Late update, it was the worst weather in 100 years with floods and torrential rain. On Saturday we actually set a task, and got off Vole, but it was overcast and not much lift. We will try again next weekend, hope the weather improves until then.

Here’s a few pictures from some afternoon flying.

Dag Ring making some trails in the water

Gliders in the fog

Lining up

Speidern did not glide over the water :-)

Arnt landing

Out of the sun

Came across this image, taken from a plane at very high altitude. Cool perspective.

And this is what the International Space Station looks like from the space shuttle. Klick for full hi-res version.

It’s been very hot and nice weather here lately, so I took the Dragonfly for a Saturday evening flight from Spydeberg. It was silk smooth and very warm. Having parked the Dragonfly I went straight to Vågå, as the forecast was good.

Tore and I went to Espesetra on Sunday, I declared an out&return form Sjoa to Lom and back, 109 km. It looked very good, with high cloudbase and not much wind. However the conditions were not exeptional, we struggled to get up, and despite nice clouds I had a very hard time pushing into the wind after turning at Sjoa and pushing up Heidal. I lost altitude all the way, and ended up aborting the task and trying to get back up crossing over to Lalm. I ridge soared there for a while, but could not find any thermals, and landed at Lalm. Nils Åge picked me up, and we drove to Dovre to get Tore who had flown north trying to cross into Grimsdalen.

Today looked good too, but it’s been completely blue and the strong westerlies came in as forecasted. I waited for Olav to finish at work so we could go to Heidal again, but it took too long, and the stronger winds canned the day for us. Looks like the weather will change the coming days with snow(!) forecasted.

I took some photos of the lenticularis clouds here today

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I went to Vågå the last weekend on a fairly good forecast. Saturday was quite windy, but we went up and had a look. At Vole it seemed OK, but lenticularis clouds were forming all over the sky, and arriving at Blåhø about 500 meters higher it was difficult to stand upright in the wind.

I spent most of the day doing some much needed organizing at the center, removing old noticeboards, posters, and such. I also finished installation of the new weather station hardware and software. You can find live data from the roof of the center at http://hp.nlf.no/rikssenteret/vaerstasjon

Sunday seemed to be a good day, and we went up to Salknappen. It was very good conditions, but the SE winds were quite strong. Steinar was first off on his Falcon 3, and he quickly got high. I got ready and took off straight into a nice thermal. The other pilots were just boating around in the area, and I had not seen that Steinar glided off to the NW. I waited to see if someone were keen to go XC, but nobody wanted to go. I dit not want to go alone into the blue and windy conditions, as it would be hard to push back into the wind getting home from an out&return. Steinar had flown to Lesjaskog, and Olav who came up when I landed went for a small out&return to Otta and back. I did some adjustments to the glider, and went back up for a late night flight together with Bjørn. We set up in a hurry and got off just as it died out completely.

Monday turned out to be a very good day. We drove up too early as the paragliders wanted to get off as early as possible. At Salknappen it was too much cross, so we set up at Vole. Olav and I flew a 50 km triangle that was way too short for a good day. When the day started working around 14:00 we got up to 2300 meters, and around 15:00 I got to 3100 meters, and could see a few scattered clouds that looked like a cloudbase at 3500 meters.

The days so far have been good, and it’s not been nice to be at work looking out at the clouds…

I went to Vågå this weekend for a party, and only brought my harness in case it would be flyable. Saturday turned out to be a great day, and Fredrik and me decided to go up to Vole and try to get a flight. It’s still some snow on the road up the mountain, so the drive up with summer tires on Olav’s old Passat was quite an adventure. After some pushing over slippery parts and some rally inspired driving by Fredrik we got within carrying distance to the takeoff. After a 20 minute walk we were on takeoff, only to discover that the glider Fredrik borrowed did not have a basebar. Bummer.

Olav had borrowed me his old Litespeed S,  I quickly set up and took off in perfect conditions. It was blue but I launched straight into a nice 3 m/s thermal that took me up to 1700 meters. It was quite cold, but I enjoyed the scenery and extremely clear air, what a change from the fog in Bassano. Now I could see that I really need to clean the visor of my helmet, the dirt was not noticeable in Bassano.

I flew to Lalm, and had a quick sightseeing back to the center of Vågå before I became too cold and went down to land. Nils Åge and Tore had gone to Heidal and both flew back to Vågå and landed before I took off.