August
20 Aug 2007
0800
Competition was supposed to start at 8 am, but I don't see teams gearing up or hear calls from manifest. The judges aren't here either.
The weather is high clouds and it looks jumpable to me. It is a nice temperature out and there is a nice breeze for landings.
10-way teams numbers are really the 100's, as the pictures show. Godfrog (the program that does the scoring) does not let you change the numbers and assumes 900 series.
0930
A fun load went up, but came back down. The scum clouds have dropped down to around 3000 ft. There is a drop of rain every minute.
Here are two teams practicing the 10-way no-show exit. The 'do not cross line' is closer to the door in a LET than an Otter. The LET acually has a built-in line.
Here is the DZ Dad dog.
1015
10-way was put on a call. The weather should hold.
1200
And we have a great competition in 10-way. SkySharks have a small lead over Formula 10. Kolomna United is less than 3 seconds behind them. Speed Steam NEO and XO Team are 2 seconds behind KU.
ANYTHING can happen.....
1315
After round 3 SkySharks opened their lead to a whopping 1.3 seconds.
Only six seconds separate the first 4 teams. It is definitely a horserace. SkySharks round 3 was sub 10 seconds. It was a sweet build.
1400
The air is very hazy now because of a forest fire upwind of the DZ. You cannot see those trees on the far side of the DZ.
1415
We are waiting for the last 2 teams to jump round 4 before judging. There is an airspace restriction that is keeping everyone on the ground now. BTW, there are only 6 rounds in this competition.
Also the meet has to complete by 4 pm because a team has to leave early. This was not the official day for 10-way competition, so all the teams agreed to play if it ended by 4 pm.
1500
The OmniSkore! Message feature at work.
1515
OK - We are really searching for fun things to do here.
This little feller is hanging from one of the overhangs near manifest. If you see a bat during the day, does that mean he has rabies?
Photo by SkySharks' photographer, Mansur.
The visibility is really bad now, so jumping is still on hold.
1550
Those trees out there (I can't see them either.) are 1 km away. We need 2 km visibility to jump.
1700
Ok, round 4 was put up and finished. Kolomna United had the fastest time of 8.78 sec. SkySharks was also sub-ten second with 9.45 sec. Formula 10 took 15.14 seconds and dropped to 4th place. Speed Steam NEO posted 10.31 sec. Formula 10 and Speed Steam NEO are only 0.02 seconds apart in total time. Great competition.
1800
Round 5 is up now. Apparently the team that had to leave could change its plans.
1900
Awesome SkySharks posted a 8.7 sec build in round 5. Two more contenders are still in the air.
1930
SkySharks posted a 8.71 sec build. Formula 10 is back on track and posted a 10.89 to move up to 3rd place. Kolomna United is still holding 2nd place with a +2 sec lead. Speed Steam NEO posted a hefty 18.60 and is 12 seconds out of 3rd place. The 6th round is up.
2130
What a great finish. The last round was a BearTrap. Arizona's Tears had all but one outside grip of the compressed accordian because the guy was canted out. So the guy doing the cat, lets go of his grip and shoves the canted guy over. It was great and really funny. But they were out of time and posted a 35.
The next awesome moves were from XO Team. They built a bipole and had 4 jumpers dock all at once in the slots to build the beartrap. The cats docked just before the other four guys. It was a risky build, but they pulled it off and scored 11.98.
Kolomna United beat SkySharks on this round with an 11.24 to SS's 12.01. Heck even Speed Steam NEO beat SkySharks with 10.69 sec.
SkySharks must be tired. They flailed slightly on exit. It looked like a timing problem with the piece exit. They came in first with a 6 sec lead over Kolomna United. Formula 10 took third with 6 more seconds to their total time.
Great job by all the jumpers.
SkySharks Round 3 - 10-way
SkySharks Round 5 - 10-way
Omnibits
Jan Meyer, Chief Engineer and Webmaster