Category Archives: Hanggliding

Hanggliding

Brasilia, Tug updates

Jonny Jr. is flying the Brasilian nationals in Brasilia, check out his blog. Seems like he is having a good time with late nights and good flights…

I’ve bought a share in the Dragonfly tug, and now only need some more hours to start towing practice. We have done some work on a permanent hangar project at Spydeberg. Last Saturday Finn, Bjørn and I finished preparing the roof for mounting the corrugated steel sheets Terje Solberg have donated. As soon as the hangar is ready we fly the Tug down to Spydeberg and start our course at Trøgstad. It’s only a 10 minute flight to Trøgstad, Spydeberg is not suited for Aerotowing because of the noise restrictions and other activity at the strip.

Hanggliding

Big Springs Open

The Worlds will be at Big Springs in Texas in 2007. There have been a comp there for the last years with exeptionally good weather and flying conditions. This year the weather was not perfect with some cancelled tasks, but still it seemed to be a good comp.

The Litespeeds dominated on WillsWings home turf, the top 6 pilots all flew Litespeed S 4.
Andreas and Joakim from Sweden were the only scandinavians participating, Andreas did good with his new Talon 2 on 7. place, this one seems to go better than the one he had here in Vågå. Joakim made 23. place.

Total results and pictures at http://www.flytec.com/big_spring_05/scores.html
More coverage in the RigidReport, Jonny, Kevin and Tom’s blogs. (Links on the right)

Hanggliding

Towing at Kongsvinger, day 2

Finn Spjeldnæs was tug pilot and towed up pilots today. We met up at Kongsvinger at 11:00 and did some maintenance on the tug, the engine still did not run well so we have to work some more on it. It was very nice conditions, with weak northerly winds and sunny skies. Johnny Reichele also showed up today and did his first tow, he did well and stuck on the line all the way up.

I wanted to test towing the Falcon, and hooked in behind Finn for the last tow of the day.The glider was easy to tow, but we need to hook in a little more forward to reduce the bar pressure. I tried to induce some turns away from the tug, but the glider just tracked back by itself. It should be a good glider to use for training new pilots.

I took the tug up for 4 rounds in the nice air, to get landing training.

Me taking the Falcon 2 up.

Hanggliding

Towing at Kongsvinger

Alf, Truls, Bjørn, Petter, Steinar and I went to Kongsvinger to do some aerotowing. I wanted to get some more hours and landings on the Dragonfly, and only brought my harness in case I could borrow a glider. I was there first and took the tug out of the hangar and set it up. Alf took the first flight, and then I had some flights while the others set up their hanggliders. Condtitions were good with weak northerly winds and cumulus clouds around us.

Alf towed up Petter who was learning how to aerotow, he did pretty good and managed to hang on all the way up on his third attempt. I took a test flight on Steinar’s Litesport to check the trim of the glider. It was very nice to fly, and handled much like the older Litespeeds but with better roll rate. Towing it up on 1/2 VG was no problem at all, and I towed behind Truls with my arms hanging over the basebar. The glider needed some work on the trim, we tuned out a left turn and slowed down trimspeed a little.

I logged 2:30 on the tug, and had 12 good takeoffs and landings. The engine developed a problem during the day where it would stall on idle and when throttling up from idle, a little annoying when taxing, but it worked fine once above 2000 rpms.

Looks like we go back tomorrow to tow with Finn. I hope to get a few hours tomorrow too if the weather stays nice.

Hanggliding

Video clips from Vågå open

Bjørn has a link to some video from Vågå open.

It’s not been much flying for me lately, I’m in the middle of selling an apartement and moving to a new one. It takes quite a lot of time and energy, and the weather have been crap the last weeks anyway.

We have plans about starting a new beginners course based on aerotowing this fall, but it’s been delayed a little because of other activities.

