Mine and Johnny’s hanggliders have arrived in Oslo, I got a call from the airport on Friday that they were ready to pick up. I had to work all day, and would be instructor for this weekends beginner hangglider course so I decided to wait until tomorrow. Fingers crossed for the gliders to be whole.

This weekends course was OK, to little wind in Kjeller Saturday, and too much in Årvoll today. Still the students got some good flights, check out images and video at the course weblog at http://www.ellefsen.net/ookurs

I drove down from Vaagaa, arriving in Oslo at 03:00, and slept for a few hours before getting up at 7:30 to repack my bags. I loaded the glider box back on the car and picked up Fredrik, after 7 hours of driving through sweden in massive rain we crossed over the Oeresund bridge and arrived in Denmark. After making the day a little interesting for the check-in crew at Copenhagen airport with my glider box we got on the flight. I paid US$360 extra for exess size, and 15 hours later in Sao Paulo we pick up our bags and find the glider looking fine. It was entertaining to manouver the 4.2 meter long box through the X-ray machine in customs…

I put Fredrik to watch over the bags, while I got our connecting tickets and found the Varig cargo departement. The glider have to goe as air-freight the last leg to Brasilia. After getting sendt around different offices, where people speaked very little english I finally meet the right man to arrange everything for me. We went back to the terminal in a VW bus, and shoved the glider in the back door, it does not fit more than halfway so I sit and hold while he drove the few km back to the cargo terminal. After arranging papers for freight and insurance everything is OK. (Insurance is highly recommended after watching the forklift drivers rally around the terminal with cargo)

The central bank had a huge money shipment with Varig this morning, so suddenly a caravan of armoured cards, motorbikes with police, and jeeps with armed soldiers arrive in true Hollywood style. Officers with pilot sunglasses, and some serious looking private security guards with long black coats over bulletproof vests carrying sub-machine guns. Interesting show, I always thought it was like this only in the movies with North American heros fighting South American drug cartels.

So, only 8 more hours to kill in the airport, getting bored, internet access is 20 reals per hour, which is about NOK 50, not too bad actually, could buy another few hours and catch up on work email.

Robin emailed that it would be towing at Trøgstad on Sunday, I was at work all day Saturday, and had to get back to work on Sunday eveneing as well. I planned and declared a 50 km FAI triangle, where the flight took me northeast along the Gardermoen TA, south and back northwest to the airstrip. Åge towed Robin up a few times first, as Åge was learning to be aerotow pilot on the trike. Roger towed me up, best tow I ever had, smooth and efficient. Robin’s trike seems to climb good as well.

It was slow going after releasing at 700 meters, and I decided to float around locally as I could not go XC. While I was climbing slowly the clouds improved and started to form streets, so I reconsidered and went for the task. I did the stupid mistake of not thinking about going back to take the start point again, guess I’m too used to big start circles in the comps. To set a record the whole task must be flown after release from the tow, I had towed out of the start TP.

There was good lift over the radiotower, and I could jump between clouds after getting to base at 1450m. I had to cross over a lake and into forested areas for the next TP. The area was in shade from a good looking cloud, I went for it a little to early, and got drilled on the way in. Got seriously low over forest on the way back, but got a low save from 200 meters over a clearing in the forest, that was too close, so I blessed the thermal and hung on all the way to cloudbase in good strong lift. Heading south under a cloudstreet I thought the tailwind would make the rest of the leg easy, but the seabreeze came in and gave me 10 km headwind. Still it was quite easy following a nice street and only turning in the best lift. From the last cloudbase at 1500 meters I glided through the last TP and towards goal, with a nice tailwind the 19 km glide should be easy, pointing my toes and enjoying the glide. But halfway there I met headwind from the west again and had to speed up. I had to deviate around the last hill, and landed 200 meters from the airstrip, gliding under the power lines to get inside the goal circle.

If I only had gone back to the TP I would have set a Norwegian record (Easy since no one have declared one before :-)), the mean speed was 28,6 km/h including the tow up.

SeeYou screenshot of the task.

Got a nice flight from Trøgstad, declared 50 km FAI triangle.
Now sleep…

All work and no flying lately, and more to come as I’ll be upgrading a network at a customer site this weekend. We were supposed to do it last weekend, but some equipment got delayed. Today seemed like a perfect day for flying, but I was in a meeting all day. Otto and Johnny did declare a O&R Vågå – Frya – Vågå, but they had met strong headwind, and landed back in Vågå.

There will be a lot of flying soon though. The Norwegian Nationals start next weekend, and I go directly to Brazil for the Worlds the day after the comp is finished. I’m really looking forward to having some time off work and get some time in the air.

A rather slow weekend in Oslo, I had to work and could not go flying in the great conditions during the week. Saturday I worked for a few hours. Bjørn H went to Ringerudkollen, but it rained there as well as in Oslo, so I stayed inside in front of the PC.

Today seemed to be OK, it was some sun early in the morning, but it closed up quickly. I drove to Trøgstad to do some areotowing. There was lots of people there set up and ready, but nobody seemed to want to fly. I quickly set up and got ready, jumped on the dolly and got a nice tow behind Bjørnar in the Tug. I was flying too fast, as I’ve gotten used to the fast trikes they used in Sweden, but got up and slowed down when we got high. I released at 600 meters, and searched around for lift. The sky was totally overcast, but I found a nice 2 m/s thermal over the airstrip. It slowed down and died at 950 meters, just enough to fly around for a while and make a final glide back into the wind to the airstrip. Nice flight.

There was some action as well, with two broken gliders, one pilot in the creek, and Erik Vermaas got hit by mechanical turbulence at the end of the strip, and had to land on the other side of the creek. The wind turned to the east at the end, and gave use some turbulence.

Nils Åge and Olav got long 130 km flights from Bismo to Tretten on Friday, and Ingar flew 115 to south of Notodden from Ringerudkollen.

Johannes writes to tell about his album from Milslukern

There have been quite a few long flights in Vågå lately. The XC seminar have had good attendance by HG pilots, they have flown from Vole, Bøverdalen, and Heidal. Jon Gjerde did another good 110km from Bøverdalen to Tretten, and Olav Opsanger did the longest flight so far this season with 141 km from Vole to past Os, crossing south of Tronfjell over some pretty desolate terrain.

I’ve been working the whole week, had my glider on the car on Tuesday planning on a good flight from Brandbukampen, but it was strong sea-breeze in Oslo with lots of OD inland. Maybe it was flyable, there’s no windtalker so it’s hard to tell.

This server will be down from Tuesday 29/4 18:00 to 30/4 08:00 CEST, due to a planned power outage. The mailinglists will also be down until server is back up.

Yesterday Fritz and I went to see some BASE jumps from a building in Oslo. Radical stuff, it was a kick just watching it, I can really understand why people want to do it. The jump off point was 60-70 meters over the ground. Nice conditions with clear skies and a setting sun, jsut a little cold in the breeze.

After two jumps the police arrived in force, 2 cars and one motorbike, and we had to climb down with the remaining two jumpers. It’s not illegal to do BASE, but the building is private. One of the police officers was a BASE jumper, guess that’s why they showed up so quickly – to see a few jumps if they could. All they asked us for was personalia, which is normal procedure according to the locals.

Fritz took a few pictures and some film clips, the film clips are in Windows Media format. Click on image for a larger view. Clip 1 – 860KB and Clip 2 – 560KB

Nice weather, but way to windy to go flying the last few days. The weather station at Sundvollen reported 26m/s on Friday. Sunday was better, but I had some other plans. Today seems nice though…