Category Archives: Hanggliding

Trike recon flight

Terne S and me took a flight towards Sweden today to look at the XC possibilites in that direction. It was a very stable day today, Trond Olsen did two tows but it was not much thermals above 3-400 meters.

The inversion layer is quite clear, this is at 3500 feet.

Inversion

I wrote a short summary from our findings (In norwegian) at out HG-Slep blog.

Bassano 2007, task 2

We woke up to a grey and cloudy morning, and it seemed we would get a marginal day if we got in a task before overdevelopment and rain. At takeoff it seemed to be better, and we got a 90 km task, similar to yesterday, with start at the observatory at Possagnio, west on the ridge and back to Assolo out on the plains before goal.

As the first pilots got off it was clear it would be a quite good day, thermals were quite good and much smoother than yesterday. I took off quite early and soon found myself boating around in cloudbase for 30 minutes, waiting for the start time at 13:20. I got a OK start, and took it quite easy in the beginning of the task, to stay high and safe. The area from Rubbio takeoff to the second TP is quite challenging as the ground is high, and there are no good landing options unless you land up on the plateau, and with todays 1500 meter cloudbase you only have a few hundred meters to play with.

At Rubbio we also met the paragliding gaggle, when they were crossing our courseline. 100+ paragliders and 15 hanggliders in the same thermal was quite interesting, but not very amusing, so I left just before the gaggles met, gliding out to clearer air… Dag Ring stayed behind and got up in a good core between all the paragliders.

Gliding out into the valley towards the second TP I realized I had made an error when putting today’s task into the GPS as I had yesterdays TP as the second TP. I saw 5 other gliders turn around behind me at exactly the same spot over a huge factory, this is a good indication that something is wrong, I realized what happened, turned back and aimed for the same spot crossing back towards the ridge.

From the second TP I started to speed up more, and got back to the main area without much drama, and leaving the gaggle behind at Rubbio takeoff when I cored up a nice 4 m/s. I did not remember the name of the last turnpoint or goal in the GPS, so I had to fly on the other pilots hoping they knew where to go, going out into the flats. I joined up with Corinna in a slow themal before gliding towards the last TP, and we had a reasonably good glide from the TP. My instrument did not help since I did not show where to go, so I lost some time thermalling 5-6 km before goal and came in with 300 meters to spare.

Olav did well close to a top 10 finish, Nils Åge was second from our team, me third, Dag fourth and Speidern fifth. Ove landed in goal without taking the last TP, Stefan landed close to the second TP. Robert Reisinger won the day.

Bassano 2007, arrival

Nils Åge, Speidern and me arrived in Bassano Monday night, driving our rental car from Milano. After checking in at the new hotel at the landing field we had Pizza at the regular place. The guys that arrived earlier in the weekend had nice flights earlier in the day until it started to rain.

Today looked very good around noon, with lots of pilots flying around in the area, and nice cumulus building over the mountains. Dag, Ove, Speidern and Nils F took off and had good flights, unfortunately they flew off with the car keys, so Nils Åge and Kjell Krane had to wait until one of them landed to get back up. By the time they were set up it had overdeveloped and started to rain, so they packed up and went back down.

My glider and harness will arrive tonight if everything goes as planned, so I hope I can get a flight tomorrow. The forecast is looking OK for the weekend.

Spring is here

I got my glider a month ago, but it’s not been time or weather to fly until the last days. On Saturday I went to Trøgstad to aerotow with Terje S in the trike. It turned out to be a good day, but the inversion at 900 meters did not break. It was blue and very warm for the season. Today I got a ride with Stein Edgar to Hjartdal, as I needed to get my glider to Italy somehow. Johnny brought it to Stefan on his way back to Kristiansand, and Stefan will drive to Bassano. Lucky for me!

In Hjartdal it was very nice weather, with blue skies similar to the day before. It was good lift outside takeoff, but inverted again at 1300 meters. Some got to 1500 meter, but I was not patient enough for that. I went for a little XC towards Notodden, but turned back and landed at Sauland for koffee and hotdogs.  Another nice day flying early in the season.

Tomorrow morning I meet up with Nils Åge to travel to Bassano, and fly the comp there. Hope to have a nice stay and nice weather, I’ll update this blog if I can find internet.

Heading home

I just dropped off Olav, Nils Aage and Jon at the airport. Olav and Nils are heading home, while Jon is going to Thailand for a few weeks of vacation. Georgia and I are flying home tomorrow afternoon. It’s sad to pack up and travel home, we met a lot of the other pilots at the factory as they are packing up and heading home too. We did not get nearly enough flying as the Bogong cup was a huge dissapointment with only one task (That I did not fly)

So next up is probably the comp in Bassano in easter, and then the Norwegian comps early spring and summer before the Worlds in Texas.

Oz 2007, Forbes, task 1 and 2

First day was gray in the morning after a huge storm system with lots of rain had gone through the day before. It had not rained here for 6 months, and now it came with the pilots as usual… The first task was 157km straight to goal with a medium to strong tailwind. Total chaos at the tow paddoc, with no order even if we were supposed to launch in seeded order. I had a lot of stress trying to fix some instrument problems, and got at the end of the line even if I was ready long before others seeded after me. I got up withouth much drama, and took a late start time. As the GPS portion of my Compeo did not work I had no idea where to go, or where goal was, so I just had to follow some other pilots. All of those pilots landed before 100 km, so I had to follow the same line and just look for the goal fileld. I knew my backup GPS inside the harness was on and logging, so I would get scored if I could just find the goal.

