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Instructor seminar weekend
This weekend I attended the obligatory instructor seminar. Every instructor have to attend every 4 years to keep the licence. We had it in Vågå, with about 20 instructors in this year. It was flyable both saturday and sunday, but the schedule did not allow for flying until the afternoon, and by then it was raining both days. Sunday Olav and I went up to Vole in hope of getting a flight, but it overdeveloped and rained hard when we came up.
Late night flight
Fredrik and I decided to give Sundvollen a try, with NW winds and nice weather it seemed like a perfect day for that site. I had to work until 15:30, so we were a little late, luckily it turned out to be a good thing as everyone had short extended glides earlier in the day.
It was very calm when we came to the landing, Erik Vermaas had just landed after a short flight. When we came up to takeoff it was blowing 4-5 m/s straight in. It became stronger and very gusty while we were rigging the gliders, so we waited for 2 hours until the sun was setting and the thermals died out. I took off at 19:30 in very laminar and nice air. It was almost too weak in the beginning, but I slowly gained height and got some weak thermals assisting the ridge lift.
The sun was setting, and the view was great from 900 meters. Sundvollen is a very rewarding site to get up at, the terrain is so flat that you feel very high and free as soon as you get a few hundred above the ridge. I got some good thermals even after the sun was below the horizon. I had to land before it became too dark, and joined Fredrik in the newly cut field. A perfect way to spend a Monday night!
Aerotowing at Trøgstad
Saturday was gray and a little windy when I got up, Åge was towing at Trøgstad so I loaded up and drove there to get some airtime. Johannes, Alf and Bjørn was there and were towing. I took one tow to 1000 meters, 200 above cloudbase :-) The conditions were slow, I flew over to a small cumulus that was forming, and tried to find the lift while I was slowly sinking into the condensing fog. I came out through cloudbase and could not find anything strong enought to stay up.
Searching the area I got a small thermal off the horsetrack, and gained 100 meters before it became too weak. The landing was interesting as I got turned 180 degress on final by turbulence, and chose to land in the next field across the creek. I could have tried to continue into a 360 but it would have been risky, no point in risking damage to the glider or myself. Johannes helped me carrying it back across the creek.
I went to the training hill today to have a look, very few students on this course. Johannes and Erik got good flights at Brandbu.
Hanggliding course in Oslo
The hanggliding club in Oslo will as usual run a beginners course this fall. I have been one of the main instructors the last few years, and I will help out in this course too, but not as much as before. I have to prioritize my time differently this winter with work and the worlds in Australia coming up. I will probably do some of the first high flights with the students, as we must have two instructors present then. And it’s always fun to yell “PUSH!” in the training hill.
If you know someone who are interested in taking the course, now is the time to convince them to give it a try! Contact me or Bjørn Hammer.
I’ve set up the weblog for the course again.
Tracklogs
Some users have problems opening the IGC files in GPSDump when there is more than one day of tracklog. You can open the IGC file directly in a text editor like Notepad, and remove the lines of log from the wrong day. Save as IGC file again, not .txt.
It should then be possible to open and convert to DL format in GPSDump. You need a recent version of GPSDump, it can be downloaded from Stein Sørensen’s homepage
No Manfred in Oz, flying in Lithuania, tracklogs
Manfred Ruhmer said he would probably not go to Australia to fly the worlds when I talked to him in Millau. Now it’s confirmed according to Gerolf and the Oz report. At least there will be some competition about 1. place again.
Lihtuania
A pilot with .lt domain emailed me asking about my glider. I asked about flying in Lithuania, here’s what he wrote, would be fun to go there some day;
Yes I’m from Lithuania. We have here some active and passive winches, also airtowing trike. Usual cloudbase is abaout 1500m (varies 1000-2800m). During season paraglider pilots flies 5-7 times more than 100km (http://www.skrydis.lt/varzybos_lspsf2004.html). Hangglider pilots don’t like open distance so much as paraglider and flies mostly in competition. There are only 8 hangglider pilots in our country that can take part in competition, not every pilot have enough time, so during our championchip there are 5-7 pilots. There are only few hills 50-35 meters high where we fly in winter when there are no thermals.
