Warming up at Forbes

Today we saw 42 degrees at the Airport, it was much nicer to be flying in the cooler air. I flew a short 100km out&return, while Olav flew locally to check out his glider after Gerolf  had been very nice and spent some time helping him out to get better handling from his RS4.

It was a very blue day, but good smooth lift up to 2200 meters, it probably went higher later in the day, I landed just before 16:00 after a nice final glide.

The forecast for the next days looks promising, with very warm days.

On the road, and back again.

I picked up Olav at the airport late Monday night and we drove through pouring rain to the Blue Mountains, and slept there before doing the rest of  the trip to Forbes on Tuesday morning. The weather gradually got better as we got closer to Forbes, and Olav got a flight there in really good conditions in the afternoon.

This morning I got up at 04:30 and drove back to Sydney to get my glider out of customs. That went without a hitch, and i got a rather beat up looking glider box out of the freight company warehouse. Luckily I could not see any damage when I met Steve Moyeas at the factory and unpacked it. So around 12 hours in the car today, and tomorrow lookks like a good day for XC flying. I will get up early (Which is no problem because of jetlag), and have a test flight in the morning to make sure glider is OK, and that my new harness is all good.

On the road again;

On the road again
On the road again

Here’s something new at the airport in Forbes, there’s standing water! Olav said the area around the airport had lots of new small lakes. It will probably dry out over the coming days, and some of hte pilots said the thermals were much smoother than earlier years.

Wet ground at the airport
Wet ground at the airport

OSL – SYD

It’s time to head down under again! I was lucky with the timing of the flight to Australia, as it was chaos in the days leading up to Christmas. I had booked my flights on the 24/12 with a connecting flight in London, and I was prepared for lots of delays, but everything went on schedule, and I got my seat on Quantas’ newest Airbus 380 in London. The plane was just one week old, and none of the engines exploded or fell off.

As usual my harness did not arrive on the plane with me, but it came 2 days later. No biggie, I did not need it yet, as I was just relaxing in my hotel, for a day, waiting for Olav to arrive before driving to Forbes. I shipped my glider two weeks ago, but it also got delayed and arrived only today. I can’t get it out, since custom’s closed until Wednesday. This is much more annoying, and means I probably have to drive back to Sydney to get it.

 Walking around in our old neighbourhood in Sydney feels strange, in one way it feels like I never left, but also it’s like ages ago since we packed up and went back to Oslo. Nothing’s changed in Glebe, except it’s much warmer now and the trees are green again.

Olav’s flight through Frankfurt was cancelled, so he’s around 14 hours behind schedule, the weather forecast for Forbes and areas seems good the next days, not stellar conditions but flyable, so it will be good to get there now. There’s major flooding in SE Queensland, but it will not affect us for now at least.

2-2, and some extreme hanggliding

Last weekend we did some extreme hanggliding, it was hanggliding in extreme cold conditions. Got some nice pictures though;

I guess my next flight will be in Forbes, with 40 degrees, dustdevils, and wild thermals – quite a contrast, and I’m not sure which environment is most uncomfortable…