posted Jun 10th, 2011 - The Midway Battle at Skydive Chicago is only a confrontation between the weather and the teams so far. There was one attempt to get a plane to jump altitude, which did not work out well. The whole load, including Arizona Airspeed, landed with the Twin Otter. The competitors on site have been entertaining themselves with playing games ever since, Thomas Hughes reported.

Mark Kirkby mentioned that the competition draw is surely "middle of the road". There is no 3-block sequence, and none of the jumps has more than two random formations. Seven of the ten rounds begin with a block, and only three rounds have a random formation for the exit. The lack of a 3-block sequence will probably almost guarantee scores of 20 points and higher for Airspeed in each round. The complete competition draw will be posted later tonight.

Airspeed's presence at the Midway Battle brought the NSL News back to the Valentine's Meet 2011 where meet director expert Bryan Burke had raised an interesting topic. The NSL News researched in earlier stories how the annual Shamrock Showdown has been indicating very reliably who would win the USPA Nationals and/or the World Meets later the same year.

Bryan Burke said in February that the annual Valentine's Meet has provided similar information for the upcoming season: "At that time (1999), and for some time after, I noted to competitors that every team that won at VD went on to win the world meet. I believe the first time that was broken was when Majik went to Croatia in 2004, if I am remembering names and dates correctly. It would be interesting to see how many years since 1994, when Airspeed was formed, the VD winner has also been World Champion. I'm guessing all but two or three."

The NSL News picked up the topic and checked the records as far as they are available. Airspeed always competes at the Valentine's Meet. It is very likely that they also won on home turf in 1995 and 1997 when they took the gold medals at the World Meets in France (1995) and Turkey (1997). The open question is which teams competed in Eloy and whether the French national team, silver medalist both times, was there for the Valentine's Meet.

That was the case in 1999 when France won the Valentine's Meet and then the World Meet in Australia. France did not visit Eloy two years later for the Valentine's Meet, and Airspeed beat the DeLand Norgies who would win the bronze medals at the World Meet 2001 in Spain. Airspeed won gold and confirmed Bryan Burke's theory once again.

Things changed in 2003, and it happened only one more time, in 2008, that the winner of the Valentine's Meet, Airspeed Odyssey, would also win the gold medals at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving the same year.

There were different reasons why it did not happen any longer on a regular basis. Airspeed won the Valentine's Meet 2003 in a tie-break over the Golden Knights. However, Airspeed did not even compete at the World Meet later that year since the US Army team was the US national team in 2003. France won the gold medals on home turf in Gap.

Bryan Burke mentioned that DeLand Majik, winner of the Shamrock Showdown 2004, was also in the way a year later. Airspeed won the Valentine's Meet but did not compete at the World Meet in Croatia after Majik had won the USPA Nationals in 2003. It was similar in 2006 when DeLand Fire won the World Meet gold medals in Germany.

Valentine's Meet 2008			Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9	Round 10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		A,10,D,11	14,O,1	N,E,P,5	3,Q,6	22,18,J	G,13,2	12,21,C	H,7,16	15,20,8	19,4,17	Total	Avg
1	Airspeed Odyssey		21	21	30	21	18	22	19	26	18	21	217	21.7
2	Perris Fury		15	18	29	20	17	21	18	23	16	18	195	19.5
3	Canada Evolution		16	17	25	17	15	13	14	21	14	16	168	16.8
4	Arizona Directe		12	16	21	18	14	16	16	18	11	15	157	15.7
5	Arizona Divewerkz		12	15	18	15	13	15	15	17	11	13	144	14.4
6	Italy Spin Team		15	14	21	18	13	19	12	-	-	-	112	16.0
7	Far East		7	4	10	8	8	5	7	11	7	6	73	7.3

The 2008 season scored another point for Bryan Burke, as Airspeed won the Valentine's Meet over Perris Fury and Canada Evolution and then the gold medals at the World Meet in France. A point deduction followed two years later when Airspeed won the Valentine's Meet in 2010 and lost to France at the World Meet in Menzelinsk.

There is actually a much easier formula to understand the Valentine's Meet history. Airspeed has always competed on home turf in February and has always won, with two exceptions in 1999 (France) and 2005 (Golden Knights). Thus, Bryan Burke's theory was always on the point whenever Airspeed won a gold medal at a World Meet, except in 1999 when France scored for Bryan Burke.

Airspeed has won World Meet gold medals in 1995, 1997, 2001 and 2008 which makes it a successful Valentine's/World Meet combination those four times, plus the French score in 1999. Mark Kirkby won all four Airspeed gold medals in the Tail slot and will most likely have another opportunity in 2012. It could become another Valentine's/World Meet score since Airspeed will most likely be the US team in Dubai 2012 and launch the US season with the Valentine's Meet. First the Midway Battle this weekend...