posted Nov 13th, 2010 - The NSL News story on 1 November 2010 was a preview of the the "Mega Tunnel 4-way meet", an event of the Advance Skydive Project that was launched by Aerodyne earlier this year.

Meet organizer Cherie Schuch now followed up with a summary and reported that the event was a great success: "Wow, what a tunnel event..."

19 participants met at Paraclete XP on Saturday morning at 9:30 to launch Aerodyne's Advance Skydive Project 4-way tunnel meet. The teams had 45 seconds of working time, and the competition draw had a limited dive pool.

There was a brief recitation of the rules before the jumpers went off to prepare the sequences. Paraclete XP4 members Kirk Verner and John D’Annunzio helped out by flying with two of the teams, and event organizer Cherie Schuch and her husband Karl joined up with two of the other teams.

Cherie Schuch had a special assignment, as she completed the all-female Booty Call lineup (Sue Sweetman, Alicia Stahlberg, Kathy-Ann Cadogan) in the Center Inside slot.

Aerodyne project organizer Louis French was also on site but was unable to participate due to a shoulder surgery he had two days before the event. However, he helped with the logistics. Cherie Schuch reported that "...he did a fantastic job judging the rounds and setting up the catered dinner after the event."

The five teams flew a total of four hours, which amounted to a total of 32 flying sessions of 1.5 minutes per team. Each round was repeated, and the performance on the second flying session was scored.

Four of the five teams applied the more extended dive pool with blocks and random formations, while one less experienced team had only random formations and two blocks in the program. Cherie Schuch said that the four teams turned out to be surprisingly well matched, as the scores reflected.

She said that the rookie team (Guys & Dolls: Fritz Carr, Lou Nieves, Rita Miller, Mariaelena Rodriguez) was amazing and averaged seven points over the 16 rounds:

"One of the participants had only done one tandem jump, another member of this lineup had 80 jumps. Combined they had very little formal 4-way experience compared to the other tunnel meet players."

She also reported that Paraclete XP4 team mates Kirk Verner (Wooly and the Mammettes: Kirk Verner, Woolly Charlton, Chris Ballard, Janine Cone) and John D'Annunzio (Give Us A Minute: John D'Annunzio, Adam Bishop, Dennis Miller, Greg Mirkin/Andre Van Heerden) had a serious rivalry going throughout the whole meet.

She said that John D'Annunzio's team eventually pulled ahead: "They won in the last three rounds, as the participants started to show how doing 32 skydives can zap your energy!"

She added that her own team, Booty Call, may not have had all the muscle but used finesse to outscore the team with her husband, the African Americans (Karl Schuch, Adam Bishop, Keith Fay, Greg Mirkin/Andre Van Heerden):

"Booty Call surely showed finesse and beat the African Americans who included our only South African participant Andre Van Heerden. Karl wore his favorite T-shirt for the special occasion: 'We all came from Africa'..."

Cherie Schuch said that the event was such a success that she begins planning for another one in January 2011: "Please let us know if you are interested in participating. Five teams seem to be the magic number, so there will be limited space."