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.
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.
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.
You can have a hanggliding competition anywhere in the world, and it will rain there. We are professional drought breakers now, any farmers needing some rain can just arrange a big international competition where pilots travel around half the world to fly.
Actually we got to freefly after the task was cancelled yesterday because of rain and overdevelopment. It was strange air, probably because of the moisture that made the thermals weak and difficult. Still it was good to be in the air again.
Today it pours down. We will pack up and head to Sydney as the forecast is not good at all for tomorrow. Looks wery good for next week, and in Manilla it’s been very good, pilots have been flying 240 and 270km triangles up there. Wish we had gone there, but hindsight is very precise.
Not much flying here lately, we went to Mystic (Or Septic as some call it now) again, under grey and rain-laden clouds. We got a little rain on us while we waited there until 14:30 when Heather gave up and announced a spot landing comp. The winner would get $500. I went down with Olav’s new Canon EOS 400D digital SLR camera to watch the carnage. It turned out quite boring, not a single broken upright and just a few whacks. Olav did well though, and shared first prize with Johnny Jr. Jon got a prize for most spectacular landing when he slided through the spot and wrapping himself in it.
Today we already had 2 briefings because of rain approacing. The organizers are optimistic about having a late task from Mt. Emu, we can only hope.
Day 3 saw lots of smoke, and we went to Mystic in Bright in case it would clear up. It was pretty grim there with loads of smoke, and none of use were really keen on flying. In the end it cleared up a little, and we got a task back to Mt. Beauty via 2 TP. Jon and Nils set up, while Olav and I did not want to fly. I was just not in the mood and did not feel like flying. Jon bombed out, while Nils Åge made it to goal. It was very turbulent in the beginning, and got quite good after a while when some pilots got to 3800 meters.
Today we went to Buffalo since the Mystic launch got closed due to fire danger. But the winds were too strong to take off there. We spent the day looking at perfect clouds. It overdeveloped here tonight, and I guess we get a severe thunderstorm here tonight. We are debating what to do, maybe we should go back to Manilla, but it’s 12 hours drive…
Here’s a few pictures from this afternoon. We went to Bright in case it would be brighter (heheh) there, but there was no point going up the hill in dense smoke. It’s become even worse here tonight, and many teams are concidering leaving for clearer air. The forecast is not very good regarding clearing the smoke.
Blog, pictures, videos, and articles from my flying adventures aound the world. Content in English.
