It was too windy to fly on Saturday, but we got a window of good conditions Sunday morning and I had time for a short flight in Bassano before packing up and driving to MUC for my flight home to Oslo.
Leaving Bassano
Category Archives: Hanggliding
Images from Bassano easter flying
CIVL plenary meeting 2014, Kuta Bali, Indonesia
Indonesia hosted this years CIVL plenary, and we spent 4 days inside conference rooms, while the sun was shining outside.
The meeting was very efficient and well prepared this year as we had most of the work done in the different committees during the year. Some pictures;
Time is relative. Travels, nationals, beginner course, work, and life in general.
Seems like it was yesterday I looked at the snow outside, now it’s late summer, what happened?
Well.. Flyingwise it’s been a bleak season at home so far. We had our Nationals in Vågå as usual one week in July, I think these pictures tell the tale of the weather we had;
We did not fly a single task in the nationals, weatherdemons vs hanggliding – 8:0 The nationals ended on Saturday, and on Sunday it was flyable and taskable again… I took some pictures from flying in Bøverdalen that Sunday;
The week after our nationals was my XC flying week this summer, but even though we got some good flying, the conditions were too stable for any real XC attempts. I did get to try out my new GoPro camera boom from Instinct Windsports, works great! A few examples from a late evening flight over Vågå (We took off at 19:00). So not a single good XC flight at home this summer so far, and it’s getting late into the season now.
After that week I headed back south to Elverum and Starmoen airport to run a beginner course in Hanggliding. The course went really well with 8 students, we had really nice weather most days, and flew 8 out of 9 days with really good progress and great students. It was a scootertowing course, and we did around 250 tows that week with great results. Some pictures; (Some images by Morten Heller and Frederic Bakken)
Workwise it’s been quite busy spring and summer, I did the next big Cisco certification – CCDE in April and May. (Which involved 3 trips to London in 3 weeks), then flew to Miami, had a week vacation on South Beach in Miami, and Long Island in the Bahamas, before heading up to Orlando for the yearly Cisco Live conference.
I also did a quick trip to the North of Norway, to meet family and also meet classmates from highschool 25 years ago, which was great fun! Weather was “interesting”;
Easter flying
We had sunny and cold weather for easter hollidays. Me and Georgira went xc skiing in the nice conditions, it was about time since it’s 20 years ago I did it the last time.
Weather was great for flying too, so today I met up with lots of other HG and PG pilots at Sundvollen for a few very nice flights in weak thermal and soaring conditions.
Worlds 2013, day 10, task 9
Blog posts here are getting shorter as I am getting more tired :-)
Task 9 was around 250km, 4 turnpoints, going back to Forbes. Olav Opsanger again did a great flight and reached goal as only Norwegian, while Nils Aage landed just short, me and Olav lien just behind that, Johnny at the 3. TP, and Tormod between the second and third TP. Less than 20 pilots made goal, so the task was hard enough… The leader Manfred landed out and lost his 200 point lead, so it’s suddenly exiting again in the top.
We had real clouds for the first time, and conditions in the startgate were good, even though we started one hour earlier than normal. I had a good start with Olav Lien and Johnny, but got some really bad air all the way to the first TP. I lost over 30 minutes to Olav Opsanger and Nils Aage on the first 70km leg, just could not find any decent lift even under good clouds I had to take 1 and 2m/s thermal when Olav were reporting 5m/s thermals all the way.
After finally getting the TP I had a good run the rest of the task, gaining around 30km on the leaders, but the day ran out in the end, the last thermal was 0.2 m/s and drifted the wrong way, so I landed at sunset at 19:40 40 km short from goal after nearly 7 hours in the air.
Last day today, close to 200km out and return to the north, looks like a very hard day again.
Worlds 2013, day 9, task 8
Long task again today, blue conditions, light winds, and thermals up to 2000m. The team had a good day with Olav Opsanger, Nils Aaage, me, Johnny and Olav Lien Olsen in goal. Tormod landed near the second TP.
