posted Dec 30th, 2011 - The year is almost over, and the NSL News looks back at another very busy year of 4way Formation Skydiving competition. The story on 27 December 2011 included a brief evaluation of team continuity between 1999 and 2011 in USPA's Advanced Class competition, which reflected an increasingly stronger and longer lasting commitment to team projects in general.

One of the longest standing team projects was launched in 2004 in the Netherlands. Team Whooops began competing in the Dutch Rookie Class of 2005 and has now become the national 4way team of the Netherlands. Whooops was also one of the busiest teams of the 2011 season. In fact, only two teams competed more often than Whooops. NMP-PCH Hayabusa and Arizona Airspeed attended seven indoor and outdoor meets, not counting Hayabusa's CISM victory.

Whooops competed at six meets, five of them outdoor events, which is the biggest number of meets for an amateur team this year.

The NSL News took a closer look at the team's inspiring history, which started with a 4.4 average at the first Rookie Class competition in 2005. Leon van Leeuwen (Point) and Mechie Voermans (Center Inside) were on the original lineup and are now making plans for the 2012 season. They had Erwin van der Schaaf (Center Outside) and Petra van Overveld (Tail) in the Whooops lineup of 2004, and Johan de Pijper was filming the team.

Leon van Leeuwen and Mechie Voermans had between 200 and 300 jumps when they decided to form a team. Videographer Johan De Pijper was a more experienced club member and assisted his new team at recruiting time. Two other club members, Erwin van der Schaaf and Petra van Overveld, joined the original lineup, and Whoooops was complete at the end of 2004.

Judith Muit (Outside Center) and Peter Tak (Tail) became new Whooops members in 2007. Maurits Idema then took the Center Outside slot in 2008 and still has the same position. Only the Tail slot has not settled yet, while Leon van Leeuwen, Mechie Voermans and Maurits Idema have now been together for four years.

Peter Tak was the Whooops Tail for three years before Joyce Oosting took the slot in 2010 and continued throughout the 2011 season. Hans Ypma has been on the Whooops camera since 2009. The Dutch national team is now making plans for the 2012 season, which include another new team member in the Tail slot.

Marco Bloemendaal replaces Joyce Oosting and brings Tail experiences to the team. He has been training and competing in the same slot with Whooops 4way rival in the Dutch AAA Class, Ignition. Whooops coach Gary Smith explained to the NSL News that the three long time members Leon van Leeuwen, Mechie Voermans and Maurits Idema share with Marco Bloemendaal the desire to increase the training efforts.

The Whooops scoring progression began to flatten out after the third year in the AAA Class competition, and the team members know that they have to go beyond the average number of around 100 training jumps to attack the 15-average benchmark and go even higher.

The NSL News used the opportunity of a conversation with former 4way world champion of 2004 and 2006 and full time coach Gary Smith for a more extensive NSL Talk, which was recorded and comes with the meet videos of Whooops at the Shamrock Showdown 2011 and the World Cup 2011.

Gary Smith explains more of the Whooops plans for 2012 but also comments several other recent events in the Formation Skydiving competition world. The conversation included Arizona Airspeed's performance at the USPA Nationals 2011. Airspeed member Thomas Hughes and Gary Smith worked together in 2005 and 2006 to bring DeLand Fire to the gold medals in Germany 2006.

Gary Smith is also coaching NMP-PCH Hayabusa, together with Joey Jones, and commented the outcome of the 3rd Dubai Championship 2011. Last not least he provided his observations of the SDC Rhythm XP tryouts. He said that he would have liked to apply for the slot, as well...