Yesterday was a very nice day for hanggliding, unfortunately I did not get out to fly. Nils Åge got a 147km flight from Vågå to Brummundal, and the guys at Dokka had very nice flights too. Today the thermal forecast was very good, and weak SE winds. I met up with Bjørn, Petter and Kristian at Ringerud at noon, it was already strong cycles at takeoff, but a blue sky with no signs of cumies.

Petter quickly fell through after takeoff, while Bjørn and I stayed just above takoff in typical high pressure conditions. Lots of lift, but a strong inversion at 800 meters that proved unbreakable today. I flew down the rigdge to try to get around the corner after the dam, but the headwind and lack of coherent lift made it too risky. I glided back and boated around until I got bored, flew off my height in lazy wingovers over the lake, and landed nicely. Good day but it would be nice to get a XC flight from Ringerud soon, it’s been at least 2 years since I flew anything but local flights there.

When we left Harald was soaring just above takeoff with his Extaccy.

Me and Bjørn thermalling just over takeoff.

In Croatia the Pre-Europeans started today, I talked to Olav on the phone this morning, and it was too windy to fly today.

I met up with Bjørn, Alf, Johnny, Petter and Lene at Brandbukampen yesterday afternoon. Alf was there to test his new WillsWing Sport 2. It looked like a nice glider, with slipstream uprights and a profiled speedbar. One sprog on each wing to compensate for fewer lufflines and makes the profile much better performing. Alf promised me a test flight on it, maybe I’ll tow it up.

It was nice conditions, but a little too south to use the (nicer) west launch. The others got off the south launch, and got up. I was last in line, and it died out completely. The south launch is not very tempting in nil-wind. The wind then established itsef with cross on both launches, but I finally got out on the west when the sun came around and generated some thermals. By then the others had landed, I flew around the area enjoying the nice big thermals and just boated around for one hour.

Two days ago Olav and Arnt drove south towards Croatia, they will try to fly as training before the pre-Europeans next week. Originally I was going too, but plans have changed. I will meet Olav and Arnt at Manfred’s course in two weeks.

Saturday was forecasted to be flyable, but it was quite gray and windy in Oslo when I woke up. I called Bjørn and Alf, none of them wanted to go flying because of the weather. I met up with Ric, a visiting pilot from the states, and picked up the Falcon at Bjørns house. Terje Solberg wanted to fly and came to takeoff just as we were getting ready. Erik Vermaas and Gary were also at takeoff, at the NE launch.

Conditions were looking good, the cirrus layer gradually got thinner and cumulus clouds started popping up around us. Erik took of first and quickly got over takoff. Gary took off and scratched for a long time around launch before he had to land. Ric took off in a slow period and also landed after scratching for a while over a clearing in the forested hillside.

I took off in a good period and got up in a thermal to the left into the wind, it was slow in the beginning and I had to go back out three times before I had enough height to drift in over the higher peaks behind takeoff. In there it was very good air, and hard to stay below controlled airspace. I saw Erik coming back from the north and I followed him in case we should go for a XC, but it was rain and gray to the south west over Sokna. Terje Solberg also got up and was cruising around in the nice air. I flew down to the airstrip south of the dam, and crossed over the lake to the sunny side again.

After landing Fredrik picked me up and we had a nice barbeque at the takeoff with Maria and Georgia, while Ric flew again, this time he got up nicely.

Today it was rain with thunder in the afternoon.

The course was moved 2 weeks, it now starts after the pre-Europeans in Croatia.

Yesterday was the first day in Oslo with more than 20 degrees this year, what a summer… Forecast for the weekend is not the best, but we’ll try to fly from Ringerud tomorrow morning.

Olav, Arnt and me signed up for Manfred Ruhmer’s course on competition flying earlier this year. Jon Gjerde also signed up and was there two weeks ago, he had a good time in Greifenburg in Austria with perfect conditions.

Yesterday we got a call from Bob who arranges the course, he wanted to merge the two remaining groups into one and hold it in July. Unfortunately it collides with Milslukern so the suggested week is not possible for us. We asked to move it to the week after the pre-Europeans, and have it at Greifenbug where the German Open is held at the same time. Flying in the comp with feedback from Manfred would probably be very efficient. I hope this is possible, we’ll know more when Bob get back to us.

On the weather front here, things are looking brigher, but still a bit windy. The XC course in Vågå have had only local and non flying days so far.

It feels like we had very unstable weather the last month, usually we have some really good days in May, with high cloudbase and strong lift. Last year we had an extremely good period in late May, with lots of record breaking flights.

Last weekend there was a competition in Köping in Sweden, we chose not to go based on the forecast of rain and wind. On the current weather charts even more low pressure systems are lining up out in the North Atlantic, ready to make life miserable for hanglider pilots in Norway.

Meanwhile, some people have it even worse than us. Check out the Flash movie “Hanggliding in Russia”

Mine and Olav’s glider finally arrived from Florida last week, with no transport damages this time. I picked them up and drove to Vågå for the national team meet. The plan was to set XC tasks and do a detailed debrief every night after flying. Unfortunately the weather was not very good for flying tasks with overcast and very unstable conditions.

On Saturday we set a short 25 km task locally, but only Nils Åge and Jon completed it. I did not know it was possible to ridge soar back through Vågåruste where Nils Åge flew and flew back into the small patches of sun instead, but I had to land at Nord Sel.

Sunday and Monday was not flyable, Tuesday was forecasted to be OK but it overdeveloped. So all in all 1 hour flying and 12 hours driving…

Seems like our gliders are still in Florida, one week after beeing picked up for shipping home. Bax global are shipping the gliders, but did not send them because some papers were missing. (Papers that had been emailed twice already so there should be no problems…) Why could they not just pick up the phone and ask for the papers? My phone number was written 5 places on the glider box with a rather large marker. I’ve faxed the papers again, and still wait for the confirmation and tracking numbers.

Thursday we have the first competition of the season in Norway. Anyone have a glider to lend me for the comp?

I think this picture of (the remains of) my Icaro “kevlar” flying gloves illustrates that we flew a lot, and also that the weather was warm :-) Guess which finger I use to hold the VG rope… I’ll need to start looking for new warm-weather gloves. The Skyline Cosy gloves I have are very good for cold weather, but too warm for summer use.

I spent the last day at Quest flying the tug, learning landings in more challenging conditions, and doing some wingovers and spin entrys with Bobby in the back seat. Flying the Dragonfly is really fun, it’s easy to fly and I felt connected to the air in the same way as in a hangglider.

All in all it was a great trip, we flew a lot and had a fun and challenging competition in really good conditions. I want to go back there next year.

Before we left Olav and I bought a Sony PSP each, and spent the flight home playing Ridge Racer against each other. The PSP is the coolest electronic device I’ve seen in a long time, we almost missed the breakfast concentrating on the game. I did ofcourse beat Olav 41 to 9 before we collapsed into sleep :-)