posted May 16th, 2007 - The Colorado Skydiving League and the Georgia Skydiving League both kicked off their 2007 season last weekend. The scores from Colorado have already been posted, and the scores from Georgia will be added later today. COSL Director Travis Roth provided the meet story of the event at the Mile High Skydiving Center.

Revolution in Colorado - by Travis Roth

The Colorado Skydiving League opened its 2007 season last weekend, with four teams competing on what was forecast to be a beautiful Colorado day, but like all things involving weather – not all things went perfect.

With imperfection comes lessons learned, and two teams learned how to climb out of an Otter in a take-off like climb with engines at full throttle. The pilot was navigating an afternoon cloud, and on jumprun saw the opportunity to climb from 7,000 to something greater. Seeing the light go green while hearing engines rev up and the nose rise, certainly is unexpected – however the teams still pulled off excellent exits and did not let the distraction disturb the dive.

Even with the climb on jumprun, Round 3 yielded only 27 seconds of working time for two of the teams. All AA Class teams were judged with 27 seconds of working time, extrapolated to 35 seconds for the sake of national averages. Unfortunately, often teams pick up speed after the first page, and extrapolating the time out to 35 seconds probably gives a disadvantage. However, Mother Nature has her way of controlling exit altitudes.

Other lessons learned involved the rules pertaining to blocks. There was a judging question as to "grip switches" for the completion of a block. Being that the COSL players had different understandings of the rules, we highlight this judging rule in the meet report. Upon doing research, the following rules allow contact between the pieces, as long as proper and no additional grips are held within each piece/subgroup):

3.3.6. Contact or grips are allowed between subgroups during the inter.

3.3.7. Where subgroups are shown, they must remain intact as a subgroup with only the depicted grips.

3.3.8. Assisting handholds on other jumpers or their equipment within a subgroup or a scoring formation are not permitted.

The season opened with two teams returning from 2006. Mile High Levitation (11th place at the USPA Nationals 2006 in the AA/Intermediate Class, 11th place in the NSL 2006 Rankings of the AA Class) returned for 2007, although with alternate fliers competing at the first meet. The line-up last weekend consisted of Glen Frank (Point), Mike Pridgen (Ooutside Center), Steve Zeder (Inside Center), Kevin Chapman (Tail) and Byron Dormire (Video). Levitation fnished in 2nd place.

Mile High Mayhem returned for 2007 with a new player aboard, and also with a new coach: Rusty Lewis of the International Bodyflight Association, the training and rating organization linked to Skyventure windtunnels. Having the head tunnel instructor trainer and arguably one of the best tunnel fliers in the industry as coach must have been valuable to the team. Mayhem scored more points in the first two rounds of the meet than at all of the meets and rounds in 2006. It is obvious that this team is ready to finish in high rankings this year.

Two new teams appeared for the 2007 season. The Air Force Academy's "Wings of Blue" delivered their latest installment to the well known cadet team legacy: "Invictus". Cadet Eric Towal, Cadet Tadd Lahnert, Cadet Chris Oppenlander, Cadet Zach Alexander and MSgt Ted Burgess on camera competed in the AA/Intermediate Class and took the 1st place. Their command of "K-A-N-18" in Round 4 allowed them to score three points higher than the next team. While they ran head to head with Mile High Levitation throughout the meet, Round 4 allowed Invictus to take and keep the lead.

Our last new team for 2007, Revolution, competed in the AA/Intermediate Class, as well. Revolution consists of Ben Worrall (Outside Center), Chris Romano (Inside Center), Kyle Smith (Tail), Pat Roks (Point) and Travis Roth (Camera).

Revolution ended up in 3rd place of the three COSL teams in the AA Class. However, the team's scores were within shooting distance of the 1st place team in each round, except for Round 4 where Invictus dominated the field. In fact, Revolution tied the other two teams in Round 5 and showed how close the cmpetition will be this season in Colorado.

But scores alone do not do the Revolution story justice. The teams that outscored Revolution by about a 2-point margin per jump have either a few years of jumping experience, or the support of the highly respected and highly successful "Wings of Blue franchise".

Revolution on the other hand is a brand new team. In fact, the team was already manifested for the first round before finalizing the name. So, what are the experience levels of the team members? Well, how about less than 100 jumps, except for one player who has around 200 jumps, and the training budget is financed by college student earnings.

Revolution went to Arizona during spring break and flew for a few hours in the tunnel with Airspeed coaches. With 15 training jumps prior to the meet, relatively little 4-way knowledge and experience, their almost 7-point average was an impressive showing.

Team members commented at a celebratory dinner: "Considering the first time we saw that block was on a DVD last night, we thought we spun it quite well. We had no clue what it would look like from our slot's perspective until the first time we turned it."

Benjamin Worrall, Outside Center, has analyzed the team's scores and commented that their time to complete the blocks they have practiced is a second faster than the team's random work. With this knowledge, Revolution has already outlined a training program to work on the individual flying skills, which will then increase the scores.

2007 is going to be a great season for the Colorado Skydiving League. We have very diverse teams in the line up: one team with heavy tunnel coaching by one of the world's best tunnel fliers, a military team with the support and resources of a highly respected training program, a highly motivated team with a few years experience and a group of college students with a vision to succeed in a sport known for high training costs.

The Colorado Skydiving League would like to thank former COSL participant Jonathan Vaage (Air Force CAD in 2006, silver medalist in the AA/Intermediate Class at the USPA Nationals 2006) for judging the meet. We would also like to thank Mile High Skydiving for an efficient and well run day for the COSL. Teams mentioned that the support of the DZ made their experience the "best run CSL event yet."