The IPC Formation Skydiving Subcommittee has had a new active year in 1998.

Portugal hosted the 11^th World Cup and 4^th European Championships of Formation Skydiving in 4 and 8 way and Spain hosted the 1^st World Cup and 1^st European Championships of Formation Skydiving in the new 16 way event. The interest for a female event in Formation Skydiving was aired at the World Cup in Portugal.

New achievements have been set in Formation Skydiving. Australia set a new World Record in the 16 way event with 16 points in time, and 246 jumpers built a new World Record in largest formation in USA.

The Subcommittee conducted an open meeting with the competitors, FAI judges and organisers at the two World Cups and European Championships.

Minor changes are proposed for the 1999 competition rules.

The changes made the recent two years have been few and only minor changes for 1999 are proposed. (See Proposed Changes for Formation Skydiving rules 1999).

There is little dispute and arguments on the contents and workability of the current set of rules, although there is still some concern from the experienced 4 and 8 way skydiving teams to reintroduce slow motion judging in search of another truth in the judging of the skydives.

The new set of rules made up for the 16 way event were put to the test in Spain, and worked seemingly well, as there was little dispute over the workability of the rules from either the judges or the competitors.

The 12^th World Cup and 4^th Open European Championships of Formation Skydiving was held in Evora in Portugal from September 17^th to September 27^th 1998.

The competition was successful, and very well organised by the Portuguese Parachute Federation. Many detailed preparations were made and the organisers had paid detailed attention to the teams needs.

The competition was smoothly run (together with the World Cup in Freestyle and Surf), with great effort by Meet Director Patrice Girardin and his efficient manifest crew. The set-up and proficiency provided by the meet direction and manifest in Portugal, (similar to the set-up at the World Air Games in Turkey in 1997) is an asset to any future organisers of major competitions that may not have the necessary experience in the running of 1^st category events.

The FS Committee wish also to thank Elisabeth Peterson (Sweden) served as Chief Judge, and Rainer "EXI" Hoenle for work as the FAI Controller.

The competitions this year were of the most exciting Formation Skydiving competitions for many years, as teams eligible for medals were very close in points throughout the competition, and especially in 4 way where a jump off after the 10^th round was required to determine the final placings. The set-up with public viewing again proved its importance to the ambience and exposure of the competition, and all future organisers of 1st category events should take great attention to this set-up. One giant screen set-up will work much better than a few TV monitors i a room catering to a couple of hundred persons.

Regretfully, the live air to ground transmission did not work effectively at the start of the competition, and was deemed unusable for live judging by the Chief Judge (ref point for Air to Ground transmission). Insufficient time for set-up and preparation with the judges system, together with technical difficulties as use of televisions with blue screen, and weather problems caused difficulties that were not able to be solved within the starting time of the competition.

The organiser had planned the competition using an untested system of two teams per pass, meaning additional requirement for manpower, antennas etc, together with the possibilities of user errors, as two frequencies had to be used simultaneously. At best the competition then would only be able to show half of the competition jumps live, and the other half being judged using dubbed tapes.

The future organisers must ensure that they work together with the judges and suppliers of technical equipment to plan and organise for all equipment to be functional in due time before the competition starts. Experience shows that the technical setup time for judging Formation Skydiving, together with implementing the videographers in the process takes a minimum of three days.

A new system was designed and tried out for the quickest possible judging of the dives, "judged dubbing". This meant that the dives were judged as they were dubbed from the videographers to the master tapes. In relation to live transmission, the delay for this system would be the time it takes for the videographer to land, and to present the video evidence to the dubbing station. With the correct setup and communication the teams score would be posted at the shortest time possible without live transmission.

During the preparation for the event, an international team registered for entry to the competition. This was allowed by the FAI Controller, under reference to the Sporting Code, General Section 3.2.3 - Definition of Teams. Although similar situations in previous World Cups have been solved by international teams being allowed to participate in the competition, but not eligible for placings and medals, the situation this year would be a major change in the direction of opening the 1^st Category Events to participation from any and all teams, if pursued. The Formation Skydiving Subcommittee does not encourage a change in this direction, and would seek to clarify the bindings of the General Section in respect to the continued participation of International teams at the next Plenary Meeting. The subcommittee would welcome comments regarding the situation with international teams, both for Formation Skydiving and Skydiving competitions in general.

