posted Jan 2nd, 2007 - Competitors from the United Kingdom brought a recent article in the on-line edition of a major British newspaper, The Times, to attention of the NSL News. The article features Airkix member Emma Beyer, who won the IPC gold medals with her team in the female 4-way category at the World Meet 2006 (Archives > 2006 > Leagues > Special Events).

The NSL News has covered the British all-female team Airkix several times in the past. The article in The Times points out Emma Beyer's position with Airkix and more of her other skydiving activities.

The NSL News has been waiting for an update form Great Britain, including the plans for the Airkix future. The British team won the 5-round world meet in Germany last year with a convincing 19.0 average. This result would have placed the team in 7th position of the Open Class competition.

The NSL News article on August 22, 2006 (Archives > 2006 > News > search: Airkix), covered the Airkix situation after winning the Open Class competition at the British Nationals 2006. This article raised the question: "What will be next for Airkix?" Will the team decide to go after Open Class medals at the next world meet?

The NSL News has not received an official update from the Airkix headquarters yet, while the first rumors of the team's plans trickle across the Atlantic. However, the article in The Times already provides the first update, which is a personnel change for the Airkix line-up.

Claire "Sparky" Scott has left Airkix to join another team, as Emma Beyer mentions in The Times article. She was the only team member who had won gold medals in the female category two times, once with V-Max in 2003 and last year with Airkix in Germany.

Claire Scott apparently joins another team, while Airkix has already recruited a new team member and moves on. The NSL News will follow up as soon as more details will be available.

Skydiving: Champion revelling in glorious freefall

Written by Sarah Potter

Emma Beyer is not Britain's most famous world champion, but she is one of the most glamorous. Freefall skydiving from 10,500 ft has a romance of its own, but the 33-year-old from Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, is also a former model and is seeking work high above the Hollywood hills, where few superstars dare to go.

Two of Beyer’s three gold medal-winning team-mates from last summer's World Championships in Germany have done stunt work. Amanda Kemp was Angelina Jolie's body double in Tomb Raider 2 and Julia Foxwell played Halle Berry's more hair-raising moments in the James Bond film Die Another Day.

"The things they got up to on set were far more dangerous than anything we do in our everyday lives skydiving," Beyer said. "It was a lot of fun and, because we do so much training in California, those sorts of opportunities do come up."

Just as well because Beyer has remortgaged and let her house to fund her sport. She estimates that her annual skydiving bill exceeds £100,000. "It's been worth it, but without sponsorship the well soon runs dry," she said.

Gary, Beyer's South African husband, is unfazed by the expense because he is a former world champion turned instructor. The couple met at a skydiving coaching clinic in Florida in 2001 and spend several months a year in Arizona, where he coaches and competes.

This is because of the weather. Cloudless blue skies and warm temperatures are what a skydiver craves, but, failing that, a wind tunnel will do.

Fortunately for Beyer, Britain boasts some state-of-the-art facilities. Beyer, Kemp, Foxwell and Claire Scott prepared for last August’s World Championships as Team Airkix — named after the wind tunnel in Milton Keynes — but have recently switched to Bodyflight Bedford, which is the world's largest tunnel.

Surprisingly, for those who assume jumping out of a plane is unavoidable for skydivers, Bedford will be the venue for Beyer's next big competition, in April. "Indoor events are common," she said. "The Bodyflight tunnel is perfect for it because, at 16ft, it's great for spectators. They can see all the moves and get really close to some of the top skydivers in the world."

Outdoors, though, each team is required to have a camera flyer. "Their aim is to get everything in the frame with the camcorder," Beyer said. "The camera flyer is usually about 8ft above us, to show the judges that we’ve got the right grips and have a clean break between each formation."

Always from 10,500ft, each freefall lasts about 35 seconds. "There's a list of 38 formations issued by the International Parachuting Committee," Beyer said. "Each jump has five or six drawn randomly. You've trained for all of them, but not necessarily in that sequence."

The new year heralds more fine-tuning than normal because the team are undergoing a radical change. "Claire [Scott] has left to join another team and we're finalising who is going to replace her," Beyer said. "We can't say who it is yet, but we're very excited because she's a fantastic skydiver who'll gel with us perfectly."

Nonetheless, the best-laid plans can go wrong. "Equipment malfunctions happen, but it isn’t a big deal as long as you follow the drills," Beyer said. “The sport is a lower insurance risk than horse riding or snowboarding."

The worst calamity to strike Beyer happened on the ground. "We'd completed a jump in California and were in the back of the truck taking us across the runway," she said. "It went over a big bump and threw me out just as a plane was coming in to land. That was quite exciting because everyone raced out to rescue me."

Beyer has fallen a long way in her six years of skydiving, but she has no intention of curtailing her passion. "When we won the World Championships, I wondered how I'd feel about the future," she said. "All it's done is make me want to repeat the achievement. All skydivers think there is no other sport quite like it and, for me, you can't get closer to the feeling of actually flying."