November 2008 - Norwegian Hanggliding

The annual Nordic hang and paragliding committee is meeting in Iceland this year. We are rotating between the member countries in order, so next year we will meet in another country. The meeting is helt in November when it’s not very flyable in the nordics.

Here we have just started the meeting at Agust’s office, and the sun is rising at 9:45 (Iceland is 12 degrees west). Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway are represented in the meeting.

The goal of the meeting is to coordinate the work of the committee through the year, and evaluate and approve bids for the Nordic championships, approve Nordic records. The committee also work with accidents and training matter, as well as environmental issues and coordinate these matters within the member countries.

I have a business meeting with one of our software suppliers on Monday, so I will stay until then and hopefully get time to see a little of Iceland on Sunday.

Last weekend we did the final high flights of the course, where the students towed up high and did the full landing round. Very good conditions, and even some wind on Sunday (Which gave a few weaklink breaks) Next weekend we’ll do the footlaunch if conditions permit, and then some high flights from mountain takeoff.

NASA’s Cassini space probe reached Saturn in 2004, and is kept very busy gathering science data and pictures. The images of the moon Enceladus are really cool! Here’s one shot of Enceladus, with Saturn in the background. You can see the shadows of Saturn’s rings on the surface of Saturn.