Two days ago was the best day I’ve seen in a long time, perfect cu’s, low winds and high cloudbase. As I wrote before we did not fly because of the accident the day before. See the Ozreport and other blogs for more speculations about the accident, but beware that there’s a lot of rumors and inaccurate information out there. We do not have all the facts, and everyone seems to love to speculate. I’ve seen the pictures of the failed bridles and hangloops, the main hangloop failed just above the harness slider, the parachute bridle was intact, so something in the attachment to the harness broke. Check your harness for wear and tear as normal, if everything looks good you should be safe. If it’s very old or worn you should replace it.

Yesterday we got a 179 km dogleg task. We were a little slow getting going because of strong winds at launch. I got 100 meters and then Grant on the trike hit a thermal that left me no chance to save the weaklink. I tried to take the thermal, and drifted back and over the airstrip, but I had to glide back as I drifted too much. That put me in a very bad position as I was among the top 30 and had to take the race start at 14:30. I was now one hour behind the rest of the pack, alone, and just had to fly very conservatively under the thickening cirrus. I eventually got to goal after 4 hours in the air, but I was heavily penalized and dropped 11 places in the overall scores. Feels quite unfair, as there was nothing I could do to to avoid it. No one would be able to hang on in that air.

Jon did a great flight and came in at 4. place. Olav and Nils had good flights too. Easy retrieves with everyone in goal, but still we are not home until 23:00.

Today the front came through, with wind and rain. Probably no flying.

Results.

Jon landed to assist with the accident, I did not speak to him so I did not know until this morning. It was an Austrian pilot who had the accident. No task today.

The last day of the competition, and another good flying day. It was a good chance of overdevelopment, and a cu-ni started building over Rondane quite early. We changed the task to keep us local, also to keep pilots so close that everyone have time to get back to the prize giving.

The task became a 75km multiple out&return, race start at 14:00. I took a nice core to cloudbase and was there 15 minutes before the start gate. I then planned badly and lost height while searching around for lift closer to the start circle edge. I did not get up again, and got a piss-poor start when I had to go back and take lift over the takeoff to get back up again. Lost 6-7 minutes there.

On course it was very strong conditions and quite turbulent because of the speed we fly, I did not risk flying with full VG much of the time, gliding at 90-100 km/h between lift. I raced the task, and had big problems getting down around the second last TP, from there I glided through the last TP and passed goal with 500 meters to spare, and got 7. place.
All in all a great competition, with 6 out of 8 days flying. Now I have some hours in the air again, and wish we could start over with a new comp.

Results from Vågå open are online at http://www.vaagaaopen.no

Two great days in Vågå, with nice strong lift and not much wind. The task for day 6 was a 91,1km out and return race task, from Vole via Otta to Kvam, and back to Vågå bru and then goal at the center. I flew the task without any major drama, and came in as number 5. Some parts of the course was in shade, and Arnt, Speidern, Jan Erik and me struggled a little in Heidal, but when we got back up again it was easy to get to goal.

Today we had a shorter 50km triangle, race task, with some extra turnpoints for the start circle and final glide. We had to postpone the start gate one hour because of cirrus shading the aree, but when it broke up we were rewarded with great conditions and nice clouds. It was a little crowded outside launch, so I found a nice core to be alone in and took it to cloudbase at 2600 meters.

After the first TP at Otta I chose different than the lead gaggle, and went on a course more towards Lalm. The plan was to take the last lift behind Andershøe, and glide the rest of the course from htere. But the lift behind Andershøe was too weak despite a nice cloud there, and I spent 5 minutes too much there, before crossing over to the last TP in Heidal and joining up with Arnt and Otto. I got in as number 6, and we had 15 pilots in goal. Lots of happy faces and some first goalers too. Great day. Erik V went for open distance and roumour has it he made 175km.
Tomorrow look like it will be another classic day!

Olav Opsanger flew concistently good in the European championships in Croatia, and got 18. place in total as best Norwegian. “Frisi” won, in front of Oleg and Primoz Gricar. Total results (pdf)

Seemed to be a very challenging comp, with many top names changing places all the time.

I’ve finally posted the tracklogs from Milslukern, you can get them at the Jetta LSK homepage. It’s zip files with all the tracklogs in one, so you can check out what everyone else did. Results are also online at the same page.

More pictures from Milslukern.

I did not have the time to write about the competition here, as the weather turned good and we had flying all days and looong nights with retreives and scoring. I’m running the comp more or less as a one man show, so there’s not much time to spare.

A high pressure area moved in and gave blue skies and warm weather. The high pressure made it quite stable, but with over 25 degress on the ground we got good lift during the day.

On Friday we set a “Race to nowhere” task for the Paragliding Norwegian Cup, with 60 Km goal circle. The race start at 12:30 from the 5 Km start circle around takeoff, and end when you pass 60 Km in any direction. It makes it possible to use all the valley systems, and gives the pilots more choices and freedom to solve the task.

Unfortunately the NW winds hit takeoff just after window open, and some pilots got stuck there. The ones that got out had quite good conditions, and the winnders flew over 100km. 4 PG pilots crossed the virtual 60 Km goal.

Saturday and Sunday were like Friday, but Sunday proved a little more stable and difficult for many. We got many flights over 100km, Olav Opsanger flew SE to Elverum, while Jon Gjerde took a NE route to Os near Røros.

Arnt take off at the West takeoff, Frode Halse in the foreground is grounded in the strong conditions.

Results are delayed until I get all the tracklogs from yeaterday by email. Hopefully tonight.