I spent the weekend flying and working on the Dragonfly tug. It was nice weather for flying both days, and not much movement in the air even with clear blue skies on Saturday. It was cold to fly, but covering all exposed skin and adding some ekstra layers of clothes made it tolerable.

I used my Loki jacket and pulled the integrated mitts over my Skyline gloves to keep the fingers warm. It was too cold with just gloves, so the extra mitts really worked well.

The tug needed some electrical work with the water temp gauge malfunctioning. I got a new digital engine management instrument, and mounted it on Sunday. It worked really well, but I wish I could have kept the old analouge rev counter as it was more readable. Picture of the revised panel, engine management is the lower digital instrument.

I also found a coolant leak from a rotten hose from the radiator, and replaced it with a new hose. Life is so much easier with a hangglider, no engine to maintain and just some wires that needs replacement every 100 hours. But then again I flew 2 hours in beautiful conditions on Saturday, while the hanggliders were having 5 minute sled rides from Norefjell. You can’t have it all…

I went to Sundvollen on Sunday, it was windy, and I spent some hours checking over the Falcon that one of our students had landed in a tree. The glider looked suprisingly fine, it just had some marks in the sail. No holes or rifts, I disassembled both leading edges to check them thoroughly and they were OK.

Terje Brønstad carried his glider down the stairs, and was the only who flew in the windy period. He reported some turbulence. Since it was too windy for the Falcon, I went to Vik and had dinner with Frode and Krister. While we ate it calmed down and became soarable. I watched 4 gliders ridge soar, but it was too late for me to set up again.

Monday afternoon looked very promising with nice cu’s and NW winds. I met Steinar and Petter at Sundvollen again and set up the Falcon. The conditions were very good while we were setting up, but calmed down to almost nothing when we were ready. Typical… All 3 got a sled ride down. I had a borrowed old Moyes harness, it was too short and very difficult to get the right position in. Guess I should have held on to my Skyline until I got the new one.
Petter and Steinar went up for another flight, and Tor Inge came there too. I helped him set up and fly his new WillsWing U2 for the first time. He did well, but the takeoff was a little nose high.

It’s very easy to relax and make a sloppy takeoff when it’s “enough” wind, that’s when most pilots make the big turn back into takeoff. It’s much safer to keep the nose down and run like hell even if it’s windy, it gives you much more energy and thus more control. You might need it sometime, so it’s better to make it a habit.

Since I have no good harness I have to find some alternative way to get airborne. Today I went to Spydeberg and dug out the hangar with the Dragonfly from the snowdrifts. Thanks to Terje S who cleared the snow with his tractor it was quick not much work. The plane seemed fine, so I decided to take it for a flight. We probably need to cover the radiator, since the engine ran very cold in the sub-zero temperatures.

It was very nice conditions, clear weather and nice thermals. I thermalled the Dragonfly in pretty good lift. I could see some very nice clouds, and lots of overdevelopment around. Over the Swedish border it looked like a small CuNimbus might develop, but it died out quickly and dumped lots of snow instead.

Some more pictures from the air today

Steinar had a good thermal flight from Ringerud, and Arne Kristian flew with PG from Grefsenkollen.

Kenneth Karlsen was the most accurate in the pic contest, he had been flying sailplane in the area with a turnpoint just east of where the photo was taken. Here’s another picture that explains the PG view :-)

I took off from the strip at Kongsvinger with the Dragonfly, flew to Kirkenær and back again in beautiful but cold weather. Very nice flight after working many nights with maintenance on the engine.

I put all the pics online in a album. I am testing new album software, and this Ajax based zenphoto album was quite nice, but still have some bugs.

Frode thought it was too difficult and did not want to try this on fridistanse.no Should not be that hard, eh? Where is this picure taken then? Answer in comments.

I am facing north, and it’s cold. Typical PG pilot perspective, with the boots sticking up in every picture :-)

What a week it’s been, I’ve had a infection in the mouth since last week, then I got the flu on Sunday, and then had a major operation to remove a tooth Wednesday. I looked like Marlon Brando in The Godfather movie on my left side of the face. Finally on Sunday I had no fever and felt like doing something more than walking from the bed to the TV couch, so I went flying.

Lots of people at Sundvollen today, mosty HG pilots since the forecast was for some wind. Frode took a few pictures, here’s me over takeoff on the Target trainer.

It was nice and slow conditions in the morning, the first pilots fell through. Then some huge snow squalls made it very windy, before it slowed down and became very soarable. I flew for 20 minutes before I got too cold and went down. I felt the first thermals today, still wintery though…