After having out flight rebooked to 06:40 from Oslo it became a rather stressfull Thursday night and Friday morning. Olav Lien Olsen met us at the Orlando Airport, after we had spent 2 hours going through immigration and lots of baggage checks, and drove us to the motel where we stay.
Yesterday we found and assembled our gliders. Both gliders were OK, I had one broken undersurface carbon batten. Looks like someone had stepped on it in the factory, think I can glue it.
We had pretty good conditions yesterday, and I towed up first at 11:15. Got too low on the tug a few times, and got the rope. I flew and dropped it over the airfield, glided back into the thermal and got up to cloudbase at 1000 meters. Olav Opsanger towed up later, his new glider was good. I had a nice afternoon flight towing up at 16:30 and flew a small out and return under some nice cloudstreets. Cloudbase was now at 1600, it was really good flying. Olav lien have been learning to tow here, and had his first flights on his own Topless 5. He had some problems making it go straight, but seems like it’s good now.
Quest air looks like a very nice plase, friendly people, loooots of space, and quite efficient towing arrangement. We got a sticker on the helmet, and pay 20 dollars per tow before the comp. Lots of dollys here, and they have special cars that will tow you on the dolly over to the south side of the strip if needed. At night we leave the gliders set up, just tied to the ground, so the next day you just hook in your harness and go up again.
The plan was to fly to Wallaby yesterday for the Wills wing party, but we had no roofracks on the car, and no retreive, so we stayed here instead. I was very tired at the end of the day anyway. It’s 6 hours time difference between here and Norway.
Weather today looks perfect, we were here at 07:30, and students and tandems are already towing.
