posted Apr 10th, 2007 - The NSL News has re-located back to the office in DeLand. It was a most exciting trip to Bedford in Great Britain, as the current NSL leaderboad still shows. The follow-up on the World Challenge 2007 will keep the NSL News still busy for a while and the NSL audience entertained.

There are several videos of live interviews to come, which include Airspeed Odyssey, Team Fastrax, Hayabusa Defence and Team Elan. NSL-TV will also take the audience on a live tunnel tour at Bodyflight Bedford. Of course, competition videos will be a part of the follow-up, as well.

The interviewed top competitors will explain the extremely high scores from their perspectives. Airspeed Odyssey's 28.0 average and Team Fastrax' 27.9 after ten rounds, plus the results of many other teams, cannot only be explained with a fast competition draw.

Airspeed Odyssey won last year's World Challenge 2006 with a 23.3 average, and the flying chamber at Bodyflight Bedford has not changed ever since. The air was already strong and consistent at last year's event.

By the way: the NSL News witnessed ten rounds by a total of 19 teams, which were all skydiving as hard as they could applying the whole IPC dive pool. And there was only one situation where the tunnel air in Bedford caused serious trouble. It was when the Russian Sky Panthers had too much air and floated up too close to the camera. Other than that, the teams had no trouble with turbulences or inconsistent air.

Back to the scoring averages, the feedback by the top competitors will explain which other factors contributed to the most impressive performances at the World Challenge 2007. Facts are that the competition draw was on the fast side and included a sequence with only random formations. However, Airspeed Odyssey's lowest score of 24 points was posted for a 3-block sequence in Round 7 (11-14-7).

Fact is that Airspeed Odyssey and Team Fastrax keep pushing each other to new and higher performance levels. Team members on both sides sincerely appreciate the tough competition, as they all mentioned in the interviews. Fact is also that there was no exit from a jump plane and no sub-terminal phase for all teams.

On the other hand, the teams could not launch complete formations. They had enter the tunnel as individual flyers and build the first formation while the working time was already running. The videos of the competition will show how the teams were dealing with this way to start a competition jump.

The last NSL News update from Bedford provided the final scores after the completion of the meet and a few photos from the award ceremony. The NSL News did not speak with the two top teams after the conclusion of the competition. However, members of both teams later provided additional feedback about the situation before the showdown in Round 10.

Odyssey and Fastrax were tied going into Round 9, and Fastrax created a 1-point advantage before the last round would bring the final decision. The NSL News commented that "...the psychology of the situation before Round 10 was easier for Odyssey with nothing to lose".

Airspeed Odyssey's Center Inside, Andy Delk, informed the NSL News after the meet that it wasn't quite so easy, and he had a good point. The scores of Round 9 were not posted when Team Fastrax and Airspeed Odyssey had to enter the tunnel for Round 10. Both teams did not know the exact numbers at show time.

Andy Delk added that his team also watched Fastrax' excellent performance in Round 10. Airspeed Odyssey was always in the last group to enter the tunnel, while Team Fastrax was in the first group. The TV screens in the tunnel hangar showed the already judged jumps with the scores on one monitor and the live action in the tunnel on the other one.

Airspeed Odyssey knew that it was still very tight, no matter how the scores for Round 9 were. There was apparently no room for tactics or second thoughts, as Andy Delk summed it up: "If anything, the situation was more challenging for us after watching Fastrax execute a near flawless Round 10 and knowing that we were still very close in the standings."

Team Fastrax' John Hart explained the same situation from the other perspective. He confirmed what Andy Delk had seen on the TV screen while waiting for his team's turn: "We flew our best in Round 10, as we did in all other rounds."

John Hart saw a different reason for the 2-point difference in the last round of the meet. Team Fastrax had a slower engineering for this sequence (H-15-3). He evaluated the ten rounds and saw engineering advantages for Odyssey in two rounds, while the Fastrax engineering won the other ones.

He explained the details of the different engineering in Round 10: "We chose a different Block 3 engineering that we were confident with. We knew that the other Block 3 was a faster build, but having not trained this yet we chose the known over the unknown."

The different way to build the Side Flake Opal of Block 3 is on the Fastrax list for training and will be added to the team's continuity plan in May. This will eliminate any possible engineering disadvantage for Fastrax before both teams will meet again at the Malevsky Cup 2007 in July.

John Hart added that the early training meets are supposed to provide exactly this kind of information for the team. Only real meets test and challenge each team's continuity plan: "Our goal was not to win but to identify our strengths and build on our opportunities."

NSL-TV will follow with meet videos as soon as they are available.