Category Archives: Hanggliding

Competitions, Hanggliding

Bassano 2009, day 1 and 2

Three weeks ago I hurt my shoulder, by throwing a snowball of all things, I stretched some muscles and a got an infection in a tendon. I’ve been on some drugs that have helped me get movement back and the pain is mostly gone now. I only did a few short flights on the training glider, and I was not sure if I would be able to fly the comp in Bassano.

We traveled to Milano on Monday, and arrived at the Garden Relais hotell at the landing site late Monday night to meet up with the rest of the Norwegian team that is here. I had already booked and paid tickets, so I might as well take it as a vacation if I could not fly much.

The weather has been really nice the last two days, sunny and warm with good lift. I flew both days, the first day I could not fly more than 30 minutes, today it was around one hour before the shoulder started hurting too much.

I will not enter the competition, as it means more aggressive flying and more traffic – not good for the healing process, but I hope to freefly where I can take it more easy and not overload the injury again.

We’re around 15 Norwegians here, and the forecast for the rest of the week is great. Looks like the comp will be well attended too, many top pilots are here.

Setup area

Hanggliding

Finally – Flying

It’s been a wet and generally unflyable winter since I came home from Oz, so when the forecast finally looked good for the weekend it was time to get airborne again. I met up with Espen who graduated from the scooter towing course this fall, and he just need 3 good takeoffs from a mountain launch to get his license. The conditions at Sundvollen were calm with almost no wind, but Espen got his three flights, and did well.

I even got two flights, just sled rides down, but it’s fun to muck around in the floaters again.

Now seeing some of the takeoff it’s clear that pilots are rusty from a long winter without flying. (Been there done that myself, I popped the nose on my first takeoff from Mystic in the Bogong cup this year, windy and turbulent though)

It’s vital to make a good takeoff from the ramp at Sundvollen, especially when it’s nil wind. That guardrail on the road below is not very compromising. There is only one good technique – Get that nose down and hold it down while you run as fast as you can, using long strides. Look at the difference between these two takeoffs;

(Pictures by Bjørn Hammer)

No special trick or anything, just hold the nose down, lean forward and run down the ramp as far as you can. The point of a safe hangglider takeoff is not just to get airborne, it’s to get airborne with as much speed as possible. Speed is safety as you can trade it for manouverability if you hit turbuleunce, or extra height to clear the terrain. This also applies when it’s windy, just make it a habit to always get as much speed as you can before your feet lifts off the ground, and you will have safer and better looking takeoffs.

(Now I will probably stall off the ramp next time I try to take off…)

Competitions, Hanggliding

Bogong Cup 2009, Day 7

The forecasted winds came through, and the day was cancelled at the morning briefing. We did some glider tuning, and packed up to head back to Sydney. The forecast for the next few days are not good for flying.

So 2 tasks out of 9 the way it looks now, not very good for an Australian comp. My flight from Sydney is Thursday afternoon, and I’ll be in Oslo Friday afternoon local time.

Competitions, Hanggliding

Bogong Cup 2009, day 5 and 6

Yesterday looked like a very good day, no winds and good thermals. We went to Mt. Buffalo and set up among the rocks there. The takeoff is a ramp off a cliff with nothing under it for a 1000 meters. Spectacular! I was number 3 to take off, as we have reversed the top 1/3 for the takeoff order. I did not think about the steep cliff launch until i looked back after I had launched and saw the vertical dropoff.

The task was 140 something via a new turnpoint on top of Feathertop(?) mountain, back to the top of Mt. Porepunkah at Bright, over to the Kiewa valley north end, and back to Mt. Beauty.

The air was rough again, and it was hard work in the start gaggle waiting for the start gate to open. The day was totally blue, with strong turbulent lift at times, handling the big RS4 was not easy. The air was just as turbulent when gliding as thermalling. Going with the gaggle would be the strategy for racing. I had a good run towards the first TP flying with the lead gaggle, but as I glided in towards the TP in sink we spread out, I was on top and went to the right and found the sink, bigtime. I was flushed off the ridge in 5-6m/s sink, and had to struggle for a long time to get back up high. The TP was at 1700 meters, and the inversion started at 1600, so it took 3 tried before I could get in there and get the TP.

I glided off back to Bright with 2 other gliders, the lead gaggle was long gone by then and nowhere to be seen. We struggled low at Bright and had to take some crappy lift to get back up over the mountain. The 2 other gliders landed at Bright, and I suddenly felt very alone in the air. Gliding back to the last TP in the Kiewa valley I finally spotted some other gliders, but they were low and struggling, I made the mistake of doing some turns over them instead of going straight for the TP that was 3 km upwind, from where I could have glided back to the small gaggle. I lost 200m there, and took the TP very low and started slowly drifting back towards goal stopping in every solid feeling lift. But the day was shutting down and I was low in the middle of the valley, so after 15 km I had to land, 20km out from Goal. Just one more thermal would have brought be in, and into the top 10 overall. But hindsight is easy…

Today we went to Mystic, in hope that the forecast strong northerly would not be too strong. We waited on the hill for a while, as the gusts got stronger it became clear that it was not very good. The day was canceled at 14:30, and we went to a nice spot in the river north of the Porepunkah airstrip.

