It’s early spring and with low pressure systems all around us we have had some rather unstable weather the last few days. On Thursday it was nice in the morning, but became overcast as we were setting up at Frya. It was not possible to set a task and we cancelled and glided down. Late in the evening it cleared up and some pilots flew small XC flight.
Friday we had another promising day, but while setting up ut it started to rain/snow to the norht of us, and we got strong tailwind at launch. It was very unstable and most of the big clouds collapsed into rain and snow around us. We all moved to Brandstadkampen, and we got a 50 km task. It was a cold and loong day there, the conditions were not good and all the first pilots landed down. Just before the window closed some pilots got up and away. Most of us did not want to fly anymore, and de-rigged. The 4 pilots who got going all came within 10 km from goal, but the day was heavily devaluated.
Today looked much better from the morning, and the arrangers sendt us to Heidal where we got a 98km task south to Tretten and then back to Frya. I took the second start time, after spending some time getting up over takeoff. It was weak and turbulent, but I spotted Arnfinn going up in a strong thermal a little to the south and flew over to him. It was strong lift, very strong, I got over 7m/s over 20s average. We glided west of a snow squall at Torgeirkampen and aimed for Teigkampen. I did not stop in the weak lift Werner was turning in there but took a good line going towards Vinstra. At Harpefoss I took cloudbase again and glided to Ringebu before stopping in some lift meeting up with Johnny.
Going to the TP it was shaded from overdevelopment and snowsqualls. I glided with Olav to the TP and back but got lower than him and had to stop in the shade getting up slowly. By now it was snowing hard around me but it was weak lift even in the strongest snow. My arms and hands looked like a snowman when I finally emerged into clear air again. I took way too much height for the final glide and arrived with 500 meters to spare, but I had good air and not as much headwind as I expected.
Nils Åge won the day, I got 5. place today, 6 in goal. A lot of pilots were later than us and turned around at the snow. It was probably wise as the wind from the OD became very strong as we were packing up at goal. Tomorrow looks like it will be much of the same as today, could be good, could rain away.
I’ve borrowed a Litespeed from Fritjolf, it’s quite suprising how different the two gliders are. Even if I had a glider just like it some years back it feels very strange, and I’m not comfortable with it at all yet. It’s been a silent revolution in the glider handling and feel with the new gliders. Also the VG on the glider was extremely hard, and I was unable to pull it on more than 1/3, quite annoying. I’ve had it apart now and reassembled everything in the right order. Hope it’s better tomorrow.
