… and a happy new flying year to all readers!

Today it’s a hundred years since the Wright brothers did their first successful sustained flight. They were however cheating with an engine and propeller. Description of the Wright brothers first flight. Any Brazilian will tell you that it was in fact Alberto Santos-Dumont who was the first to achieve sustained heavier than air flight.

The English will of course point to Sir George Cayley’s glider flight. As a good designer he used his coachman as a test pilot, pushing him off the hill in this contraption.

Leonardo da Vinci designed a perfectly good hangglider hundreds of years before any of these dudes, but there’s no evidence that he built and flew it. A team of constructors did make a replica from Leonardo’s drawings, and had Judy Leden ridge soar it to make a documentary for the Discovery channel. The glider flew pretty well!

We could see some very nice mother of pearl clouds over Oslo yesterday afternoon. These clouds are best seen when the sun is below the horizon, shining on the ice-crystals that make up the cloud. It’s actually a sign of stratospheric mountain wave conditions, where moist air from the trophosphere is pushed up into the cold polar stratosphere. The wave and clouds are extremely high, from 20 to 30 km high. (A jetliner cruises at 10km)

Steve Fosset have formed the Perlan project to soar these waves in a pressurized sailplane, the project goal is to reach 100000 feet.

Picture from met.no, link to norwegian met.no article.

Fredrik and I went back to Sundvollen today, but coming over Sollihøgda it was a quite windy sky ahead. At takeoff it was quite calm, but the wind at height was clearly strong. The sky was full of lenticularis clouds, at Sundvollen that is a sign of very turbulent and strong winds just above takoff. Probably flyable, but we did not want to risk it, no one flew today.

We went to Vik and had coffee with Frode. Fredrik took some shots outside the cafe in the spectacular sunset, too bad this image got some camera shake, but the colours are captured well. The sunset is reflecting in the frozen lake

Coffee at the Cafe. Nice backdrop!

Frode and I went for some Pizza back in Oslo and then saw the movie “Master and Commander”, pretty good if you like Russel Crowe.

Friday night it was blowing a gale in Oslo, I did not think it would calm down enought to be flyable Saturday, so I slept long and did not check the weather until 13:00. The sun was shining, and the wind had calmed down and the windtalker reported a nice 4 m/s NW at Sundvollen. I called Fredrik who was still sleeping and a little hungover, he wanted to come along just to get out, but did not bring his glider. It was quite gusty in Oslo, so we were not sure it was going to be flyable anyway.

Arriving at takeoff we soon realized it was close to perfect conditions, I started to set up in a hurry. It gets dark around 15:00, and it was now past 14:00. Fredrik did the beeing nice and talking to the tourists routine, while I got ready and suited up. I took off and wondered what was wrong when I climbed, I forgot my vario at home, and never thought about it while pre-flighting the glider. I just got it back from Brauniger, and had not put it in the harness. No need for it anyway, it was like riding an elevator on the ridge.

One thing I did not pre-flight was my shoelaces, because one got stuck in my harness zipper as I was trying to close it up. Typical when it’s cold, and it’s not the first time either. Learn from my mistakes? Naahhh. :-) So it quickly became cold with just jeans in 3 to 4 degrees below zero.

Getting high and cold over Kongen I decided to do a little XC before it became too dark, and went on glide towards Steinsletta. I could see the catabatic flow from Kongen on the smoke from some fires. The flow was making conditions in the closest LZ interesting, so Steinsletta was a much better option out on the flats away from the hill. It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed the flight conditions so much, it was thick cold air, smooth as silk. The air was perfectly clear and the horizon was pink 360° around, the sun had just set, and the full moon was reflecting silver in Steinsfjorden. Grinning and wishing I had a camera in my harness I did a 7 km final glide, and landed next to Fredrik who was there with the car.

The traditional dinner at Vik tasted good as always after a good flying day. Forecast for tomorrow is pretty good and we plan to going flying again.

Some images; ready at takeoff, takeoff, high and cold over Kongen, on final glide, and after landing.

It’s been the normal shitty Oslo weather in the last weeks, with rain, coudbase at 30 meters and generally foggy conditions. In the north the weather have been rather extreme, with strong winds and snow. Airports and roads have been closed in some places. A Dornier turboprop airplane chrashed on the runway in Bodø injuring 4 people, it had trouble with the elevator controls after reportedly beeing hit by lightning on the way from Røst.

Today it cleared up here in Oslo for the first time in weeks, and we finally got some sun. Sitting in my office I noticed a huge gaggle of seagulls flying above our office buildings. I went outside on the roof to see if they were thermaling, and I could see lots of seagulls in the air over the city area. It looked like every bird in Oslo was out flying today. I think they were sick of having been grounded for weeks, and wanted to stretch the wings again. I do know the feeling! Would be great to get out and fly again, maybe the weather cooperates this weekend, the forecast is OK.

No flying this weekend, I had instructor duty but the weather did not permit any training flights. The winter is here with shitty weather. Guess we’ll have to wait until the ice makes Sundvollen flyable for the students in the middle of January.

The weather forecast was for easterlies, and nice weather. Fredrik and I drove towards Ringerud, but turned around and went back to Sundvollen as the wind was South when we passed Sundvollen the first time, and North West at Hønefoss and Ringerud.

Arriving there it was shifting between nil wind and tailwind, we set up and I got quickly ready to lauch in the first period with launchable air. I ran like hell from well behind the ramp, but still got low over the railing below, but had enough energy to make it a nice takeoff. There was some light thermals, but nowhere near enough to climb in it. Nice landing made it a good flight in perfectly clear and cold winter air. Small flights like this makes the winter season a little more bearable, it would be nice to thermal up over the Australian flatlands now… But nah, I would be sweathy and too warm. Give me a frozen LZ and still air… ;-)

Fredrik did not take off as the tailwind became consistent and stronger. Oliver Thurman whom I have not seen in some years showed up and did a flight with his paraglider, nice to talk to him again.

Fog banks, and nil wind on the fjord.

Wow duuude, aawesome thermals today!

At the LZ, frozen margeritas all over …

I had instructor duty this weekend, Saturday was cancelled because the weather was crap. Sunday looked good and we drove to Flesberg to get the first real high flights. The weather was nice and the students got two flights each, and Fredrik got two flights also. I flew down myself first to guide them down on the radio. The local students of the Kongeberg club were also there and got good flights.

Panorama shot from the take off, LZ down to the left behind the trees.