I had a low start at 1500 meters, but found good conditions along the course and soon caught up with the main gaggle. I was flying with Nils Aage and Olav Lien most of the task, but we lost Olav at the second TP. Final glide of 1:11 and straight into goal with around 4:30 in the air today. Reasonable fast day and much improved from yesterdays disaster task for me. Too tired to write more now, we are all looking like old men getting stiff bodies out of the harnesses in goal, only two more days to go so hope the shoulders and back can take the abuse a little more.
Worlds 2013, day 8, task 7
240km straight downwind task. Only Nils Aaage made goal from our team. Olav Opsanger had 4 tows to get up and away, and flew very fast to catch up, but landed 41km before goal, Johnny and Tormod around 25 km from goal.
I had a frustrating day – when I got ready to fly and discovered that my VG rope had gone up into the upright on my glider, so I had to derig completely, disassemble and reassemble the upright and VG rope, and set up the glider again while the clock was ticking. I got a good tow and find a nice thermal up to 1600m with some other pilots. I was too late to take the first start gate, and moved up towards the cylinder to get in position for the second clock, but hit massive sink and could not go back to get more lift. Struggled out of the startcircle at 10 minutes too early, and drifted up to bogan gate not finding anything to get up.
I landed at 38km out from the start. This is my worst competition result in my career so far, not having much fun these last days…
Worlds 2013, day 7, task 6
Task 6 was a dogleg to Gulgong goal, 220km. It was nice conditions early in the morning, but lots of cirrus moved in over us when setting up, shading the courseline. I got a weaklink break, and had to come back for a reflight. As I landed the winds picked up strongly, and that would be the case for the rest of the day. I got a good reflight towing behind Bruce, and drifted out of the startcircle under the shaded sky.
A lot of pilots took the first start gate at 14:10, so we had a nice gaggle going up towards the turnpoint. The wind was quite strong the whole courseline and increasing as we approached the turnpoint. It had been open flatlands with good landing options in strong winds, but after the TP we got hills and forested areas. I got a thermal over some small ridges, but the drift would take me in over trees and non-landable terrain. I was flying backwards into the trees in the wind, so I chose to play it safe and pull in to land at the last landable field. It was not fun to land, very turbulent and gusts of 50 km/h that increased to over 100 later in the evening. The task was stopped because of the winds, but sometime after I decided to land, so I get penalized in the scores.
James Stinnet landed just behind me and we packed up together in the paddoc and walked out to the main road, only to find locked gates so we could not get the car in. Georgia did a great job of finding an alternate route through another property so we only had to carry 500 meters.
Scores on the two stopped tasks are not fair, as they do not take into account start times and height of the pilots.
Practice days 1 and 2 in Forbes
I’m back in Forbes with blue skies, thermals are booming, and all is well. I met up with the rest of the Norwegian team who had spent a few days flying at Gulgong, they had good conditions and nice flying there, and now it’s time to get up in Forbes and be well prepared for the Worlds that start on Monday.
It’s stinking hot in the tow paddoc at the airport with 38 degrees today, and predicted 40 degrees tomorrow. Yesterday was quite windy and gusty, with dustdevils working their way through the gliders in the setup line. We waited to set up until most pilots had towed up, and was rewarded with an afternoon flight in windy but OK conditions.
Today we set a task out and return to Peak Hill, about 150km, and in hindsight we should have set a start time to get a small gaggle going into the blue conditions, instead of getting spread out from the start.
I was some km behind Olav Lien from the start and had a few good thermals until I pushed a little too hard hard upwind and started getting low in sink. I found some weak thermals and got up to around 1000 meters, but lost a nice 3 m/s core and could not find it again – searching through the 6 m/s sink soon had me looking for a landing again. I decked it around 35km from the TP at Peak hill, so it was a short flight for me today. Olav Lien seems to have done the whole task as I write this he’s still flying, while Olav Opsanger and Nils Aage landed on the way back between Peak Hill and Forbes. Johnny and Tormod flew locally at Forbes.
