Norwegian Hanggliding

Resurrected from old webserver

Bassano in northern Italy is usually great in the easter, so despite the bad weather last year I decided to go again this year. Olav, Else-Britt, Erik, Roger and me, rented a car in Oslo and drove the 1800Km to Italy, with a stop in Innsbruck to pick up Olav’s new CSX. When we arrived at Tilly’s hotel in the evening it rained… The locals told us conditions have been good for weeks until Norwegians arrived, we seem to bring the rain every time. But the next day we woke to blue skies and thermals, and it stayed that way for the rest of our stay.

The flying was good, we all flew every day in great soaring conditions. High pressure the last days made it tricky to get up, but once over the inversion it was good. A few days was wery hazy, one day the visibility was down to a few kilometers, and I had to rely only on the GPS waypoints over the plains, strange for us who are used to very clear air. Cloudbase from 1200m the first day, to 2300 the last.

The terrain in Bassano is great for flying, large plains that end up in steep mountains, LZ’s everywhere, but watch out for power lines and grape fields! On two XC’s I landed out, and found a bar across the road. Cold beer and italian food is a good alternative waiting for retrieve.

This is the main HG LZ in Semonzo, you can see it marked with blue lines a little to the left in the picture.

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Olav got hurt while landing out on the first comp day. He landed in a terraced field, and got a large cut in his knee hitting a trerrace wall. He spent the rest of easter in hospital, getting a cut tendon sewn. The other comp guys flew all days, but did not score too well. Robin made it to the final. Manfred Ruhmer won. The only Exxtacy in the comp flew wery well.

One day the PG and HG task had the same first turnpont, which made it chaotic in the air. No midairs reported, but that was plain luck according to the pilots in those gaggles.

The fair had the usual stuff. Some news were the ATOS, the Top Secret from LaMouette, and the new HG harness from Woody Valley. The harness prototype was finished the same morning, and the production is due to start in 3-4 months.

The harness looked wery sleek, with partly internal side mounted chute pocket, carbon back frame, refined tilt system, combined pocket for radio and camera stuff with elastic opening. (Very good solution IMHO) The italian team had the prototype, with harness, speedsleeves, and hood as one unit, kinda neat.

The new Seedwings topless glider was in the comp, but I did not get a chance to look at it. They called it Viagro, to “get it up” :-)

Moyes had the new aluminum speedbar on display, really nice piece of harware!

The Icaro guys did fly the ATOS a few days. I forgot my camera on one flight, when the ATOS was in the same thermal, so no top views of the ATOS for you :-) I did shoot a few pictures of it on the ground, the next day they hid it behind some trees to make adjustments, wonder why…

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Manfred’s Laminar had carbon uprights, thin wires, and pretty low dive sticks, but normal wire mountings unlike last year. The uprights had a thinner profile than standard uprights.

Picture of Manfred Ruhmer at the comp takeoff, the only Exxtacy getting ready behind him.

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There was a glide competition from a 15m high ramp built in the LZ. Manfred and Oleg had a few flights each, with Manfred outgliding Oleg by 5-10 meters, he even had speed to land on his feet. Cool to watch the top pilots compete in that format.

I’ll be back next year.