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This weekend I attended the obligatory instructor seminar. Every instructor have to attend every 4 years to keep the licence. We had it in Vågå, with about 20 instructors in this year. It was flyable both saturday and sunday, but the schedule did not allow for flying until the afternoon, and by then it was raining both days. Sunday Olav and I went up to Vole in hope of getting a flight, but it overdeveloped and rained hard when we came up.

Fredrik and I decided to give Sundvollen a try, with NW winds and nice weather it seemed like a perfect day for that site. I had to work until 15:30, so we were a little late, luckily it turned out to be a good thing as everyone had short extended glides earlier in the day.

It was very calm when we came to the landing, Erik Vermaas had just landed after a short flight. When we came up to takeoff it was blowing 4-5 m/s straight in. It became stronger and very gusty while we were rigging the gliders, so we waited for 2 hours until the sun was setting and the thermals died out. I took off at 19:30 in very laminar and nice air. It was almost too weak in the beginning, but I slowly gained height and got some weak thermals assisting the ridge lift.

The sun was setting, and the view was great from 900 meters. Sundvollen is a very rewarding site to get up at, the terrain is so flat that you feel very high and free as soon as you get a few hundred above the ridge. I got some good thermals even after the sun was below the horizon. I had to land before it became too dark, and joined Fredrik in the newly cut field. A perfect way to spend a Monday night!

Saturday was gray and a little windy when I got up, Åge was towing at Trøgstad so I loaded up and drove there to get some airtime. Johannes, Alf and Bjørn was there and were towing. I took one tow to 1000 meters, 200 above cloudbase :-) The conditions were slow, I flew over to a small cumulus that was forming, and tried to find the lift while I was slowly sinking into the condensing fog. I came out through cloudbase and could not find anything strong enought to stay up.

Searching the area I got a small thermal off the horsetrack, and gained 100 meters before it became too weak. The landing was interesting as I got turned 180 degress on final by turbulence, and chose to land in the next field across the creek. I could have tried to continue into a 360 but it would have been risky, no point in risking damage to the glider or myself. Johannes helped me carrying it back across the creek.

I went to the training hill today to have a look, very few students on this course. Johannes and Erik got good flights at Brandbu.