The meteo did not forecast rain today, but as we opened the start window at Vole it was gray, and around 13:00 it started pouring down. So the first day of Milslukern went on without much flying. Some pilot flew late in the afternoon, and scored around 5 km :-)
Around 45 pilots here now, we excpect more towards the weekend. Forecast for tomorrow and the weekend is very good!
Olav Opsanger and Olav Lien Olsen have been flying the Florida Ridge and Flytec championships in Florida this easter. Olav Opsanger did well at Quest with 13. place, up from 18. place last year. It was a total of 70 flex wings in the comp. Oleg won, Brett second and Jon Jr. third.
Olav Lien Olsen came 45, improving from 59. place last year. The weather did not seem to cooperate in Florida this year, ref. the Oz Report, with high winds and overdevelopment cancelling many days.
In Bassano they had 2 days flying, Nils Åge was the only Norwegian and came in 10. place of total 40 pilots. Robert Reisinger won in front of Frisi and Hans Kiefinger.
Frya Cup is the first competition in Norway, and it starts this weekend. Hope we get a good start of the season with perfect weather.
And a little off topic news – I got married to Georgia 16/4. I traveled with family and friends to Brasilia this easter, thus no flying news. It was a fantastic event with around 150 guests from Brasil and Norway.
The pilots are in Tocumwal at Tove’s Sportavia soaring center. There will be a week long aerotowing competition that starts on the 21. Tove is running a training camp for new pilots these days before the competition.
According to the Oz report there was a fatal accident there today, where a pilot tucked and spun to the ground from about 130 meters. I feel so sorry for Tove and the pilots there.
There is no competition in Hay or Deniliquin this year, guess the green grass and pool at Tocumwal is preferrable to the desert and dust further north.
Goal at Tocumwal last year, there’s a pool, and resturant between the trees. Nils Åge, Jon and I made it in, after a good day that got difficult at the end.
Atilla won the Bogong cup with a strong 400 point lead on Gerolf in second, and Olli got third place. All Litespeeds. Jon got 13. place overall. Full results from the Oz report
Atilla at Goal in Tocumwal last year.
It’s nice to be able to analyze the tracklogs from the Bogong Cup soon after each day is scored. I was looking at the best flights, and found Jon’s choice on day 4 to be interesting…
Jon’s track is the green on the left, he chose to go all alone, way off course to the first TP. I emailed him and asked if it paid off, and he wrote it did not really work. He wanted to be smarter than everyone else, and took the chance to go by himself. He got low, and met headwind going to the TP anyway.
Kevin Carter writes about flying with Steve Moyes in his blog, Steve is the Ninja Master, Kevin is the Grasshopper, and no one can beat the Ninja Master :-) Flying with Steve is a humbling experience, he is super smooth and efficient in every move.
After another good day yesterday with 6. place, Jon seemed to have a bad run today with only 38km of the 104km course. He’s now in 13. place overall. Gerolf won the day today, with his apprentice Michael 9 seconds behind. Atilla is still way ahead after 3. place today, Andreas on 4.
Looks like it was another difficult day in the Bogong Cup, Jon did not make goal, but landed 20 km short on the 134km task, at 17. palce. He dropped down to 11. place again in the overall scoring. Atilla won the day again, showing great form and now have a comfortable 339 point lead on Johnny Jr. in second, and Olli just behind in 3.
Andreas did well and got to goal and 6. place yesterday.
After day 3 Jon moved up to 7. place overall! He did really well with 6. place on day 3, according to the Oz report it was a very slow day with total overcast conditions. Only 9 pilots in goal, Andreas missed it by a few km in 10. place. Atilla is still in the lead, while Steve Moyes moved up to second place after outclassing everyone on day 3.
Results are available from the Oz report, the official homepage of the Bogong Cup did not have any result links, nor does Wesley Hill who is the scorer put them on his homepage.
I have not spoken to Jon yet, but according to Nils Åge he is flying one of Gerolf’s old gliders. Jon complained it was stiff, but had good performance.
Jon Gjerde is the only Norwegian in Oz this year, he is doing well after two days of the Bogong Cup with 11. place overall of 66 pilots. The Hungarian mafia of Atilla and Balaz did really good on the first day and are in the lead in front of Olli.
Andreas is the only Swede, and he seems to be struggling, it’s unusual for him to be down at 28. place overall in this comp that he knows well.
Damn those Austrians and their RedBull and vodkas, the party lasted until 07:00 and it was hard to get up, pack up and go home on Sunday…
I’ve put the final scores online, http://hp.nlf.no/vaagaaopen
Short update;
Yesterday we finally saw the sun again. It was flyable in Bøverdalen, and we made a local task of around 55 km. Unfortunately some clouds shaded the valley for a long time, and the early starters all fell through. I took off around 19:30, when I saw Seppi and Johnny who had just taken off start to climb slowly. We got a weak lift to 1600 meter, I glided to take the start at Raudbergstulen together with Seppi, and them back to under the takeoff where the rest of the gaggle were struggling. We glided towards the first TP but got nothing usable, it was just too late. I had to turn back 1,5 km before the TP because there was a mountain in my flight path :-) (The TP was at 1300 meters) Seppi was a little higher and turned back 600 meters before it. Nobody made it furter, Seppi won the day, Nils Åge second and me third. The day was worth nothing in the scoring, the winner got 13 points.
Today was another very good day in Bøverdalen, 64km local task, blue thermals and good lift. I had lost my last bit of motivation and did not complete the task, but abortet halfway and landed at the main LZ. It was very turbulent and switchy because of the thermic conditions, the wind switched 180 degrees 3 times while I was trying to land. The last time when I was on final, I slammed in downwind and took out 2 uprights and 2 fittings.
Results will be posted later.