posted Apr 1st, 2007 - The NSL News is usually a quite serious affair. Goal is to provide accurate and up-to-date information, which is based on facts, numbers, interviews, videos and feedback coming in through all kinds of communication tools. It is also the information center for the network of 4-way competition leagues and Formation Skydiving events.

Once in a while, the NSL News stories are made of information that lets the visitor probably smile or even laugh. However, the purpose of the NSL website's information service is not really to amuse the audience.

Humor and fun is still one of the biggest components of skydiving in general and also in competition. There is a lot of teasing, laughter and loads of fun when skydivers, teams and competitors are coming together. The international mixture of languages sometimes contributes to the fun and to the humorous part of the sport.

The NSL website management recently decided to give this kind of entertainment a consistent home. The NSL Forum now offers a section where skydiving jokes and funny stories can be posted. There are plenty of stories out in the field, many of them are based on true stories.

The NSL Forum encourages the national and international audience to post the favorite jokes and stories in English language. It will be an interesting aspect to learn jokes and stories from other countries and have the humor translated into a different language.

The best and most popular jokes and stories will be rewarded. Each joke or story will be rated by the audience with an according poll. The winning joke and story will be posted each month by the NSL News, and the writer will receive a free pair of NSL Gloves.

The new NSL Forum provides a very safe and strong haven for communication between leagues, teams, competitors and the general audience, as the NSL News story on February 20 explained. The new NSL Forum was launched this year and replaced the very vulnerable older version, which was spammed and hijacked on a regular basis.

The first joke has already been posted by Jonathan ("My First Jump") and can now be rated in the funny part of the NSL Forum:

My best friend and i arrived at the DZ, and we were a little bit scared. The jumpmaster saw that and tried to calm us down by explaining everything in detail: "No worries, you have a main parachute, and if it doesn't open you have a reserve."

We were still not completely sold yet, so he added on: "Alright, we will give you an additional reserve, and when you land, there will be a truck to pick you up."

Now we felt better and decided to go. So we jumped from the plane and then tried to open the main parachute - which failed, for both of us, of course. We tried to open the reserve - same result. Even the additional reserve failed us.

As we kept falling to the ground, my buddy yelled: "I betcha the truck will not be there, as well..."