Bassano, Comp day 1-3
Finally the weather demons have left Bassano. The first day was great, good clouds and sun. It overdeveloped early, but the rain went into the Alps and did not affect us. The task was from Bassano to Vittorio Veneto and back to goal at RAASM, 96 km total length. I made it, so did lots of other pilots, I flew way too slow and did not get any time points.

Second day arrived with higher pressure, inversion at 1600 m, and quite blue conditions. The task was from Mt. Cesen to Avaiano and back to RAASM, a total of 118 km. It was difficult, with blue and turbulent lee thermals. I had to land near the turnpoint after loosing all my altitude flying the wrong route over from Vittorio Veneto over the mountain. The GPS fell out and I lost track of the direction to the turnpoint, Erik also landed nearby. Johnny came to pick us up, but the car got hit by a girl on a scooter and the steering broke. We had to wait for Nils-Åge to come from Bassano, so we did not get to bed until 2:30. The weather demons now have wheels.

Today was good, still high pressure and blue conditions. The task was Mt. Cesen to Vittorio, Masrostika, and to goal. 88 km. I got off early and flew fast and good to the turnpoint, but I made a mistake gliding towards a gaggle of pilots and came in 15 meters too low to catch the thermal they were climbing in. I spent the next hour getting kicked around low in lee thermals. Had to land on the turnpoint in Vittorio, only 22 km out. Not many points for that flight.

We dont’s have the combined results but Gerolf Heinrichs is probably leading Class I, and Kristoph Kratzner Class II. Tomorrow is the last day before the final on Monday where only the 30 best pilots fly. I’ll get some time to check out he fair then.

Sorry but no pictures as this is updated by GSM. The Italian GSM network here is unstable at its best, and unusable most of the time, only SMS messages get through with some reliability. I’ll upload the pictures when I get back home.

Bassano, day 1 to 4.

Driving from Oslo, we arrived Friday night in pouring rain. Saturday was a little better, and we got off for a extended sled ride between the showers. Pål had a hard landing, and broke his upper arm for the third time. Really bad luck as it was not a really hard landing, the glider was OK. He got on a plane home today.

The weather demons are here, Saturday night we had some spectacular thunderstorms passing over us, as we drove to the hospital to pick up Pål. Sunday was gray but quite flyable, low cludbase at 1000 meters and weak lift made it hard to go far. Nils-Åge flew to the Observartory and barely made it back to the main LZ. I flew around locally for 45 minutes, before I fell through and had to land.

Monday started with rain, but it cleared up and we got some sun. It overdeveloped soon though, we all flew around over start and along the ridge for a while until it died out completely. I’ve used the days to adjust the CSX a little, it was difficult to fly with the new harness.

Today was really gray, nobody got high, but it was soarable. The forecast for Tomorrow and the weekend is better.

We have flown 3-5 hours each, 0 km XC.

We’re off to Italy and Bassano to fly the competition. I’ll try to find a internet connection so that I can update these pages with the latest results and news.

Happy Easter everyone!

It have been snowing a lot here for three days now, but today was good. I had a good flight at Sundvollen today, soared for 1 hour and 15 minutes. The wind increased while we rigged, and it was quite strong when we started. I got up to 1100 meters, Fredrik to 950.
It was very turbulent over the ice, probably strong windshear and gradient. My vario recorded 10 m/s sink on landing approach, scary. I had a perfect landing, but it was 15 cm water under the snow, on top of the ice.