Since the forecast was negative we packed up and went home before the last day. We drove through some massive overdevelopment on the way back to Oslo, huge CB with rain and hail in the whole area. I talked to Thomas on the phone and they had flown the last day, but no one made goal as it OD’ed over Köping. Seems like we did not miss much. Peter Isacson won the comp, while Håkan who was in the lead did not get away from the airstrip…

In Oslo it’s been overdeveloping as well, I had plans to go aerotowing from Trøgstad with Robin but when the first rainshower came at 10:50 as I was shopping some breakfast I changed plans. Today looked the same, might be a good day tomorrow.

Rather cloudy and wet this morning, the briefing was postponed to 13:00 as the forecast was positive about the afternoon. At 13:00 it’s still raining, and we cancel the day. I checked the charts at http://www.wetterzentrale.de and it does not look positive for tomorrow. I guess we go home tonight unless we get a much improved forecast later.

It was still quite cloudy this morning, and quite windy. We set up to get off early to avoid the forecasted front. The task was difficult to set, with weak conditions, low cloudbase and strong winds blowing us towards controlled airspace in Västerås. I was the first pilot to take a tow at 12:20, towing behind the BMW trike was no advantage today as it climbed too good into the wind. I released at 600 meter and searched around in broken and weak lift, found nothing good and landed back at the strip. I took a second tow, which was a repeat of the first. Only a few pilots managed to get away. We hung around the airstrip until the window closed at 17:00 in case it improved, but no such luck. A rather long and boring day. Tomorrow looks the same, wish we could get some better conditions soon.

Canned today, it’s been raining all day until now. There’s a blue hole in the west and the clouds are breaking up as I write this. Still there’s lots of water on the ground that need to dry up before we can have really good conditions again. The forecast for tomorrow is good, seems like this comps is one day off for each day of flying. Need a few more days to get a good comp out of it.

Finished one book today, (American Gods by Neil Gaiman, highly recommended!) and started on a new. Got the movie “Chicken Run” on DVD and saw it on my PC while lying in bed. Ate lunch and walked the streets of Köping until we started walking in circles, it’s not the most exciting place I’ve been to….

Today we had nice blue skies again, with a front predicted to come in by noon. We first got a 92 km task towards the NE, but it was changed to a 55km straight line to goal at Sala. I was drawn late in the take off line, and got a tow straight through sink all the way to 600 meters. I searched around the golf course but had to glide back to the airstrip for another tow. After waiting in line for 45 minutes I got the next tow. This time I decided to go for it no matter what, as the cirrus was building and shading the area around the airstrip. I got down to 250 meters as I crossed the start circle, and worked it up to cloudbase, slowly at 0,2 m/s at first, and getting near 3 m/s at cloudbase. Base was at 1500 meters today, much better than yesterday.

I crossed over to the next good looking cloudstreet, found a nice 4 m/s thermal at the same spot I landed on day 1. Approaching cloudbase it started to rain, and the area over to the next good looking clouds was in shade. It continued to rain, and I flew through lots of sink as the glider got really wet. I could see water flowing off the trailing edge, and there was some hail as well just to make it really nice for us pilots, glad I had my new helmet with visir. A swedish pilot on a Climax glided with me, we aimed for the next area with some sun on the ground, but it was in shade before we could make it out of the rain. I arrived with 100 meters above a nice big field where another glider was derigging, 27 km from goal, and landed safely there with a soaking wet glider. 1-0 to the weather deamons.

Nils Åge got off earlier and made a good run to take second place today. Håkan won the day.

Forecasts for tomorrow are mixed, we’ll see. Picture from briefing first day, it cleared up later.

It was nice conditions on Saturday when we woke up and went to the airstrip, blue skies and quite windy from the west. We hung around for a while and finally set up to test the aerotowing set up. They have a very powerful and fast BMW trike here, the first tow behind it I broke the weaklink as I could not get down fast enough when the trike hit sink. The second tow was fine, just needed to pull on more VG and keep the bar in to below the chest. There’s 4 trikes here, and 28 pilots, so it’s no problem to get in the air. The Swedes have a full team, and there’s a team from Denmark as well. No Finns this year.

The first comp day looked nice, with 4-6 m/s WSW and nice clouds by the time we were set up. The task was a 72km dogleg towards Sala northwest of Köping. I aborted the first tow when I got hit by turbulence and got way out of line. I landed at the end of the strip, and had to carry the glider back down to the takeoff area. After cooling down I got up again and towed to 600 meters. I searched into the wind and found some broken lift that I worked while drifting back beyond the strip. After some searching around I found a nice core that went to cloudbase, suprisingly low at only 1000 meters. I pushed into the wind again and crossed over to the next couldstreet, where I worked broken lift for a while, but could not get back up to more then 800 meters.
All lift seemed to form on th wrong place related to the wind sun and clouds, I had trouble figuring out where to look for it. After struggling for a while I went on glide to a more promising area with big fields and a nice cloudstreet, only to end up drifting into the forests in weak lift. I went back upwind, but got way to low before I hit strong lift again, unable to get up I had to land. I came down almost vertical in strong headwind, until the wind turned 180 degrees in 1 second when I was on final. I pushed out but had no chance to save the landing. The glider just stalled and fell, basebar hit the ground and I nosed over as the strong tailwind continued to push from behind. I got the glider down on the A frame before I became a turtle. The glider was whole, nothing broken or bent, except holes on the knees on my jeans.

I landed 15 km out, Nils Åge also got into trouble and landed 30 km out. 8 pilots made goal, Johan Dalquist got the best time. It was definetively not the day to race, with such low cloudbase and stong winds. All the pilots I’ve talked to expirienced broken and weak lift, I was tricked by the good looking sky. You always learn something new when flying competitons.

Today was forecasted to be shitty with wind and rain – they got it spot on. Canned today, tomorrow is forecasted fine again.

Tonight Nils Åge and I will drive to Köping in Sweden to fly the Nordics. The competition start on Sunday and finish next Saturday, it’s an aerotow only event. I’ve never been in Köping before, but the Swedes are very positive about the flying there. The forecast for the next few days seem fine, I hope we can get a good comp out of it.