Category Archives: Competitions

Competitions, Hanggliding

The European Championships 2008, Day 6

Our hotel is at 1800 meters, and we woke up inside cloudbase this morning. It was not raining, but lots of high clouds stopped any sun from drying out the valley. We went down to takeoff at 10:30 expecting to see few other pilots, but the organization believed it would be taskable, and everyone was set up. We had a chat with some of the pilots, and went back and got our gliders and harnesses in the very unlikely event it would clear up, but we left the gliders on the car.

Waiting at takeoff reminded me of Bassano this year, but at least we could buy hot Goulash soup and hot chocolate at the cafe. At 14:30 I gave up and went back to the hotel for a hot shower, while the rest of the guys waited until it started raining 30 minutes later and the organizer finally canceled the day.

Forecast for tomorrow is OK for the morning, but a warmfront will move in early and shut us down around noon, and for the next days.

I’ve updated the video with some more footage I found on my PC of Sindre’s flights. Check it out!

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Competitions, Hanggliding

Video from Greifenburg – Day 3. Day 4 and 5 rained out

Lots of rain cancelled day 4 and 5. We drove to Skyline in Germany, where Bjørn and I had a few upgrades and maintenance done on our harnesses. The Skyline crew is very helpful and worked overtime on finishing off the work so we had everything done in one day. I had my rescue repacked, replaced the hangloop and reserve loop, and added a better locking screw to the extension plate to make the harness easier to pack.

There’s lots of new features coming for the Skyline harness. I really liked the new automatic slider lock, that locks the slider in the back position when flying. This releases all pressure from the feet, so the pilot can relax the feet even in very upright thermaling position.

Here’s a short clip from Day 3 that was cancelled due to storms. We flew the gliders down from the takeoff before the storms came through. Audio commentary by me in Norwegian only. I’ll do it in English the next time. (I talk about the day beeing cancelled, clouds building, nice nature, and the landing site)

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Competitions, Hanggliding

The European Championships 2008, Day 3

We woke up to clear blue skies, and what seemed to be a beautiful day for flying. After breakfast at 9 it started developing clouds, even if the inversion in the valley was strong and reducing the thermal activity in the early hours.

This mushroom grew behind takeoff early in the morning, a clear sign of a unstable day.

Mushroom cloud at 09:00

We had a briefing after setting up under building clouds, the meteo guy used the phraze “extremely dangerous conditions”, and the day was quickly cancelled for safety reasons. There was a sigh of relief in the pilot crowd when it was clear we would not have to fly a task, it was not a good comp day.

We had time to fly down before the storms hit, and it was a nice flight in super smooth air over the valley. I filmed and took some pictures before landing and packing up just in time to escape the rain.

Quite a few interesting landings, It seemed like half the pilots got tailwind gliding over the landing field at the camping site. Mo major breakage, but quite a few green nosecones.

View to the west of the valley, the Cu-Nimbus is growing.

Competitions, Hanggliding

The European Championships 2008, Day 2

The weather improved a little, and we woke up above cloudbase with a clear blue sky. The cloudbase lifted during the morning, and we got a 105 km task. The forecast was for overdevelopment in the afternoon. I took off early, and mucked around in cloudbase taking photos and enjoying the air. I was actually too relaxed, and did not pay attention to the clock. When the first start gate was getting close I had to fly back outside the 8km start cylinder, I ended up in the rain from the collapsing clouds, and lost a lot of altitude with a wet glider. I got slowly up and took the second start gate, most of the gagle took the first start gate, and I met them coming back from the first TP.

Bjørn Joakimsen and me together after the first TP.

At cloudbase over Greifenburg

The conditions were difficult with the low cloudbase and collapsing clouds, there was OK lift, but it was very broken and quite turbulent if you got below the peaks.

I was stressed, unhappy about my bad start, and did not fly well at all. I made a OK valley crossing, but lost the first thermal when I came over the next ridge. I lost it there, got too impatient and demotivated, and flew along the ridge getting lower and lower and more and more turbulence. Landed about 10 km from the second TP, about halfway through the task. It was overdeveloping rapidly, and the first lightning came just after I had landed.

The task was stopped at 16:10 due to thunder and rainstorms on the course. Speidern made it to goal, but not before the task was stopped. Bjørn Joakimsen landed 10 km behind me, and Olav Lien Olsen in the same area as Bjørn.

My landing field, nice clouds over the ridge in the background, but it was shitty below the peaks.

