posted Jul 5th, 2004 - The NSL News has returned from Russia. This does not mean that the coverage is complete yet. There are several stories to come and many photos waiting in the NSL archive.

However, it is time to catch up with other events in the 4-way world that happened in the meantime. One of these events was the Belgian qualifier for the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2004 in Croatia.

The NSL News reported already earlier this year about the situation in Belgium with two teams preparing for the most important competition in Belgium this year. The second meet of the Belgium Skydiving Trophy 2004 was the stage for the showdown.

Hayabusa had already won the first BST meet in 2004 with a 16.8 average after eight rounds in April. However, the NMPV did not attend the same meet. The second BST meet was held at Skydive Center Spa, which is Hayabusa's home turf. NMPV had to compete in Spa after little time to get ready with the new line-up.

The race between the two teams never got really close with Hayabusa posting the highest scores in each round. NMPV had changed the team name for the meet on June 26/27 and was now called "Pushing Air". Three of the five members were competing with NMPV before.

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The competition jumps were were made from a skyvan and favored Pushing Air since the military team can train from their own skyvan.

Hayabusa made approx. 45 jumps from Skydive DeLand's Skyvan at a winter training camp in Deland and 25 more Skyvan jumps in May in LaPalisse, France, for a total 150 training jumps in 2004. This was not as much training as Hayabusa had hoped for. Bad weather and illness took away approx. 50 jumps.

The BST June meet was an eight-round competition with five jumps on Saterday and three jumps on Sunday. Six teams competed in the AAA Class, the scores are posted below with the NSL SkyVenture Comnpetition results of that weekend.

Hayabusa finished the Belgian qualifyer with an 18.5 meet average, including a score of 32 points in round six, which is a new Belgian record in 4-way. The old record was held by NMPV and posted in 2002.

Pushing Air fell completely out of contention with a score of five points in round five. Unfortunately, a reserve of a team member inflated accidentally at 8,000 feet. There was no reason for a re-jump, and the score was only five points for this round.

Hayabusa's round five was not a very exciting one, as well, with a bad exit and a penalty for a center point issue in Block 12 (Zipper - Star). However, the damage for Pushing Air was much worse, and the meet between the two teams was over.

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Results of the NSL SkyVenture Competition

Jun 26th, 2004			Rnd 1	Rnd 2	Rnd 3	Rnd 4	Rnd 5	Rnd 6	Rnd 7	Rnd 8	Avg	Total	SkyVenture	SkyVenture
Rank	AAA Class		17-C-2	21-1-18	D-G-J-22	5-16-P	12-3-M	9-F-E-O	11-7-10	8-20-B	Avg	Total	Handicap	Score
1	Diva Lapalisse	BST	11	11	14	12	11	21	-	-	12.8	102	1.58	126.40
2	Monkey Circus	ASL	10	11	14	13	13	25	-	-	14.3	86	1.39	119.54
3	Albtraum	DSL	11	10	10	11	9	17	-	-	11.3	68	1.75	119.00
4	Empuriabrava Red Bull	ESP	17	13	13	16	13	28	-	-	16.7	100	1.18	118.00
5	Hayabusa	BST	19	15	21	18	12	32	-	-	18.5	148	1.00	117.00
6	FILA	ASL	13	11	15	13	13	25	-	-	15.0	90	1.27	114.30
7	4-Matrix	ASL	15	12	14	12	13	25	-	-	15.2	91	1.21	110.11
8	Südwest	DSL	13	11	13	11	11	20	-	-	13.2	79	1.36	107.44
9	Final Four	DSL	10	8	9	7	8	16	-	-	9.7	58	1.75	101.50
10	Pushing Air	BST	17	13	16	15	5	27	-	-	15.0	120	1.09	101.37
11	Joint Venture	BST	9	7	9	8	6	14	-	-	8.4	67	1.82	96.46
12	TWISTER	DSL	7	4	7	6	5	11	-	-	6.7	40	2.41	96.40
13	Chakka	DSL	9	9	9	1	7	8	-	-	7.2	43	2.23	95.89
14	Inviscid	GSL	6	11	14	4	9	21	-	-	10.8	65	1.47	95.55
15	Futura Revolution Schweighofen	DSL	8	8	9	8	8	14	-	-	9.2	55	1.69	92.95
16	ROCKDROP	DSL	6	6	9	7	5	10	-	-	7.2	43	2.13	91.59
17	Airfix Fehrbellin	DSL	10	9	9	11	8	12	-	-	9.8	59	1.54	90.86
17	Sonic Air	BST	12	7	12	11	9	8	-	-	9.6	77	1.54	90.86
19	phos4	DSL	9	7	9	8	7	14	-	-	9.0	54	1.62	87.48
Rank	A Class		C-2	21-19	D-G-J	8-6	4-M	9-F	E-7	P-O-B	Avg	Total	Handicap	Score
1	4 skyhigh	DSL	7	7	8	5	-	-	-	-	7.3	44	1.79	48.33
2	Rodrigues Five	DSL	8	6	7	5	-	-	-	-	6.0	36	1.68	43.68
3	GT Airlock	GSL	9	3	12	5	-	-	-	-	7.2	29	1.38	40.02
4	GT Fusion	GSL	7	3	8	6	-	-	-	-	6.0	24	1.58	37.92
5	Sparks	BST	8	5	10	3	-	-	-	-	8.5	68	1.30	33.80
6	Rebels	ASL	7	6	9	5	-	-	-	-	5.5	33	1.15	31.05
6	Les Ours bleus	BST	8	7	7	5	-	-	-	-	7.0	56	1.15	31.05
8	Intrepid	GSL	6	2	7	4	-	-	-	-	4.8	19	1.58	30.02
9	Vlakmonauti	BST	4	2	6	6	-	-	-	-	6.2	50	1.21	21.78
10	A.S.A.P.	BST	3	7	0	7	-	-	-	-	5.0	40	1.25	21.25
11	Sparada	BST	5	3	0	3	-	-	-	-	4.0	32	1.35	14.85
12	IC	ASL	2	1	2	1	-	-	-	-	1.5	9	2.02	12.12
13	Black & Blue	BST	9	1	1	0	-	-	-	-	4.1	33	1.00	11.00
14	No Contact	BST	1	0	3	1	-	-	-	-	2.2	18	1.92	9.60
Rank	Rookie		E-C-D	O-G-J	B-P-M	E-F-K	O-H-A	B-L-N	E-Q-C	O-D-P	Avg	Total	Handicap	Score
1	Sky Rockets	BST	1	1	1	1	5	1	2	2	1.8	14	1.29	18.06
2	Puzzle	BST	1	0	4	0	1	2	1	1	1.2	10	1.00	10.00