Spring is here! Bjørn Hammer and I went up to Sundvollen this afternoon for what looked like a sledder. I got off first, found sink for a while, and flew out towards the hotel in search of thermals. Got some very weak stuff over the road and started turning in broken weak lift. It gradually improved to 2 m/s as I passed the top of the ridge, and then slowed down again and stopped at around 700 meters. The day was blue and some high cloud filtering the sun warming. I went back over takeoff where a Paraglider took off and went down. I found some more lift there and Bjørn took off and scratched the ridge for 15 minutes below me. I continued flying, following the ridge towards Gurihaugen and found some good lift between strong sink.

For the first time ever I caught my shoelace in the main harness zipper, and had to fly with the harness open. My legs soon started to cramp up, I aborted my target of Åsa and glided back to land on the ice (Rather unelegantly with my foot stuck in the harness :-)) Met up with Fritz and Anne-Lena to have some pizza and coffe back in Oslo, pretty good for a Monday. Logbook entry

Shitty weather and no flying lately. I spent last weekend at the Generalt meeting for the Hang and Paragliding organization, too bad as Sunday was a great day at Sundvollen. Yesterday was overcast, showers and SSE winds, which is quite useless. Today was forecasted windy, and it came through with too strong westerlies. Maybe tomorrow!

The forecast missed, it was gray and SW instead of sun and NNW at Sundvollen. Quite flyable though, we got nice take off conditions for the stundents. Lots of people taking flights down and going back up for another one. I flew down twice, did some testing of gliding in groundeffect along the ice. I did not glide as well as I thought I would, even if I came in quite fast in prone position. The rest of the students passed the theory exam today, so the course is finally finished.

Picture after Arild’s aborted start, have to keep the nose down and run when it’s nil wind. Picture by Frode Halse.

Instructor duty this weekend, nice weather but very stable. All students got two flights each. I’ll fly tomorrow, it’s forecasted better weather, maybe even ridge soarable!

No flying lately, the weather’s been shit. Forecast for the weekend is quite good, I’ll try to get in some flying, maybe on Mjøsa. Hedemarken have their annual winch tow meet this weekend, I might go there if I can borrow a winch tow release somwhere.

I drove up to Vågå for the yearly general meeting in my club, Saturday was nice with sun from a blue sky. Sunday was grey and not very tempting to go flying. Rolf, Olav, and I got a flight from Visdal on Saturday, Stig and Herleif did set up but they were too slow to get ready and waited through the lauchable conditions. With such cold weather and lots of snow in the mountains the catabatic flow sets in as soon as the ground get a little less heating from the sun, you have to be ready when it’s on.

Look like the next worlds will be in Hay, Australia. It won by one vote in the Plenary. (Would have been 3 more if both Zupy and me had made it to Romania) Cool for us, cheaper than Florida and nice to get away in the winter to somwhere warm. I just wish the organizers can arrange a grassy field to tow from. I’ve been in Hay 3 times, it’s world class flying when it’s good, but we will lose some days to strong winds. The town is quite small, 150 pilots will fill up.
I’ve got the images from Oz up on the server, but have some work to do on the album script before it’s visible. Should be OK tomorrow.

Also check out Bernies reports from Oz at http://www.telusplanet.net/~bjwinkel

Bjørn Hammer have listed new and existing gliders from the different factories on his homepage. He’s done Wills, Avian, Icaro and Moyes so far. Check it out at http://www.strategy-consulting.no/hg.htm

The weather in Oslo finally seems to improve a little, the sun is out and the southerlies have gone north (Where else :-?) It would be flyable on Sundvollen but my Litespeed is still on the factory floor in Sydney. Vicki at Moyes emailed me and said it would probably go out on Tuesday, it usually takes a week in shipping and clearing of customs. So If I’m lucky I can fly in two weeks…

Next weekend I’m going to the CIVL plenary meeting in Romania, Tor Erik is the representative, but he is going to Australia, so I step in.

I’ve spent some time updating the wepages for my club, Jetta LSK. Check it out on http://www.ellefsen.net/jetta You’ll find an invitation to Milsluken 2003, the XC open distance competition for hang and paragliders.

Excpect these pages to change form soon, I’m testing out several new systems for dynamic content, so far eZPublisher seems to be the best solution for me, but a little overkill for a homepage/weblog. We’ll see.

Erik and I were on instructor duty last weekend. We went to Flesberg north of Kongsberg as there’s a good easterly site. It was snowing hard and mostly crosswind on Saturday so the students only got one flight each.
Saturday was a lot better with sun and nice take off wind. Johnny and Arild got three flights each, Geir got two. Ståle and Tor Inge had to share the Funfex, so they got one flight each. The students from Kongsberg were there as well and got quite a few flights.

I’ve placed the order for a new Litespeed from Moyes, should be ready when we arrive on Chrismas eve. Looking forward to Australia now, it’s been snowing hard in Oslo today.