The system that is available for live transmission of Formation Skydiving today is technically very good, but requires great attention to many details to be fully operative, together with the co-operation of all the different videographers on the teams. At the 4 and 8 way World Cup and European Championships in Portugal this year, the Chief Judge deemed the system not judgeable at the start of the competition.

This was due to the quality of the video image, where between 50 and 70 % of the few jumps recorded before the competition started were not judgeable, mostly due to difficulty with the time of exit, and also breaks in the transmission. There were many items contributing to this factor:

• The set-up time for the complete technical set-up was too short to clear out errors before the competition commenced.
• The weather was not co-operating enough for the live transmission, as the receiving antenna and person operating this requires free sight to the aeroplane at the moment of exit, with the possibility of following the team in freefall.
• The TV monitors provided by the organiser had an built-in feature called "blue screen", which blanks the picture out completely if the signal is not strong enough (although viewable by our standards).
• Adequate attention also needs to be paid by the judges and the manifest in order to co-ordinate the run-ins of the aeroplanes so that the judges only use the time allotted for a set of viewings and are ready for the next teams.
• Having more than one team per pass using two frequencies significantly increases the possibilities of problems and errors and needed manpower.
• In addition to this, it is necessary for the videographers to present the sender antennas directly to the ground. This sometimes proved difficult to implement, as the videographers may have to change their exit procedures slightly compared to what they have been training for, something not all are totally co-operative about.

Another system used between 1993 and 1996 has worked better than the existing system, but was not practical to pursue for future use, as it was based on using frequencies and signal strengths that were not legal. The current system in use with the IPC from 1997 is designed to work under legal available frequencies, and works very well when all the details are in place. The manufacturer of this system informs that the manufacturer of the OmniLink equipment has agreed to provide a new system for evaluation, a Diversity Receiver System. The diversity system improves performance by using an array of 3 to 5 receivers, each with their own antenna, instead of just one. A computer samples the 5 signals 15,000 times a second and provides the best one on the video output. This would eliminate the need for the receiving antenna to follow the plane at exit time and the jumpers in Freefall. The system will be evaluated at the US Nationals.

With the experiences of live Air to Ground Transmission over the last 4-5 years with the equipment that is available on the market today, the Formation Skydiving Subcommittee sees a difficulty justifying to the organisers the mandatory use of the live air to ground transmission for the next 1^st category events.

Manufacturers of such equipment will be encouraged to be invited to display possible systems at the future competitions before new decisions on air to ground transmission are being made.

The FS Subcommittee will also pursue the possibility of inviting TV stations (Eurosport or similar) to provide established system and use their frequencies in exchange for rights to the materials being presented.

The first FAI 16 way event ever, The 1^st World Cup and 1^st Open European Championships of Formation Skydiving were held in Ampuriabrava in Spain from September 30^th to October 5^th 1998.

The event was the first major step in the new 16 way discipline, and proved to be successful for both the participants and organisers. 7 teams entered the competition, mostly from Europe, but Australia entered with a well-trained team that won this first FAI World Cup, and set a new World Record with 16 points in time.

The organisers at Ampuriabrava hosted the event in a relaxed and friendly but still efficient atmosphere. All the needs and necessities of a 1^st category event were taken well care of by the organiser, Pete Widget, and his friendly and co-operating staff. The event is relatively less complicated for the organisers, as for example at this competition the number of participants were similar to 28 four way teams, but only involved communication with 7 team captains.

The judges were led by Elisabet Petterson, and included 6 judges. The judging was set up with OmniSkore which worked flawlessly well, as has been expected and performed over the last years. "Exi" Rainer Hoenle, again did a thorough job as the FAI Controller. The dubbing station included digital to digital dubbing, provided by Roland Hilfiker, who also used the images from the competition which were assembled in a 9’ program which was aired at Eurosport and APTN, and was picked up partially by broadcasters world-wide (SKY etc.).

