posted Jul 30th, 2010 - There is still no end of Russia's heatwave in sight. Moscow is even burning at several places, as the high temperatures have initiated fires. The only cool place in Menzelinsk is the freefall, and the NSL News is only reporting the jumps and looking at the videos...

Yesterday's last paragraph mentioned that an international group of 28 competitors was getting ready for Craig Girard's birthday jump. The teams that were finished with training had the opportunity to celebrate with and for the 45-year old Formation Skydiving legend.

Arizona Airspeed's Eliana Rodriguez invited the participants and organized the jump. The NSL-TV camera captured the preparations. Evolution's team videographer Daniel Paquette was filming the 28-way and provided the freefall video for the NSL News.

International 29-way for Craig Girard's Birthday

Airspeed's team videographer Steve Nowak was asked to film the jump for the group, but he said that he would rather be in front of the camera this time. He had already a big smile on his face all the time during the jump preparations.

That was easy to understand, as the lineup of this group was probably one of the best ones ever for a fun jump. The top quality of the international group was showing in the first 30 seconds and the first maneuvers.

The flow was interrupted, and Eliana Rodriguez' dive design could not be shown, with the grande finale where Craig Girard would take the center of a Star and greet the whole group. All he got was a little bit of extra knee flying at the end.

It was still a great end of a hot day, and the fun jumpers enjoyed watching Daniel Paquette's video. The tale of the jump was told often the same night, and it will probably still be told for a while.

Friday was another hot training day. Several teams took days off, including NMP-PCH Hayabusa and Arizona Airspeed. The teams on the competition site were discussing an issue with the jump plane.

Handholds and foot positions on certain spots of the LET 410 were brought up by the pilots and caused some confusion. The officials are discussing the situation and will offer a solution soon. There is also a new 8-way team that will be added to the leaderboard later. Norway brought both 4-way teams together to make it four 8-way teams now. Saturday is the day for official practice jumps.