I got lucky and saw a glimt of a glider turning low, and flew crosswind to find goal. All of the Norwegians made it in, with Jon first, then me, Nils and Olav. Dave Sieb won the day.

Today looked very god, and we got a 234km task via one TP. I was seeded in the top 30 after yesterday, and had to take the second launch for a Race task with the other top 30 pilots. Olav and me took the start together, and Jon was just behind us and much lower. He had to land soon after. I stayed in the gaggle, until around 150 km out, where I took a more westerly line towards some good looking cloudstreets. That did not work as well as I had hoped, and Olav who stayed on course got a better run to goal. The final glide was very tough as I was alone from 80 km out, and hit shitloads of sink from 40 km. I had to drift along in weak lift for a long time before getting back up to a 10/1 glide for safety to goal. Olav came in before me and Nils behind, don’t know the scores yet, Nils may have beaten us because of later start time. Around 50 pilots in goal, Robert Reisinger was first.

It’s the longest flight in km I ever did, and my back, shoulders and arms are now hurting seriously. It was quite turbulent air, and I’m not used to the glider yet so I use a lot of force to get it going where I want.

Unfortunately we might get a rest day tomorrow as we had a fatal accident again today. One pilot freefall from 2000 meters as his harness was somehow disconnected or broke free from the glider, and the parachute broke free from the harness on deployment from freefall. We do not know much more, both me and Olav saw it happen from the air as we were gliding from the start circle.

More info as we get it, it’s almost 02:00 here from the long drive home.

Oz 2007, Forbes

After spending a very nice vacation on the coast at the Moyes beach house Georgia and I returned to Sydney to start preparing for the competitions. We had planned to get a big car since we are 4 pilots and driver, and I had reserved a Landcruiser that would be the ideal hanggliding car with racks and roo-bar. Unfortunately the reservation did not work out, and I had to get on the net and find a new car to rent. It turned out to be difficult as all rental companies were empty for the bigger 4WD cars during the holidays. I finally got a Subaru Forester, and picked it up in Sydney.

Nils and Olav arrived on the morning of the 28. and we picked them up at the airport before heading to the factory to arrange gliders, roofracks, and all the stuff needed. We then drove up to Manilla, as we heard the weather was good up there. Michi and Gerolf had been doing some big triangles from Manilla, and Michi did a 300+ km triangle on the first day we were there.

The weather turned bad the next day, and we got the message there would be towing in Forbes, so we drove south again arriving in Forbes on the 30. We will spend the days and hopefully get some practice here before the comp start. It’s a lot of small things that need to be fixed and put in place before the flying, headsets and radios are always a hassle, new instrument pods need to be adjusted, and so on, so it was good to have some time in the morning. Here’s Nils Aage fixing up his headset.
Nils headset

Yesterday we got a few tows in the afternoon, it was overcast and calm – good conditions to testfly the gliders. The new-years eve party at the hotel was very nice and lasted until late, so none of us were keen to fly today.

Michi and Dave Sieb mucking around in the bar.
Michi and Dave

It was nice in the morning, but we got some overdevelopment and it was gusty at the airport. One dragonfly was turned upside down on landing in a gust, the pilot was OK but the plane needs some repairs…

Jon’s very green glider.
Jon Green

Olav, Jon and me got the new Litespeed RS4, while Nils Aage had shipped his old Litespeed S from Texas to Australia. There’s a lot of changes to the RS compared to the S. Most noticeable is the new sailcut and larger frame. My glider is a size 4, it have the same frame as the previous size 5. That gives more wingspan, and a leaner sailcut. The sail is smoke inlaid, and has a lot more double surface than before. My RS4 have a lot of carbon on it with both inner and outer leading edge tubes as carbon fibre, as well as the sprogs and most of the battens. I only got two test flights on it, but first impressions are very good. All the pilots I’ve talked to have been very positive about the new glider, looks like another winner. I’m really looking forward to flying this one.

Me on landing after the first flight.
RS 4

Looking at the settings.
Justering

Olav landing.
Olav lander

I got a new Skyline Zero Drag Full Race harness just before I went to Australia. The harness feels very nice, with lots of nice details, and looks just right. Here’s me hanging around on the hotel veranda, I need to get smaller heels on my shoes as they are sticking up a little.
Skyline ZDFR

Weather is a bit unstable, it’s not been any rain here this year, but as soon as the hangglider pilots come into town it starts pouring down. Should be very good post-frontal conditions though. I hope we can get a good flight tomorrow.

The real XC fliers

The Sooty shearwater (No: Grålire) seabird has been known to fly long distances over the oceans looking for food and migrating with the seasons. How far they flew was unknown until a group of scientists tagged the birds with satellite location devices.

This shows 19 birds during 262 days of breeding and migration. Wild!

More info and larger images from the TOPP project

The birds are very common, and also live in the Atlantic where they migrate from the Falklands to Jan Mayen.