Category Archives: Hanggliding

Competitions, Hanggliding

Worlds 2011, day 3 and 4

We went up on the hill two days ago, it was OK conditions in the morning, but the winds got too strong for task flying so the day was cancelled. Some pilots flew and reported OK conditions, but conditions on launch were too difficult to get 150 pilots safe off and on time. We needed 3 wiremen each to turn the gliders round.

Yesterday we drove to Subasio and got a 122 km task. I had been feeling sick the evening and night before, and was not getting any better driving to launch. I set up and took off as one of the last pilots from the hill, into windy conditions but some areas of good lift. I got up and took the first startgate after getting sick and throwing up while flying inside the startcircle. I felt a little better after throwing up once, but soon got sick again and decided to glide out and land, I was too weak and dizzy to safely keep flying so I picked a huge field and just glided straight there.

My day did not get any better after hearing about the terrorist attacks in Oslo, but at least it put things in perspective.

The rest of our team spread out, with Vegar getting low and landing early, Johnny landed near the first TP with a big gaggle and many top pilots who hand to land, Nils Åge landed near the 3 TP at around 83km with around 30 other pilots. Looks like only 20 made goal, and Primoz is in the lead.

Today (Day 5) looks very gray from the morning, it’s been raining during the night, and the weatherman was not optimistic about flying today.

Results can be found at: http://www.cucco2011.org/

Competitions, Hanggliding

Worlds 2011, Day 1, too windy

This morning we could see the low clouds whizzing by the takeoff hill as we were having breakfast outside in the sun. The day was cancelled for flying at the team leader briefing this morning because of forecasted high winds (50 knots) and fronts passing through the area.

We will go sightseeing today, as there is not much to do here in Sigilio. Johnny wants to drive go-carts, maybe we should save that for tomorrow…

 

Competitions, Hanggliding

Worlds 2011, Training day

It was as windy as predicted this morning, with lenticularis clouds over takeoff. The day was cancelled for flying at the morning briefing, but we had a nice safety briefing with Raymond Caux making a short talk about VG use, hooking in the harness before putting it on, and the mindset about incidents (We are learning to make mistakes every time we make one and live to tell about it, we should concider the incidents luck instead of bad luck)

The weather forecast for tomorrow is not great with rain and some more wind, but should be better after that.

Competitions, Hanggliding

Worlds, opening ceremony

I arrived in Sigilio yesterday, and met up with the rest of the team there. The flying yesterday was nice, and many of the pilots here had great flights. I was too tired and jetlagged, and did not go up the hill. Today it was too windy to fly here, which was fine for me as I did not sleep at all last night.

We went through the opening ceremony, with the parade, a few short speeches, and a cool show featuring artists with fire, fireworks, stilts, and lots of smoke and drama. I think most pilots enjoyed the ceremony and show, and it’s nice to see all the support from the town and officials here for the competition.

The team, from left – Per (Driver), Vegar, Johnny, Nils Aage, and me.

Norwegian team at the Worlds 2011
Norwegian team at the Worlds 2011

 

From the show;

Competitions, Hanggliding

Norwegian Nationals, task 1 and 2

We finally got two days of flying conditions, sun and some thermals. The first 94km task was very difficult in stable, weak, and broken lift. One a few got away onto the task, with Nils Aage in the lead. Today we had a gray morning, but eventually it cleared up and we could fly a 57km lokal task with some massive overdevelopment to the north of us over Rondane. I got a mediocre start, and I made a mistake with the third TP radius, and missed it by 2,6km. It took me some time to realize my mistake, and by then I did not have the energy to go back and re-take the TP so I flew down and landed in goal. Lots of pilots made goal, Olav Opsanger was first in today and will take the lead.

Some pictures from today;

 

Hanggliding

Flying fibreglass at Starmoen

It was forecasted grey conditions and not much thermals, but I was aiming for a nice afternoon and getting my check flight at Starmoen. I got checked out on the Duo Discus T with Ole Marskar as instructor, it’s a nice plane and with the sustainer engine we could climb quite well.

On the first flight we got to thermal with a gaggle of Cranes migrating north for the summer, it was a really nice experience!

After my two check flights I took flights with Georgia and Gunnar as passengers. It was a bit turbulent today, and Georgia quickly got airsick so we came back down after 15 minutes. When I was flying with Gunnar we found a few rough and weak thermals, but strong enough to climb to around 1200 meters. Gunnar tried to thermal, but got airsick as well after some time fighting with the rough air.

All in all a great day out, with around 2 hours airtime and 4 tows. Thanks to Ole, Ulf, the Tuggie, and everyone else at Starmoen for a nice flying day!

Hanggliding

AI in OSL airspace, hangglider?

Yesterday we had a possible Airspace Infringement in OSL airspace, the pilot and copilot of a SAS airliner spotted a flying object at around 8000ft in the controlled airspace, and the news reported it as a hangglider or sailplane. The airspace was closed for more than one hour, and thousands of passengers were delayed and many flights had to be redirected to other airports.

Our airsports organization have been working intensively to clarify if it was any of our members, but it seems no sailplane, hangglider, paraglider or microlight was flying in that area at the time. It was too windy to fly hang or paraglider safely yesterday, and cloudbase seemed a lot lower than 8000ft.

Anyway, here’s the interview I made for the national news channel, they only used a tiny portion of what they filmed for the interview.

Hanggliding

Winter flying

Last weekend I invited our students to come flying, only Andrè and Lars showed up, but we did get to fly. Maybe the others were worried about the cold, it was chilly and then some with -21 at Sundvollen on Saturday and -26 at Bangsberg on Sunday.

Some pictures, mostly from Saturday as the camera did not like the -26 on Sunday :-)