posted Jan 22nd, 2025 - The NSL News reported on January 4th that the German national team in 4-way Open, Airbus Illertissen, continue with a new lineup. The update included NSL Live Talk with team member Thomas Mack, his son Tim Mack, who competed with Teiwaz at the German Outdoor Nationals 2024, and coach Solly Williams.

The follow-up story on January 16th introduced the new Airbus lineup with more details of the new team members, Claire Rebhahn and Tim Mack, who will work together with his father in the front piece. Claire Rebhahn will take the tail position.

Solly Williams has been coaching the Airbus 4-way team for many years and will continue his work with the new lineup. He shared his insights and thoughts with the NSL News before the first outdoor training camp will take place at Skydive DeLand and conclude with the Shamrock Showdown 2025. In the meantime, former NMP PCH HayaBusa member Michele Silvi is coaching the Airbus 4-way team indoors. The conversation at Skydive DeLand's Perfect Spot restaurant included a brief evaluation of the Mack 4-way family and other similar family team situations. Thomas Mack is familiar with the dynamics, as he has trained and competed together in 8-way with brothers Joern and Max Thiele in the past. Solly Williams mentioned that the Mack family also includes Tim's brother Moritz who is an outdoor skydiver, as well, while he has not yet joined the formation skydiving competition community.

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NSL Live Talk with Solly Williams on 22 January 2025 at Skydive DeLand

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Solly Williams' work assignments may also continue with Arizona Airspeed. He worked with the two new members in 2019, Joey Marshall and Chris Kuhlmann. He helped to advance and fine-tune their skills and integrate them into the new lineup, who eventually ended up winning two sets of consecutive FAI outdoor world championship titles in 2022 and 2024.

Arizona Airspeed's new lineup, again with two new members, Alisson de Vargas and Doug Hendrix, work on plans to copy the strategy of 2019 and accelerate the progression by working with one of the most experienced 4-way team coaches in history.

The reigning indoor and outdoor 4-way world champions were planning to launch their new lineup at the Wind Games in Spain at the end of January. Unfortunately, they will not be able to attend the popular competition, due to the procedures of the naturalization process for new member Alisson de Vargas. Solly Williams explained his own experiences with changing from one country (South Africa) to another (United States) when he and his team mate Gary Smith were in the same situation before they were eligible to compete for the U.S. delegation and become 4-way world champion with DeLand Majik in 2004.

FAI World Championship 2001			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open Finals		8,19,24	A,L,22,H	E,10,D,11	21,6,4	B,18,C,14	G,5,20	2,1,16	M,K,12,9	15,23,P	O,17,Q,N	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	19	25	21	19	20	20	20	23	17	30	214	21.4
2	Maubeuge	FR	19	20	20	18	21	21	19	23	20	31	212	21.2
3	DeLand Norgies	NO	19	22	20	18	19	19	19	21	18	31	206	20.6
4	Sebastian XL	UK	17	22	20	17	18	19	19	21	18	28	199	19.9
5	Endeavour	CH	14	17	15	14	14	16	15	17	13	26	161	16.1
6	Sinapsi PD	IT	12	13	17	15	15	15	14	19	15	24	159	15.9

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Last FAI World Championship with 24 blocks and 16 random formations in the dive pool

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Last and not least, Solly Williams also commented the potential changes in the dive pool that the NSL News covered on January 20th. He has experienced all kind of different rule changes in his 4-way career, as a competitor and as a coach, including numerous changes of the dive pool.

The dive pool at the first four world championships in his 4-way competition career (1995 - 2001) still consisted of 24 blocks and 16 random formations. He and Gary Smith won their 4-way world championship title after the reduction of the number of blocks from 24 to 22. Random formations and blocks for the competition draws changed on a regular basis until the dive pool seemed to have settled for longer time periods.

Solly Williams explained that the dive pool in the earlier years of the new format in formation skydiving competition, which was introduced at the world championship in 1985, was more fluid. It was still new and subject to "research and development". It was part of a natural progression that the dive pool would eventually settle. As in other sports, continuity, consistency and reliability would become more important factors for the development of the sport. However, creative top competitors still continued to create suggestions for new and different maneuvers and formations from time to time, even though the frequency of changes has slowed down in general. The ISC Formation Skydiving Committee is currently working on the topic, and the delegates to FAI's International Skydiving Commission will decide on potential dive pool changes next week during the ISC Plenary Meeting. Current members of the ISC Formation Skydiving Committee are Mark Szulmayer (Chair), David Grauwels (Deputy Chair), Claire King, Vana Parker, Trude Sviggum, Jim Rees, Randy Connell, Matthew Fry.