Time is relative. Travels, nationals, beginner course, work, and life in general.

Seems like it was yesterday I looked at the snow outside, now it’s late summer, what happened?

Well.. Flyingwise it’s been a bleak season at home so far. We had our Nationals in Vågå as usual one week in July, I think these pictures tell the tale of the weather we had;

Mountain waves, indication way to much wind for safe flying
Mountain waves, indicating way to much wind for safe flying in the area
Lenticularis w/rotor cloud and a Swallow bird enjoying the unstable air
Lenticularis w/rotor cloud and a Swallow bird enjoying the unstable air

We did not fly a single task in the nationals, weatherdemons vs hanggliding – 8:0 The nationals ended on Saturday, and on Sunday it was flyable and taskable again… I took some pictures from flying in Bøverdalen that Sunday;

Thomas
Thomas
Audun and Espen
Audun and Espen
Speideren
Speideren
Erik Bergseter
Erik Bergseter
Matching colours!
Matching colours!

The week after our nationals was my XC flying week this summer, but even though we got some good flying, the conditions were too stable for any real XC attempts. I did get to try out my new GoPro camera boom from Instinct Windsports, works great! A few examples from a late evening flight over Vågå (We took off at 19:00). So not a single good XC flight at home this summer so far, and it’s getting late into the season now.

DCIM100GOPRO DCIM100GOPRO DCIM100GOPRO DCIM100GOPRO DCIM100GOPRO

After that week I headed back south to Elverum and Starmoen airport to run a beginner course in Hanggliding. The course went really well with 8 students, we had really nice weather most days, and flew 8 out of 9 days with really good progress and great students. It was a scootertowing course, and we did around 250 tows that week with great results. Some pictures; (Some images by Morten Heller and Frederic Bakken)

Workwise it’s been quite busy spring and summer, I did the next big Cisco certification – CCDE in April and May. (Which involved 3 trips to London in 3 weeks), then flew to Miami, had a week vacation on South Beach in Miami, and Long Island in the Bahamas, before heading up to Orlando for the yearly Cisco Live conference.

At Cape Santa Maria, Long Beach, Bahamas.
Relaxing at Cape Santa Maria, Long Beach, Bahamas, one of the nicest beaches I’ve seen!

I also did a quick trip to the North of Norway, to meet family and also meet classmates from highschool 25 years ago, which was great fun! Weather was “interesting”;

Northern summer weather
Northern summer weather