posted Feb 11th, 2011 - The transition of the NSL News to Skydive Arizona was successful, and the first update from Eloy includes a colorful mixture of activities at the competition site of the Valentine's Meet 2011.

Arizona Airspeed is back on home turf after the visit in North Carolina for the Paraclete XP Indoor Skydiving Championships 2011. Airspeed is ready for the first showdown with the new French national team, Aerodyne France Maubeuge after four training jumps on Friday afternoon.

Niklas Daniel, former Perris Fury videographer, is filming Airspeed this weekend and provided footage of the training jumps. It is refreshing to see outdoor videos after a whole weekend in the wind tunnel...

France has a large training group in Eloy. The new 4-way lineup that the NSL News has covered extensively has been training this week, together with the new lineup in the female 4-way category. The national CReW team is also in Eloy.

Coach Marin Ferre said that the new French female lineup will attend its first competition at the Shamrock Showdown 2011. Aerodyne Deep Blue Defenders is not ready yet to defend the French gold medals that the Deep Blue lineup won at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2010.

However, the Open Class lineup will challenge Airspeed beginning tomorrow morning. The French team is rotating the center piece of Block 13 (Offset - Spinner) backwards, as well. The competition draw has not been posted yet. Hopefully, Block 13 will be in one of the ten sequences.

Black Cat, the Russian top team with new member Valery Propilyak, was warming up on Friday afternoon, as well. All three top teams in Eloy have to work in a new member this year. Aerodyne France Maubeuge and Black Cat competed with the new lineup at the Dubai Championship 2011, while Arizona Airspeed posted the first scores last weekend in Raeford.

French Tail Guillaume Bernier has some problems with his back that he brought back from Dubai. He was competing in the Canopy Piloting event when he did not do 4-way and sacrificed his whole body for the performance, as many Canopy Pilots do to win points.

His whole team is working overtime now with extra stretching sessions to get him ready for the 4-way acrobatics in freefall. The world champions stretch and warm up in the morning and finish the day with more gymnastics. Stay tuned for more updates.