-1	12		11	-1	17	-1	11	-3	135	13.5
16	INIT-Y	BR	12	-2	14	-1	14	-1	13	-4	16		11	-2	10	-3	12		17	-1	15	-3	134	13.4
17	HSV Red Bull Aerodynamix	AT	10	-2	16		14		15		15	-1	8	-3	9	-2	10	-1	15	-1	13	-1	125	12.5
18	Adventure Flyers	PY	9	-1	13		12	-1	11		16		11		10		9		14		14	-1	119	11.9
19	Equinox	LT	10	-1	12	-2	12		12	-1	13	-1	10		10		9	-1	12	-4	14	-1	114	11.4
20	Tina & The Dinosaurs	NZ	5		8	-1	4		9		9	-1	8		5		4	-2	10		8		70	7.0
21	La Playa	GT	2	-1	7	-2	5	-1	3	-3	7		5		3	-1	5		-		-		37	4.6

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Ripper at the FAI Outdoor World Championship 2022 - Video Footage Courtesy of FAI/InTime/Omniskore

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Participation of Australian 4-way teams at FAI Outdoor World Championships since 1985

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The national 4-way team was back in Eloy 2022, while the Australian 8-way team did not have a lineup for the same event. Ripper were in contention for one of the Top 10 positions, as the 4-way Open Class leaderboard is showing.

Ripper with three of the current team members (Sas Di Sciascio, Gary Nemirovsky, Rob Thompson) and Stephen Hickson on camera finished six points behind Agera (Norway) and 4Astrophe (Canada) after all ten rounds with exactly the same 16.0 average that the new lineup now posted at the national outdoor championship in March.

Australian teams are now done with their outdoor season, and winter begins in June. FAI/ISC have scheduled the outdoor world cup in Voss, Norway, for the month of August, which is deep winter in Australia. It is probably unlikely that a team from down-under will travel to Norway at that time, and main goal is more realistically the next outdoor world championship in Israel 2024. Next year, Ripper will have to travel the other direction across the planet, while Israel is closer to Australia than Eloy was. However, the next indoor world cup will most likely be held in China, which makes traveling a lot shorter compared to Eloy and Israel both.

Participation of Australian 8-way teams at FAI Outdoor World Championships since 1985

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