Our Lithuanian open championchip usualy is in the end of spring or begining of summer (may-june), starting fee ususally is not more than 50eur (winch towing included – some lottery to get a thermal), air towing (500m) is 7-10eur after than it’s not a problem to get a thermal.
My hanggliding club is in Seduva (between Panevezys and Siauliai), we fly winch and after airtowing trike.
You are welcome to come to our club to fly for fun or Lithuanian open hanggliding championchip. Prices in our country is about same as in Slovakia.
Tracklogs
The logs from Milslukern 2004 is available for download. ms2004-tracklogs.zip
All logs from both HG and PG are in there in IGC format, they can be converted with GPSDump, or analyzed directly in SeeYou or CompeGPS
Ringerud, glider for sale
Fredrik and I went to Ringerudkollen today as the weather was really good, and forecast for easterly winds. Over the takeoff it was good clouds with high cloudbase, but we could not see of feel much thermal activity. It was 0-2 m/s, and too warm. I took off and found the air to active but a strong inversion kept all the hot air from rising. It was only a extended sled ride to the landing. I think the conditions were good if we could get to a higher takeoff.
It was nice to be swimming in the Sperillen lake, the water was very warm, and the dinner at Vik was good too :-)
My Litespeed S 4 is now for sale, it’s got the new sailcut compared to the “Worlds” version, which makes it the best performing Litespeed ever. The glider have all extras including carbon outer leading edges, carbon tips, carbon sprogs, and carbon inserts. The A-frame is Zoom aluminium uprights, and carbon Zoom speedbar.
The glider looks like new, it’s flown about 50 hours, no crashes, original uprights, no acro flying.
Nordic Open 2004 – Day 8
It was the last day of the comp, with good looking clouds early in the day. The task committee wanted us at takeoff early, to make a short final task with landing at the center. They set a 47km task, in the area in front of Salknappen takeoff, with Vole, Blåhø, Vole, Tordkampen, Vågå bru and to goal at Sørem.
The nice clouds were growing, and the takeoff was in shade for long periods. Some freeflyers did not get very high, and the first pilots taking off had to struggle. I took off in a nice cycle, but had to get out to Gråhø before finding usable lift. I waited in cloudbase for the last start time since I was 5 minutes late on the previous one.
Flying the course was quick and fun, with plenty of pilots in the air to mark the best lift. Conditions were strong at times, and it was some fighting with the cores to get up efficiently. I made the final glide from the last TP with quite good altitude since I was unsure of the wind at the goalfield. It turned out to be almost no wind, I had 100 meters to spare arriving at goal with full speed.
I flew the course in just over 1 hour, Andreas beat me with 3 seconds, and Nils Åge was the fastest and day winner 30 seconds faster than Andreas again. Lots of pilots in goal.
After the bomb out on day 4 I had very little chance of taking a top three place, Jon Gjerde and Olav Opsanger was fighting over it, and I had to catch up more than 300 points today. Winning day 6 only gave 330 points, and Jon was just behind me on that day. I got 5. place in the Nordic Open, and 4. in the Nationals, got to be happy with that.
The comp has been the best I’ve flown ever! We had good organization, pretty good weather with safe conditions, no injuries, lots of people in goal, and 8 out of 8 days flying.
Now it’s the prize giving party, and tomorrow we travel back to Oslo. I’ll upload some pictures and links to the complete results later.
Nordic Open 2004 – Day 7
Another blue day, with moderate to strong south-east winds. Task to the north via Dombås, Lora, and back to goal at Dombås. Only two pilots made it, I landed halfway. The day seemed good around takeoff, and I just flew too agressively for what turned out to be slow conditions.