I drove from Oslo at 13:00 on Saturday, picked up Marcus in Helsingborg in Sweden, and 26 hours and some 2000 kilometers later we were in Greifenburg, Austria. The travel was OK, one trying to sleep in the back and one driving. It rained as usual when we came into Austria but it cleared up in the evening. We met up with Manfred and the rest of the pilots from the coursem, Olav and Arnt came driving up from Croatia. The German open is here this week and lots of pilots here.

Today was the first day of the course, we talked a little in the morning, went up the mountain and Manfred talked about glider tuning with focus on pitch and sprog settings today. We then set a task of some 80 km in the valley and took off after the German open pilots. It was NV winds and the shade came and went. I got a nice thermal 200m under Arnt that took off 5 minutes before me. I was climbing slowly, until it became shaded again and I slowly started to sink out. I went west towards the sun on the lower hillsides but could not find anything usable, glided back east to some more sunny areas but could not find any usable lift, and landed at the main landing. Seems like only Marcus and Arnt who took off first got up, the rest of us bombed… Not a big deal since we do not fly in the comp, but a little annoying to only get 40 minutes on a OK day.

The area here is nice, with the Dolomites to the south of us and green wide valleys.