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…