World Team 2006

(Bumped into JC last night. He's on the camera team, and apeears to be in peak form. )

Five Hercules C-130 Transports - flying in formation at 24,000 feet.
441 skydivers
15 camera flyers
3 documentary team members
21 Support staff
71 Accompanying persons

World Team 2006 comprises 552 persons!

76 Females
9,310 years in the sport
20 years in the sport on average
2,222,850 skydives between us
4,800 jumps average
Oldest member 65
Youngest member 20
Least jumps 650 ("but they were all very good jumps"!)
Average age 42.8
31 nations represented

650 applications for the team. There's about 70 first timers here, so I'm not Robinson Crusoe.
A very, very good vibe too.

Got a sneak peek at some of the tech this morning - the radio helmets are here and ready to go. There's a couple of heads-up displays (Altimaster Titans are linked from skysurfer.com.au) kicking around too. More on those later.

Today, we move to Udon Thani. Four waves: Each three busloads to the airport, then 500k in the King's personal Airbus (long pants, no open toed shoes, don't event /think/ about the Mile High thing in the private suite). Then to the next hotel. I don't even want to contemplate the logistics of getting all these skydivers to one place at one time. Organising a starcrest is hard enough.

Slept well - Michael Vaughan has resisted the temptation to smother me in my sleep (so far). At 6:15AM the first wave departed: In the dark, with a police escort, and JC whooping it up in the third bus. Go World Team...

L.