Nice weekend flight

I went to Vågå this weekend for a party, and only brought my harness in case it would be flyable. Saturday turned out to be a great day, and Fredrik and me decided to go up to Vole and try to get a flight. It’s still some snow on the road up the mountain, so the drive up with summer tires on Olav’s old Passat was quite an adventure. After some pushing over slippery parts and some rally inspired driving by Fredrik we got within carrying distance to the takeoff. After a 20 minute walk we were on takeoff, only to discover that the glider Fredrik borrowed did not have a basebar. Bummer.

Olav had borrowed me his old Litespeed S,  I quickly set up and took off in perfect conditions. It was blue but I launched straight into a nice 3 m/s thermal that took me up to 1700 meters. It was quite cold, but I enjoyed the scenery and extremely clear air, what a change from the fog in Bassano. Now I could see that I really need to clean the visor of my helmet, the dirt was not noticeable in Bassano.

I flew to Lalm, and had a quick sightseeing back to the center of Vågå before I became too cold and went down to land. Nils Åge and Tore had gone to Heidal and both flew back to Vågå and landed before I took off.

Trike recon flight

Terne S and me took a flight towards Sweden today to look at the XC possibilites in that direction. It was a very stable day today, Trond Olsen did two tows but it was not much thermals above 3-400 meters.

The inversion layer is quite clear, this is at 3500 feet.

Inversion

I wrote a short summary from our findings (In norwegian) at out HG-Slep blog.

Bassano 2007, task 3

Short update as we had a busy night packing up; We got a 90 km task, very similar to yesterday. Blue skies with some clouds forming today, and a weak NW wind. Quite low cloudbase at 1500 meters. The whole gaggle joined up on the ridge just at the start circle, and it became “interesting” again when the freeflying inexpirienced paraglider pilots joined us again. Even one tandem paraglider came into the gaggle, that’s quite risky, but I bet the passenger got an exiting ride.

We hung around in cloudbase for 20 minutes, and 2 minutes before the start I took a sweep out to avoid going into the cloud, and lost the lift coming back. I got a very bad start coming way to low back into the ridge. When I finally got up again after racing the ridge back to takeoff I stayed high until getting stuck 10 km from the second TP over some areas with no landings. When I finally got up again I took the second TP and headed for the third out on the flats joining up with Corinna and a few other gliders. I was the first at the TP and decided to go back towards the last TP and goal over the flatlands, as there were some good clouds. It turned out quite slow so it was probably a better choice to get back on the ridge. We made it in as some of the last in goal.

From our team Olav was first, then Nils, Dag, me. Ove and Stefan landed in goal but did not complete the course, Speidern landed at the second TP.

Robert Reisinger was the winner, Italian on second, Gerolf third. Olav did well with 6. place. Nils was around 13, me around 30.  No results available on the net so far.

We have to get up at 04:30 tomorrow, to make it back to Milano and the plane back home.

Bassano 2007, task 2

We woke up to a grey and cloudy morning, and it seemed we would get a marginal day if we got in a task before overdevelopment and rain. At takeoff it seemed to be better, and we got a 90 km task, similar to yesterday, with start at the observatory at Possagnio, west on the ridge and back to Assolo out on the plains before goal.

As the first pilots got off it was clear it would be a quite good day, thermals were quite good and much smoother than yesterday. I took off quite early and soon found myself boating around in cloudbase for 30 minutes, waiting for the start time at 13:20. I got a OK start, and took it quite easy in the beginning of the task, to stay high and safe. The area from Rubbio takeoff to the second TP is quite challenging as the ground is high, and there are no good landing options unless you land up on the plateau, and with todays 1500 meter cloudbase you only have a few hundred meters to play with.

At Rubbio we also met the paragliding gaggle, when they were crossing our courseline. 100+ paragliders and 15 hanggliders in the same thermal was quite interesting, but not very amusing, so I left just before the gaggles met, gliding out to clearer air… Dag Ring stayed behind and got up in a good core between all the paragliders.

Gliding out into the valley towards the second TP I realized I had made an error when putting today’s task into the GPS as I had yesterdays TP as the second TP. I saw 5 other gliders turn around behind me at exactly the same spot over a huge factory, this is a good indication that something is wrong, I realized what happened, turned back and aimed for the same spot crossing back towards the ridge.

From the second TP I started to speed up more, and got back to the main area without much drama, and leaving the gaggle behind at Rubbio takeoff when I cored up a nice 4 m/s. I did not remember the name of the last turnpoint or goal in the GPS, so I had to fly on the other pilots hoping they knew where to go, going out into the flats. I joined up with Corinna in a slow themal before gliding towards the last TP, and we had a reasonably good glide from the TP. My instrument did not help since I did not show where to go, so I lost some time thermalling 5-6 km before goal and came in with 300 meters to spare.

Olav did well close to a top 10 finish, Nils Åge was second from our team, me third, Dag fourth and Speidern fifth. Ove landed in goal without taking the last TP, Stefan landed close to the second TP. Robert Reisinger won the day.

Bassano 2007, task 1

We had really nice weather the last few days, with sun from blue skies and not much wind. It’s been quite stable though, so we did not get very high.

The first task today was 108km, mostly along the ridge. We all got off nicely, and joined up in the gaggle before the start gate. It was turbulent typical high pressure conditions, and I struggled hard to try to gain height. I got tired really quick and started losing out. After the start gate and turnpoint I joined up with Speidern and Ove Kaarboe where I glided back along the ridge in search of a calmer thermal, but ended up getting too low on the last ridge before crossing to Rubbio. By now I realize I’m all alone and have lost all motivation, so I turn tail and glide back home to the main landing by the hotel.

In retrospect it was rough but good conditions to fly in. I was unprepared for the turbulent lift, and did not work hard enough. I lost the mind game with myself, and gave in to fatigue to take the easy way out. It was irrational, but I can only learn from it and try again tomorrow.

Olav was the first from our team in goal, followed by Nils Åge, Speidern and Dag Ring. Ove landed here on the way to the last TP. Stefan and me after the first TP.

Bassano 2007, arrival

Nils Åge, Speidern and me arrived in Bassano Monday night, driving our rental car from Milano. After checking in at the new hotel at the landing field we had Pizza at the regular place. The guys that arrived earlier in the weekend had nice flights earlier in the day until it started to rain.

Today looked very good around noon, with lots of pilots flying around in the area, and nice cumulus building over the mountains. Dag, Ove, Speidern and Nils F took off and had good flights, unfortunately they flew off with the car keys, so Nils Åge and Kjell Krane had to wait until one of them landed to get back up. By the time they were set up it had overdeveloped and started to rain, so they packed up and went back down.

My glider and harness will arrive tonight if everything goes as planned, so I hope I can get a flight tomorrow. The forecast is looking OK for the weekend.