Competitions, Hanggliding

Vågå Open, day 7 and 8

Short update;

Yesterday we finally saw the sun again. It was flyable in Bøverdalen, and we made a local task of around 55 km. Unfortunately some clouds shaded the valley for a long time, and the early starters all fell through. I took off around 19:30, when I saw Seppi and Johnny who had just taken off start to climb slowly. We got a weak lift to 1600 meter, I glided to take the start at Raudbergstulen together with Seppi, and them back to under the takeoff where the rest of the gaggle were struggling. We glided towards the first TP but got nothing usable, it was just too late. I had to turn back 1,5 km before the TP because there was a mountain in my flight path :-) (The TP was at 1300 meters) Seppi was a little higher and turned back 600 meters before it. Nobody made it furter, Seppi won the day, Nils Åge second and me third. The day was worth nothing in the scoring, the winner got 13 points.

Today was another very good day in Bøverdalen, 64km local task, blue thermals and good lift. I had lost my last bit of motivation and did not complete the task, but abortet halfway and landed at the main LZ. It was very turbulent and switchy because of the thermic conditions, the wind switched 180 degrees 3 times while I was trying to land. The last time when I was on final, I slammed in downwind and took out 2 uprights and 2 fittings.

Results will be posted later.

Competitions, Hanggliding

Vågå Open, Day 5-6

Bad weather, not much flying. Yesterday we went to Bøverdalen after the day was cancelled to see if the site is suited for a speed-gliding course. Olav, Seppi, Gerolf, Michael, and Jon flew down from Dugurmålskampen and landed at Galde. It was too windy and unstable to do some real speedgliding, but it turned out to be a good test. The site has potential for a really long speed-course.

Last night the rain came in, and it’s been wet all night and thir morning. We cancelled today at 10:00, it’s less rain now, but might still be some showers tomorrow. Forecast is 50% for flying tomorrow.

The results have been offline due to some webserver problems, but now I’ve fixed it and things seem to be OK. http://hp.nlf.no/vaagaaopen

Competitions, Hanggliding

Vågå Open, Day 3 and 4

Yesterday was forecasted to be really good, we got up to Vole and had a look before deciding to go to Salknappen because of the easterly winds. The task comittee set 70 km to Otta and up to goal at Lesja. It looked very good early, but some big clouds shaded the whole area in front of takeoff and made it very weak in front of takeoff. The earlier pilots all fell through and had to land, Otto and Nils Åge made it back up just in time for another attempt. Jon managed to ridge soar and finally got above launch and crossed over to Blåhøe, this finally inspired many pilots to get out. Arnt and me had to wait for better launch conditions and missed the first gaggle, I got out at last and took a weak thermal up to cloudbase from the ridge before Vågåruste.

It was quite strong lift in the core of the thermals, but hard to stay centered. I took the start and made a long glide into the shade towards the sun at Otta. I had to fly through some rain on the way, and arrived at Otta just below the top of the mountain. I met up with Nils Åge, Jon and Johnny there. We ridge soared for a while, and then got up to 1800 meters when I glided out to take the TP.

I did not see any other gliders, and mad a huge mistake by not planning ahead where to go when I went out to the TP, but just turned around and expected to find the same lift as we had been climbing in. It was not there, but I saw some gliders to the northeast going slowly up. I did the second mistake not going back to them, but kept gliding expecting to find more lift on the Otta platau that usually works good. There was no clouds however, and I should have realized it was much better to go to the northeast side. Instead I glided until the middle of Vågåruste without finding anything, and back down to ridge soar at Nord Sel where I slowly fell through. Landed nicely by the road there, and looked up to see beautiful clouds forming where I should have gone. This turns out to be the worst flying I’ve done in a comp so far. 12 pilots made goal yesterday. Gerolf and Michael were first with around 1:32 minutes, Andreas was third.

Today we had a rather pessimistic forecast, with overdevelopment and chance of thunderstorms. We did go up to Salknappen, where some pilots had set up. But at 12:00 the safety comitte decided against a task at that time, and pilots did not want to wait, so it was cancelled and people could freefly. It OD’ed quickly and there were some interesting landings, one Swede overcorrected wildly on his Combat, missed the tents and building and cars, and crashed into the main road. He was unhurt, but had some sail damage to the glider.

Forecast for tomorrow is pessimistic, but we hope to fly again on Tursday.

Results are delayed because of major problems with CompeGPS, they do not answer any of my support emails. The quality of this program is getting worse and worse as they add features. Right now it’s not possible to get results out of the program. I’ll make a link as soon as I have it up and running again.