Landing out, day 2

Powerful clouds a few minutes later…

Forecast for tomorrow is unstable and rain, we might get a short and early task in if we are lucky.

Competitions, Hanggliding

The European Championships 2008, Day 1

First day was cancelled around noon due to rain and low cloudbase. We had ofcourse set up and had the first showers soak us and our gliders. Most pilots tried to glide down between the showers, I packed up and went to the hotel to work and do some emails. Long term forecast look bleak to say the least…

Long term

I really hope the forecast gets this wrong.

The most annoying thing about days like this is to have to go through all the motions, briefing, driving up, setting up, and waiting half the day in rain before we finally can give up. Feels like wasting away days for nothing.

Most pilots are here, Seppi is missing from the Austrian team, and Olli pulled out from the German team. Oleg still hangs in there, and showed up there to fly the comp. Scott from Australia is here, but was not allowed into the competition because it was full and we have very limited space on takeoff.

The organization seems OK so far, with a chaotic but nice opening seremony last night. No parade in the streets due to the rain, everything was indoors, with a local drum band and kids from the local primary school entertaining us.

There will be a sprog-measurements talk this afternoon by Dennis Pagen and Gerolf will probably have a few words to say too :-)

Competitions

Worlds Big Spring, day 7 and 8

Sorry for the short updates, it’s so late when we get home and the energy levels are not as high as in the beginning of the competition. Anyway, yesterday we got a task with real turnpoints (oohhh). Unfortunately it was the slowest day so far with lots of high clouds shading and shutting down the conditions. I took the fist start with Atilla, John Jr, and a gaggle of other good pilots. We had a good run until we hit shade just before the first turnpoint. I got a good thermal going back from the TP, where lots of other pilots struggled, and could glide in above the leading gaggle.

We went on a long glide towards the second turnpoint, it was super smooth air, and not much thermal activity. We all spread out in search of lift, as the whole area was shaded, and I glided cross towards some sunny patches. I decided it was not worth gliding into the shade, just to glide out the altitude I had. Instead I tried to use it to search for lift that might get me to goal. I was searching in a promising area for a long time, but it never took off. No pilots made goal, I would have scored much better if I had glided out my altitude, but that’s hanggliding…

Today it looked slow like the day before, but it turned out to be the best racing day of the comp. I got a good start, stuck with the main gaggle until halfway where I hit a bad line when heading out in front of the gaggle. I lost some time there, to get back up and lost contact with the lead gaggle. I joined up with Dave Sieb and one Spanish pilot, and we had a good run until goal.

This guy was at the airport to greet us when we got home, lots of insects here due to the rain earlier.

Beetle

Forecast for the last two days are not very good, the tropical storm Erin is already making rain here in Big Spring.

Competitions

Worlds Big Spring, day 5 and 6

284km task, got stuck low halfway after making a stupid choice, and spent the next half hour getting up again. Got to goal, but it was slow at the end as the day was shutting down. Landed at 19:30, got 55. place. Not very happy about the speed, but it was cool to fly this long.

Yesterday we had a rest day after the long flight and drive home, today looks good, but the next few days might bring thunderstorms.

Competitions

Worlds Big Spring, day 4

Finally we got better conditions with some clouds, and higher inversion. The task was 149 km straight to goal with a exit start around Big Spring. I towed up quite late, but the conditions were good and I was originally planning on taking the second start time. I hung out with the main gaggle at the start circle, and I did the classical mistake and got low just before the start. I was not too worried until I saw everyone taking the fist start, so it would be few pilots at the second start. I turned aorund and went after the main gaggle, hoping to catch up enough to get contact.

After two thermals I was in contact with the main gaggle, but we had to cross over a big blue hole, and I had to top up as much altitude as possible. At 250o meters we started our glide, aiming for the gaggle that had a strong core on the horizon. I got a bad line and came in the lowest of all, and had to struggle a little to find the  core. By the time I got up the gaggle had left for the next thermal. Not much to do than slow down a little, and take shorter glides. I met up with two Italians Elio and Tulli and we took the last few thermals together and went on final glide.

We were warned that it was not landable around the goal, as it was on the other side of a small town and had lots of oil pumps around it. We took lots of extra altitude, and came in way too high. It was too thermic to fly faster than 100 km/h. The goal area was ugly, with wires, barbed wire fences, and almost no grass. I landed Ok on the asphalt runway. Others were not so lucky, and Olav Lien’s glider blew onto a fence and got a small rift in the sail.

Today we might get a very long task. Weather looks ok.