Competitions, Hanggliding

Bogong Cup 2009, day 4

Finally some flying! The winds were really strong during the night, but calmed down and was quite light in  the morning. We drove up to Mustic at Bright, and set up in the dustbowl there. (Some lucky bastards got to set up on the carpet :-))

We got a 120 something task, back to Mt. Beauty airstrip via 3 TP. The air was rough at takeoff and I was dead tired before the start gate. Taking the first start gate I got stuck low on a ridge just after the start circle, and lost a lot of time, but I was lucky to not land there. I watched Olav and Robert Reisinger land under me, just as thought I was doomed too I found a nice core and got back up again together with Gerolf and Lucas. It was headwind and difficult to the TP, the inversion stopped us at 1400 meters, and it felt like the 20 km to the TP took forever. From the first TP it was OK and I stayed high until the last TP where we had to cross the valley and came back low on the ridge.

Working up from there with Davis Straub and a few other pilots I had a OK run, and as usual found all the best lift while on final glide. 11. place, not too bad, and I’m happy to not have landed at the start.

Today we go to Mt. Buffalo, looks like a good day again.

Competitions, Hanggliding

Bogong Cup 2009, day 2 and 3

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Day 2 and 3 have been cancelled. We drove up to Emu both days, and set up, only to have the task cancelled due to non taskable conditions on day 2m and too much wind today. Fairly cold at takeoff today, had to wear pants for the first time since I came here. It heated up nicely during the day, and we could spend the afternoon at the river with some cold drinks.

The weather people are optimistic about the next few days, we can only hope.

Competitions, Hanggliding

Bogong Cup 2009, day 1

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High winds, not taskable, day 1 is cancelled. I somehow feel like I’ve been through this before. Can’t complain too much though, it’s sunny and warm, the river is cool, and it’s comfortable wearing sandals and shorts…

About 45 pilots have registered, many from Forbes, but also a few that did not fly at Forbes. Forecast for tomorrow is also iffy, but Friday should be very good again. It’s a total fire ban today, that means the road up to Mystic is closed.

Olav went walking to Mt Bogong, he brought 9 liters of water and should be OK. I’ll spend the day working on my laptop, and maybe a swim in the river again to cool off. We’re sharing a house with the Austrian team now, it’s the same house I stayed in many years ago when I was sick the whole comp here. Not too good memories from that stay, should be better this time. The Austrians wanted to go flying sailplanes today.

Competitions, Hanggliding

Last day at Forbes

The last day looked nice from the morning, but the forecast for thunderstorms soon proved to be correct. We were all set up under a great sky, and had a 146km task to the SE. I took the first start gate among most of the other pilots, and flew fairly fast down the course line under building clouds. I pushed hard, and got a little bit low halfway, but soon got up again. By then a Cu-Nimbus behind us had started dropping a lot of rain, and some lightning. There was another cell to the NW, but we could always run away from these. The problem was another huge cloud dumping rain in the area before goal.

The task was stopped soon after, just as I topped out at cloudbase, and I glided to a sailplane strip with some of the other pilots. We got caught by the rain, and had to hide under some sailplane trailers.

Blay Olmos won the comp with just 3 points on Johnny. The next day Olav and I drove to Mt. Beauty for the Bogong cup, it was a long drive, but it’s nice and green here, and a bit cooler at night.

Competitions, Hanggliding

Forbes, day 5 – 6

Yesterday we were supposed to have a 350km task, but he weather did not turn out as good as forecasted. The day was blue, with quite strong winds. The task was 260 something km to the NNE. I started towing early as third pilot off. We had 1 hour and 30 minutes of waiting in the start circle, and with the strong winds and weak lift it was a struggle at times, but it got better gradually.

I teamed up with Michi, Curt, Blay, and one of the Russians. We got a good start and stayed together for the first 100 km. It was stable and inverted and lift only to 1400 meters, so we typically glided until down to a 1000 meters, and then thermal up to the inversion again. It was slow going, and because of the strong winds it was not smart to get lower. We pressed 20 km upwind of track, as the wind was 90 degrees cross, to be in position to drift towards goal at the end.

At around 120km we went on a long glide towards some good looking paddocs, we had been aiming for the plowed and dark areas all day, and it had worked so far. Blay had topped out before us a few thermals ago, and we had lost him. I was upwind and highest with the Russian just behind me, Curt low to my right, and Michi downwind of Curt. We spread out in search pattern, but soon were low and in deep shit, and could not find anything. This was over a remote area, but there was a farm up front with a waterhole and some dark paddocs around. I aimed for downwind of the waterhole, in case it could trigger a thermal. But there was nothing, I could see the Russian had found something weak about a km upwind of me, but I was down to 150 meters off the deck, so I could not go there.

I saw Michi land next to the farm house, and I went downwind to the treeline at the end of the paddock, where I could land close to the farm. I got a shitty thermal off the treeline, and managed to hang on to it for some turns, and it improved to a nice 3m/s core. I was saved for now, but completely alone as the Russian was still struggling upwind, and did not come to my thermal.

This sucked, as we were going quite fast, and doing well in our little gaggle, we were doing good time to make it to goal, despite the slow conditions. Alone in this meant slowing down and taking all the lift I could find.

As we had pushed upwind all day I was now in a position to go more directly downwind, or so I thought, but the wind was at times actually headwind. I had to cross over an area with no roads, no farms, just trees and small grazing paddocs. I hesitated as going alone meant I would not make enough time to make goal, and the strong winds were not helping at all. Getting out of that area with no roads would be a pain. So I turned into the wind and landed next to a small town, actually going backwards on the final, it was howling. I landed holding the basebar, and had to hold my glider down while packing up or it would slide away.

Olav had gone very early, before the start gate opened, and landed 80 km out. Nic was doing well but pushed a little too hard and landed 50 km before goal. Not many in goal, and many of the top pilots landed out.

Today is a rest day, and the funeral service for Steve Elliot. Conditions look good, weak winds and cu’s forming in the sky. But we are not complaining too much from the poolside though.