Press Release - IPC Subcommittee for Formation Skydiving

The IPC had it's annual Plenary meeting for 1997 in Nairobi, Kenya, where the Formation Skydiving Subcommittee made the following changes and amendments to the rules and competitions in 1997.

There were made minor changes to the Formation Skydiving rules, as the rules made up for the World Cup in 1996 were accepted and found adequate. It is not normal to make bigger changes to the rules in years of World Championships, giving the teams the best opportunity for prolonged training.

Therefore no changes were made to the Formation Skydiving pool of formations and blocks, although a new format for the drawings were adopted. The new drawings reflect no changes to the way the blocks and formations are intended, but have a format that is the same as the one used for the live scoring system being used at the IPC sanctioned competitions. This pool will be available for downloading on the internet from the FAI site in the near future, making it possible for anyone to receive a «fresh» copy to be printed. Together with Ted Wagner, there will also be made available a computer program to draw out the formations on paper, and also to make competition dive draws with subsequent printing. Further information on this subject may be reached at http://www.omniskore.com

Other visible changes to the rules included the following:

The rules for 1997 is available from the National Airsports Control (National Aero Club or Association) within each country. For a complete download of the rules from the IPC, check the FAI web site, where rules for all disciplines, the Sporting Code and the judges rules will be found.
FAI can be located at http://www.fai.org/

Other changes that affect the competitions is that the general wind speed limit for competitions has been raised to 11 m/sec (22 knots).

16 way

Other work and plans included by the subcommittee also included the new proposed 16 way event. The Formation Skydiving Subcommittee has over several years been looking towards establishing a larger format for sequential competition. Both 16 and 20 way have been tried out without enough success to make this an established event. The problems with this event has been that there have not been enough teams entering the events, and there have also been problems finding organisers willing to take upon the task of organising the competitions, not knowing whether there will be enough teams attending or not.

The Formation Skydiving Subcommittee is therefore looking at a new format of organising this type of competition, and will therefore be working directly with a potential organiser that already are involved in yearly 16 way competitions. There are several such organisers in Europe, and some host yearly competitions that have seemed successful enough in the way of teams attending. If these organisers are interested to include an IPC sanctioned event in their existing competition, it is the belief of the Formation Skydiving Subcommittee that this may both attract new teams to compete, as they know there will be real competition, and also enlarge the existing event, making it more interesting for the organiser to be a host for an IPC World Cup. This event is planned to take place in 1998, somewhere at a dropzone in Europe, and make the year 1997 as a «training» year for teams looking towards competing and participating in the World Cup of 16 way Formation Skydiving in 1998.

The Formation Skydiving Subcommittee has drawn up a 16 way pool consisting of 9 random formations and 12 blocks with suggestions to the competition rules, which will be complete and available by the end of March 1997. These will be available directly from any of the subcommittees members, and will also be put out on the FAI web site. The final rules and pool will be approved at the next IPC meeting in Portugal in February 1998, and the competition is planned to take place around August 1998. The Formation Skydiving Subcommittee will review all proposals and suggestions to how an international event like this will be best attained before the next IPC meeting. We also hope the pool and rules may be used for national and local competitions this year to give the best input for the final rules for the World Cup.

It is hopeful that this will attract a number of teams that want to compete in this format. We feel that an event like this should be very attractive to several nations, and give a good goal for teams wanting to compete internationally, but without the commitments that 4 and 8 way include. Also, there are a lot of ex 4 and 8 way persons in the field that are still interested in competing, and putting together teams. We hope that this will be well received, and that the year of 1997 may be used to build up teams that will meet at the first World Cup of 16 way Sequential in 1998.

The rules for the event will be fairly simple, and will be basked on the general rules for Formation skydiving from the IPC. However some leviations on the rules will be implied, not to make the event difficult for training of for judging. Some guidelines for the suggested rules are:

• National team participation. NAC endorsed teams with FAI licence
• Possibility if International teams participating within the event, though not eligible for medals.
• 13000 feet exit - 50 second working time.
• 8 round event - minimum event 4 rounds.
• 3-4 point jumps from the pool. (Same type of draw as for 4 / 8 way.)
• Teams consisting of 16 + 2 persons + one or more videographers.
• Lenient judging as to all grips being on screen at all times.
• Free transitions on all random transitions (No required «total separation».)

The pool and rules for 16 way should be available from the IPC approximately Mid April 1997.

Competitions in 1997

1997 may be one of the most important years for skydiving in general. Within only 6 weeks in the autumn, two major competitions will be held, with a maximum potential of television broadcasting.

World Games

Formation Skydiving, Freestyle and Accuracy will be the selected Airsports to the World Games, which will be held in Lahti in Finland, from August 7th until the 17th. The competition will be held at a horse race track just outside the city. The spectators can enjoy live broadcasting and a close view to the competition from the circuit TV in the grandstands. The Formation Skydiving teams will compete under slightly different rules than at our World Championships, where the working time will be only 15 seconds, after separation from a star formation.

The World Games is a gathering of the different international federations that are not Olympic Events, and is therefore considered a showcase of the different sports to present themselves and gain increased exposure. This ultimately will be considerations the International Olympic Committee take into account for the selections to the new sports to be included in the Olympic Games. The principal aim and the main purpose for the World Games existence is to gain a maximum media attention for the sports involved. As much as 16 hours of live television coverage will be transmitted around the world, and the extensive coverage will be transmitted world wide through ESPN and Eurosports.

Skydiving (or Parachuting as the official program includes) is one of 26 competition sports, including 3000 participants from 90 countries. The whole competition is being held together over 10 competition days. This is highly one of the most important chances our sport has been presented with to be able to promote and show Skydiving as a visually challenging and interesting sport to be a fully competent competitor for the selection of the new disciplines in the Olympic Games.

The teams participating in Formation Skydiving are the four way teams from United States, France, Russia, South Africa, Denmark and Finland as the host country, all selected from the standing at the last World Cup of Formation Skydiving in Belgium in 1996.

The next World Games will be held in Akita, Japan, 2001.

World Air Games

The 1st World Air Games (WAG) including all FAI airsports, and for Formation Skydiving the World Championships will be held in Efes in Turkey from September 12th through the 21st. The WAG will also be a highly media publicised event, as it is presented the FAI's Olympics of Air Sports.

The World Championships of Formation Skydiving, Freestyle and Style/Accuracy will all take place at one venue, and the organiser, the Turkish Aero Club has made tremendous commitments and preplanning to make this a very high profile and well run competition bringing in a large number of international experts in the field to assist and work together with their own organisation.

Due to the logistical set-up of the competition, and the expected intensity of the need for airspace during the competition, the Plenary Meeting in Kenya agreed to deviate slightly from past experience regarding the official training jumps before the competition:

• There will be a three day period on September 10th , 11th and 12th in which the complete technical set-up with Judges and Transmission Systems will be available. The official training jump referred to in the competition rules may be made during this period.

  There will be no training jumps made after the 12th, and the competition will start on the 13th regardless if all teams have not achieved a training jump. The organisers will cover the costs of one training jump per registered team. All other training jumps will be charged at the training jump rates specified.

The organiser realises that the training dates mentioned may cause concern to those teams planning to arrive on the official arriving date, and will do their best to accommodate these teams to be able to make a training jump on the 12th, if they are informed in advance of the teams planned arrival time at Efes drop zone.

A high attendance of all the Air Sports is expected. More information on the WAG can be found at http://www.worldairgames.org/

Formation Skydiving and our sport of skydiving is indeed looking toward a highly interesting year, that may lay the positive foundations for the future of the sport.