The judges had little problems in judging according to the rules, which are a little different to the four and eight way event, in the sense that the judges can use whatever video evidence presented in any manner they choose to come up with their judgement. With the number of grips and pieces in 16 way compared to the other events this is agreed to be acceptable and workable by both the competitors and judges. The judges had prepared a report for the subcommittee of the judging cycles of the rounds, which showed acceptable times for obtaining the correct results, as far as from one round including a block which was difficult for the judgeability of the transition. This block will be suggested changed in the next pool of 16 way. Apart from this, no other faults or problems surfaced.

The subcommittee hosted an open meeting with the competitors and judges after the competition, to obtain feedback for the direction of this event in the future. All teams expressed great interest in the format to continue, and found the rules for the event workable and fair, and encouraged the event to continue with a 10 round competition instead of as 8 as today.

The teams and the FS Subcommittee present at the competition discussed the future of the 16 way event. Everyone expressed a positive approach to continuing the event at the 1^st category IPC level. However, concern was raised as to the need for this event to become a World Championship to quickly. It is assumed that continuing the 16 way in the manner that it was in Spain with a World Cup and European Championships in Europe would probably keep more teams training and participating than if the event became to "serious" to quickly. There were a number of nations from Europe that did not participate this year, but it is expected that there will be more teams planning to train and participate next year, should a similar event take place. This competition was held as the first IPC 16 way competition ever, with only about 6 months of preparation for the teams and the organiser. With this event properly in place, it is expected that more teams will have the time necessary to plan and compose teams to train for the competitions. Also, there is concern with the participating teams that a too quick move to a World Championship level could raise the price level to an uninteresting level, that could also dampen the interest for participation.

Based on this the Formation Skydiving Subcommittee will propose to open for a new World Cup and European Championships for 1999 in the 16 way event, and will invite organisers interested in hosting this event to prepare a bid for the Plenary meeting in Dubrovnik in February 1999.

During the World Cup in 4 and 8 way in Portugal, female teams were invited specially to compete. The organiser awarded medals for the female standings, as taken out of the World Cup competition. This gave female teams that are already organised and compete as female teams a chance to both compete in a World Cup, and individually between other female teams. The separate female standings were not an official IPC World Cup event, but were a result of co-operation between the World Cup organiser and the FS Subcommittee to gather information if the IPC should establish a female event in Formation Skydiving.

There have been many arguments for establishing a separate female event in Formation Skydiving. In the world today there are many female teams that are already organised and train and compete together at a National level. The recent years have shown that few, if any, females are selected into teams that are competing at the highest levels. (This was interestingly enough disproved at this World Cup, where two of the three teams being awarded medals both were mixed with one female member.) The 4 and 8 way event have over the last years become much more "muscular", and therefore physical differences have become more vital to a teams performance.

After the competition the possibility of a female event was discussed at the open meeting. Information from the participating nations (Sweden, Australia, Russia and USA) indicated that the opening of a female event would prove a positive contribution for these teams in the individual countries. Females were seen more as role models for newer people in the sport, and indicated a positive aspect to the recruitment for the sport. In addition, female teams were easier given coverage, and possibilities of sponsoring. In Russia, for example, the opening of a female event in Formation Skydiving would allow female jumpers to jump and compete in Formation Skydiving instead of only Style and Accuracy.

The push is there in the field for females to want to compete together and against each other. It will be up to this year's Plenary Meeting to decide the direction for next year and the years to come. Thought must be put into the decision if establishing a female event can benefit our sport more than possible problems that can arise.

The arguments against female teams are twofold, one that by establishing a female event one is degrading the female competitors as "B" competitors, and the other is the possibilities of the NACs having to fund more teams to the international competitions.

