Despite the bad forecast we woke up to blue skies and no wind in the morning. We went to a south-facing takeoff just outside the city. The takeoff is quite low and it was marginal conditions in the beggining. We got a 87 km task, to the north-east via 2 TP and back south-west to goal. The forecast was for 20km winds all the way to cloudbase.

I got off together with Olav and Arnt, we slowly got up ridgde soaring and catching some weak broken thermals. The startgate was 25km around the first TP, and I got to cloundbase drifting into the gate. We took off about 45 minutes before the first start time, and I had to fly back out 3-4 km to take the start time. It was bad timing, and I got low taking the start while the rest of the gaggle was in cloudbase. I almost landed next to a highway after gliding for about 10km, but got up over a few other low gliders. From there I met up with Olav and Arnt before the first TP and we glided in OK conditions under a mostly overcast sky, but nice tailwind towards the second TP. I was leading the gaggle on one glide, and pressed east to get over sunny areas to the right of the courseline. The clouds were good even further east, but it seemed like a very long detour to get to the second TP. A stopped in some lift to wait and see what the rest of the gaggle did, and saw some pilots going up in the blue ahead, so I went back on track towards those pilots.

Nils Åge and Johnny was a few km ahead of us, and Nils Åge reported headwind and difficult conditions going to the second TP. He landed soon after, and reported very strong winds on the ground. The area was blue under cirrus cover, and we glided into what became a very strong headwind, making the termals blow apart. Olav and I landed on the same field close to Nils Åge an Johnny. Arnt was behind us and got the message to go slowly and take all lift. He landed almost at the TP.

Manfred was the only pilot to make goal, and only a few made it around the second TP. I saw from the track that he had taken the detour east that I was concidering, at least I had been thinking about it. :-)

All in all an OK start on the comp for the team, there’s only a few points separating the first 80 pilots. Almost everyone landed in the same area before the second TP.

Later we learned a Croatian pilot crashed on landing, and died. Arnt saw the crash while he was flying. Two of the Swedish pilots was there and gave the crashed pilot CPR, but he did not make it. Another Dutch pilot was hurt in his back, he will be OK.

Today was cancelled because of the accident, and the weather is not flyable anyway.

Today was registration and opening parade in Millau. It’s the usual chaos, with all the teams and long speaches no one listens to. There is around 120 pilots here for the competition. The weather is getting worse and colder every day. Today was flyable, but we got some small rainshowers. A lot of the local pilots are pessimistic about the weather for the next few days.

Tomorrow is first competition day, and they will probably send us to the south away from the strong winds and rain.

Picture from todays parade in Millau city centre

No flying today, it was raining this morning and even though the rain ceased it has not been taskable conditions. Lars Bo (Aeros Combat L) from Denmark won the competition, Gordon Rigg (Moyes Litespeed S) on second and Steve Elkins (Avian Cheetah) on third. I felt we got good training and knowledge of the area here with the few days of flying we had. Tomorrow and Monday is official training days for the European Championships, and the first comp day is Tuesday.

The takeoffs for the comp are nice, but the valleys around Millau is not flat and the landings seem quite challenging. I do not want to fly tasks into the valleys here in strong winds like we had two days ago. If we can stay over the mountain plateaus it’s fine, as it’s flat and lots of big fields. The area we take off into is where three valleys meet, this can make the winds very unpredictable and turbulent. The locals say it’s usually calm winds and lots of paragliders fly here all the time.

Today’s been a slow day walking in the city and fiddling with our equipment. As always there are some details and adjustments that needs to be done.

We went up to Punte takeoff, but it was way to windy to do a task. We waited until 14:00, and then the day was cancelled. We have spent the day in the pool at the camping, and swimming in the (cold) river.

Nils Aage and Johnny arrived last night, so the full team is here.
Lars Bo from denmark is leading the comp, a few points ahead of Gordon Rigg.

We first went up to Punte takeoff, but when we were set up and ready to go the wind switched to the north and became stronger (Sound familiar?). So we all packed up and went to the Brunas takeoff, we got a 76km task with first start gate at 16:15 We took off just before 16:00, and got up and away at the first gate. It was strong headwind and inverted stable conditions.

The first TP was difficult, but I got a good thermal that gave me height to glide to second. There I got stuck for 45 minutes soaring on a hill with 20 other pilots, including Olav. When we finally got away from there it was OK conditions downwind to goal. Arnt got stuck on the takoff, and started at 17:00, wich proved to be a good thing since the conditions got much better later in the day. Arnt got to goal 30 minutes after me, but with a 10 minutes better time. Olav landed 20 km short of goal.

