posted Jun 9th, 2008 - UK team Satori is still on the top of last weekend's leaderboard in the AAA Class, which will not change any more. The first meet of the Coupe de France 2008 was completely weathered out. Germany's national team in the female category, Chicas, holds the second place of 12 teams in the AAA Class.

Satori just completed a 9-day training camp at Hibaldstow in the United Kingdom before the meet. Satori's Center Inside Liz Matthews said that it is rare for a team to do more than weekend jumping in the UK:

"The UK hasn't really been considered a good place to train in earlier years, and of course everyone worries about the weather."

However, Satori had a positive experience at Target Skysports. Liz Matthews reported a quick plane and a smooth operation, and her team completed 18 jumps on one of the training days. Another day had bad weather which cleared at 3.30 pm, and Satori still completed 13 jumps.

Coach Gary Smith came over from Holland to work with Satori, and the training began on a Tuesday, which is normally the day off in Hibaldstow. Liz Matthews added that the DZ wanted to accomodate the teams:

"Things are looking good for team training there. The wind tunnels have changed the face of British skydiving in the last few years, and it seems like we might find we can do our team training here too."

Satori plans to complete two more 9-day camps at the same place in June and July.

Chris Hollis, Formation Skydiving representative for the British Parachute Association (BPA), provided the information for the complete meet story of last weekend's competition at the Army Parachute Association's DZ at Netheravon in Wiltshire.

Meet Director Jerry Denning welcomed team captains early on Saturday morning and making the most of the fine weather, the teams got cracking using the two Cessna Caravans to get to altitude.

This was the first time Netheravon hosted a UKSL meet, and lots of effort had been put in to making the meet run as smoothly as possible. The DZ has a new computerised manifest system, so it was easy to see exactly what call your team was on, this undoubtedly helped ensure all the right people were getting on the bus to the enplaning point at the same time.

It was a special trip to the boarding are, as Chris Hollis explained: "Titch, the bus driver, was also using the shuttle runs back and forward to practice for his new career as a Formula One driver, so we wish him well with that one!"

Experienced BPA judging team, Kate Charters and Liz Warner, were soon locked away reviewing the dives via CamScore, and as the scores began to filter through it became obvious that many teams were suffering from camera busts. One of the Caravans lacks a camera-step, which made it tricky for the team videographer to get the correct distance from the team on exit. Some camera flyers expressed some concern about this, but all were trying their best with what we had.

The spirit of the UKSL is all about sharing knowledge and encouraging people to compete. Chris Hollis himself was on hand to give some handy tips to any teams that needed it, plus many of the more experienced jumpers were also passing down their skills to the other teams.

Chief Judge Kate Charters was also going out of her way to talk to teams that suffered infringements. She was giving valuable feedback to all competitors telling them what the judges are looking for, explaining why busts happened and how to avoid them in future. This advice was particularly helpful to some of the Rookie Class teams, notably Innuendo, who suffered 13 busts over the first two rounds due to incomplete separation and camera angle.

Chris Hollis explained why the regular attendance of meets is so important: "This is why meets are great for training – you can't replicate this sort of thing just doing training jumps!"

As the evening drew in on the long June day, it was clear that - due to the smooth DZ management and all the teams putting in a great effort - all six rounds would be completed on Saturday. Chris Hollis provided the commentary of the competition in all four different categories:

"In the AAA Class, the Satori members were enjoying themselves, turning an impressive 22-pointer in the fast Round 4 and going on to secure gold with a 17.3 average. Silver medal went to Wingnutz, as it did in UKSL Meet 1. The 3rd place in AAA was secured by the visiting Irish national team, Spirit. The Irish lads certainly know how to have a good laugh and thoroughly enjoyed themselves at the meet saying that this is better than meets we have at home. They are the only people who compete in Ireland...

The AA Class glory went once again to Phantom. This time with alternate Martin Soulsby, Phantom had a great meet with the highlight of the 20-pointer in Round 4 (E-9-N). The AA Class offers a tight race with arguably three or four teams all fairly close to one another. Second place team Phobia was pushing hard, even outscoring Phantom twice, but just lost out by two points, holding off the late charge by Kaizen who managed to outscore all other AA Class teams in the last two rounds.

Two teams entered the A Class and were pretty much neck to neck throughout. In the end, Langar victors Strangers beat the local team Exodus to gold by one single point.

To complete the pattern, Rookie Class team Zero Degrees, who already won at Langar, also won at Netheravon with some smooth and solid flying. The Rookie Class podium was a carbon copy of Langar, as silver went to Weston team Burble and bronze to Innuendo who suffered from the body blow of all those busts."

Chris Hollis said that the United Kingdom Skydiving League would like to thank the team at Netheravon for organising and holding such a successful and smooth meet: "Sandy on manifest was efficient and calm all day. One competitor joked that the manifestor had been hard at work for 12 hours and was still smiling."

Chris Hollis said that the same competitor went on: "I am not used to it – someone tell her to shout...!"

He added that special thanks must also go to Kate Charters for all her hard work helping out the teams and telling them top tips from the judges perspective: "As we all heard so often that day: If we can't see it – we can't score it!"

The UKSL now moves north to the picturesque North West Parachute Centre at Cark in Cumbria for the meet weekend of June 28, and Chris Hollis expects another great event: "The guys up in the lakes are really keen, so we look forward to another great event and some more 4-way fun from the most competitive and well attended league in Europe..."