It should be clear that the female event in no way is seen as a "B" event, rather an opening for competitors to train and compete on their own arena. This should not rule out the possibility of composing teams as they are today, with the possibility of mixed teams. The situation today is that only approximately 20% of our sports members are females. It would therefore not serve any positive purpose to change our event into a male only and a female only event. An additional momentum to this not splitting into a male and female event is that this would make it very difficult for female jumpers to enter in national 8 way teams, and virtually impossible to compete in the 16 way event.

It is also important that our events are organised in such a manner that the competitions would be the same for both categories and the participating teams would compete simultaneously on equal terms at the same competition. Individual results can be drawn from the overall results to determine the winners in both events.

It is the belief of the Formation Skydiving Subcommittee that the benefits of opening for a female event outweigh the eventual negative aspects, and would encourage a female event introduced as an addition to the current events in Formation Skydiving. Correctly handled by the IPC and the NACs, a new event could be a positive contribution to the activities and used as an asset, especially for media attention. Hopefully a move in this direction will contribute to the goal of media attention of the FAI and IPC, together with FAI's continuing activities to promote women's involvement in air sports.

Several topics were discussed at the open Subcommittee meeting during the World Cup. There was a general understanding the changes made in the rules were generally appreciated by both the competitors and the judges. Also the policy of changes to the Formation pool was aired, and the teams appreciated that changes were made to the pool every other year after World Championships.

The FS Committee can repeat the wording in the report form previous years: "Most competitors and judges seem to be in good acceptance of the ideas and changes that have been made over the last five years working closer towards live and quicker judging, although there still is some dispute from some teams that the search for another truth using slow motion should still be used for judging purposes."

Although this request comes up at any occasion by some teams and is noted by the subcommittee as inputs, (although it may be a feeling that the subcommittee does not listen, since it is not being changed), the subcommittee sees no purpose in going back to the old system where judging cycles could cause hours of delay in the scoring. Reintroducing slow motion will slow down the event, cause long delays for judges, and will move the point of decision to another area where it still would come down to a judges decision if the point was correct or incorrect.

The subcommittee also received valuable input to items how the rules affected the teams and what they would like to have changed.

The open meeting of the Subcommittee was concluded with a request to competitors, judges and other interested persons to submit recommendations and questions regarding the future of the Formation Skydiving activities by writing the subcommittee members or their IPC delegates.

My appreciation is extended to the members and advisers of the Formation Skydiving Subcommittee:

Members: Mads Larsen (Denmark), Frank Mahut (France), Arnold Collenteur (Netherlands), Tim Stevens (Australia), Rainer "Exi" Hoenle (Germany), and advisors Sven Mörtberg (Sweden), Anatloy Zhirov (Russia) and Per Madsen (Denmark).

These individuals have served the IPC and international community of Formation Skydivers with a bright mind and a high dedication.

Oslo, 22.11.98

Pål Bergan

The subcommittee will continue its work to clarify and simplify the current set of rules.

The Subcommittee will review all proposals for new text to the Competition Rules, blocks and random formations that have been submitted to any members or advisers of the sub-committee. The changes to the competition rules for 1999 include wordings for clarification of the videographers on the teams, clarification for only national teams being awarded 1^st Category Event medals, and a specification on the proposed Female Event.

Representatives of the Portuguese Parachute Federation will present their report from the 1998 World Cup and European Championships of 4 and 8 way Formation Skydiving in Evora, Portugal.

Representatives of the Spanish Parachute Federation will present their report from the 1998 World Cup and European Championships of 16 way Formation Skydiving in Ampuriabrava, Spain.

The 13^th World Championships of Formation Skydiving in Corowa, Australia from October 20^th to Octrober 30^th 1999.

The organisers will report on the status of the preparations to host and organise the competition.

The Formation Skydiving Subcommittee will air comments and views for establishing a Female Event for Formation Skydiving.

The Formation Skydiving Subcommittee will air comments and views for the participation of International teams at 1^st Category events.

Organisers are invited to present bids for hosting and organising future IPC World Cup and World Championships:

1999. World Cup and European Championships in 16 way
2000. World Cup and / or Continental Championships in all events, Formation Skydiving

Oslo, 22.11.98