Today looks like another good day here, blue skies and not much wind in the morning.

Yesterday we finally got everything in order with driver, car and roofracks. We got a task from the local takeoff to the south, back north past takeoff and a little triangle back to the landing next to our camping. The forecast was good, and no rain. But as we set up it clouded over and got gray. I chose to wait for the clouds to clear a little, as the others were thermalling in very weak conditions. I finally took off, and got slowly up. It started to rain so I ran for the first TP, but rained down there. Just too late taking off, Olav and Arnt got halfway through the task.

Today it was even slower and totally shitty conditions, some pilots got away, I did not even take off. It was 3 hours drive one way to that takeoff. It was 250 meters above a small landingfield that claimed quite a few gliders and at least one pilot hurt in his leg. Olav flew 54km in weak conditons after spending 1,5 hours 100 meters above takeoff.

We arrived in Millau at 03:30 Sunday morning, after about 2400 km of driving from Oslo. The drive was long but not too tiring since we could lay down in the camper car when not driving. The city of Millau and area around here looks nice, it’s a small city with some hills and small mountains in the area around. Prices here are high, fuel and food in resturants are the same as in Norway.

Yesterday was blown out, it was very strong winds from the North. We spent the day setting up camp in the campsite where the HQ is located. Good for us as Olav and Arnt had to work on their gliders.

It’s windy today too, looks like another blown out day. It’s OK for us since we still have to find a car and driver :-)

On day 2 We got a 84km task to the South, back north past Köping and back again. The weather was a little better than the day before, with less winds. Still it was clearly going to overdevelop, so we all got ready early. I towed as number 4, but had to release just after takeoff to avoid a lockout. Then I was in the back of the line, and waited for more than 1 hour to get back up again. Jon, Olav and Robin was well away on the task by the time I got my second tow, and the sky was full of showers from collapsing cumulus clouds.

I got a nice tow by Kai to over the golf club, and released into a weak thermal that got me to about 1300 meters before it started to snow from the cloud above. I went on glide towards south, and found a nice 4 m/s thermal from 300 meters above the ground just where I thought it should be. I got to about 1800 meters before it started to snow, but at this height the snow was dry and did not stick to the glider so I got above 2000 meters before I went on glide. The path ahead was crossing under a cloudstreet that had overdeveloped and I could barely see through the snow. I aimed for for some sunny fields ahead, but could not find any useful lift. I searched the area for some time as it was pointless gliding on with no sun ahead. I slowly fell through, and landed just 20 km out in the task 9 km from the first TP.

Robin landed at the first TP, Olav made second TP, while Jon made it almost to goal. Only Johan Dalquist made goal with a rigid wing. Arnt, Bjørn and Johnny could not get away from the field.

Day 3 was even more unstable than the day before, and we decided it was pointless even setting up. Jon and Robin flew, but did not make it far. The forecast was bad for day 4, and we packed up to go home.

It was a nice comp, Köping is a very nice flying site that has potential for some really good tasks. One pilot set a new swedish record from Köping a few weeks before with a 245km flight, he landed almost in Norway.

We arrived in Köping last night, after driving trough some very strong wind and showers. Arnt got his first two tows in a calm period last night. Today it was about half the strength of yesterday, about 10 m/s, and it calmed down during the day. We set a 84km task to the south, but it was not flyable because almost every cumulus cloud collapsed into a rainshower. We waited on the field for a loong time, and the task got canceled at 15:30 when no one had taken off. We went to town and got some food, and finally got some flying at about 18:00. It was quite nice conditions. I had spent the morning changing the sprogs on my glider to carbon ones, and wanted a few flights to test it.

Forecast for tomorrow looks very good, only problem could be overdelvelopment.

More wind from NW, but we went up to takeoff after the second briefing on Sunday. It was quite flyable, but it got canceled when a paraglider pilot tested the conditions and found some turbulence. It was probably the right thing to do, since it was not launchable most of the time anyway.

Monday seemed nice with sun and cumulus clouds, but it was forecasted stronger winds during the day. The organizers cancelled the PG task at the first briefing, and I think we were too few HG pilots there to make it worth it having a task for us. I was a little dissapointed, since it seemed like a good day to fly hanggliders.

Tomorrow we drive to Köping in Sweden, to fly a competition there. It will be Robin, Johnny, Arnt, Olav, Jon, Bjørn, and me. It’s been logged some good paraglider flights in the flightlog from the area near Köping while we have been grounded here in Norway, so the forecasted strong winds might not be a problem that far east.