Got a nice flight from Trøgstad, declared 50 km FAI triangle.
Now sleep…
Booooring
All work and no flying lately, and more to come as I’ll be upgrading a network at a customer site this weekend. We were supposed to do it last weekend, but some equipment got delayed. Today seemed like a perfect day for flying, but I was in a meeting all day. Otto and Johnny did declare a O&R Vågå – Frya – Vågå, but they had met strong headwind, and landed back in Vågå.
There will be a lot of flying soon though. The Norwegian Nationals start next weekend, and I go directly to Brazil for the Worlds the day after the comp is finished. I’m really looking forward to having some time off work and get some time in the air.
Slow weekend
A rather slow weekend in Oslo, I had to work and could not go flying in the great conditions during the week. Saturday I worked for a few hours. Bjørn H went to Ringerudkollen, but it rained there as well as in Oslo, so I stayed inside in front of the PC.
Today seemed to be OK, it was some sun early in the morning, but it closed up quickly. I drove to Trøgstad to do some areotowing. There was lots of people there set up and ready, but nobody seemed to want to fly. I quickly set up and got ready, jumped on the dolly and got a nice tow behind Bjørnar in the Tug. I was flying too fast, as I’ve gotten used to the fast trikes they used in Sweden, but got up and slowed down when we got high. I released at 600 meters, and searched around for lift. The sky was totally overcast, but I found a nice 2 m/s thermal over the airstrip. It slowed down and died at 950 meters, just enough to fly around for a while and make a final glide back into the wind to the airstrip. Nice flight.
There was some action as well, with two broken gliders, one pilot in the creek, and Erik Vermaas got hit by mechanical turbulence at the end of the strip, and had to land on the other side of the creek. The wind turned to the east at the end, and gave use some turbulence.
Nils Åge and Olav got long 130 km flights from Bismo to Tretten on Friday, and Ingar flew 115 to south of Notodden from Ringerudkollen.
Johannes writes to tell about his album from Milslukern
Orange …
I like orange…. Do you?
The old blog is online in the archives, sql import is fun.
XC bonanza in Vågå
There have been quite a few long flights in Vågå lately. The XC seminar have had good attendance by HG pilots, they have flown from Vole, Bøverdalen, and Heidal. Jon Gjerde did another good 110km from Bøverdalen to Tretten, and Olav Opsanger did the longest flight so far this season with 141 km from Vole to past Os, crossing south of Tronfjell over some pretty desolate terrain.
I’ve been working the whole week, had my glider on the car on Tuesday planning on a good flight from Brandbukampen, but it was strong sea-breeze in Oslo with lots of OD inland. Maybe it was flyable, there’s no windtalker so it’s hard to tell.
Nordics – Day 7
Since the forecast was negative we packed up and went home before the last day. We drove through some massive overdevelopment on the way back to Oslo, huge CB with rain and hail in the whole area. I talked to Thomas on the phone and they had flown the last day, but no one made goal as it OD’ed over Köping. Seems like we did not miss much. Peter Isacson won the comp, while Håkan who was in the lead did not get away from the airstrip…
In Oslo it’s been overdeveloping as well, I had plans to go aerotowing from Trøgstad with Robin but when the first rainshower came at 10:50 as I was shopping some breakfast I changed plans. Today looked the same, might be a good day tomorrow.
Nordics – Day 6
Rather cloudy and wet this morning, the briefing was postponed to 13:00 as the forecast was positive about the afternoon. At 13:00 it’s still raining, and we cancel the day. I checked the charts at http://www.wetterzentrale.de and it does not look positive for tomorrow. I guess we go home tonight unless we get a much improved forecast later.
Nordics – Day 5
It was still quite cloudy this morning, and quite windy. We set up to get off early to avoid the forecasted front. The task was difficult to set, with weak conditions, low cloudbase and strong winds blowing us towards controlled airspace in Västerås. I was the first pilot to take a tow at 12:20, towing behind the BMW trike was no advantage today as it climbed too good into the wind. I released at 600 meter and searched around in broken and weak lift, found nothing good and landed back at the strip. I took a second tow, which was a repeat of the first. Only a few pilots managed to get away. We hung around the airstrip until the window closed at 17:00 in case it improved, but no such luck. A rather long and boring day. Tomorrow looks the same, wish we could get some better conditions soon.
Nordics – Day 4
Canned today, it’s been raining all day until now. There’s a blue hole in the west and the clouds are breaking up as I write this. Still there’s lots of water on the ground that need to dry up before we can have really good conditions again. The forecast for tomorrow is good, seems like this comps is one day off for each day of flying. Need a few more days to get a good comp out of it.
Finished one book today, (American Gods by Neil Gaiman, highly recommended!) and started on a new. Got the movie “Chicken Run” on DVD and saw it on my PC while lying in bed. Ate lunch and walked the streets of Köping until we started walking in circles, it’s not the most exciting place I’ve been to….
Nordics – Day 3
Today we had nice blue skies again, with a front predicted to come in by noon. We first got a 92 km task towards the NE, but it was changed to a 55km straight line to goal at Sala. I was drawn late in the take off line, and got a tow straight through sink all the way to 600 meters. I searched around the golf course but had to glide back to the airstrip for another tow. After waiting in line for 45 minutes I got the next tow. This time I decided to go for it no matter what, as the cirrus was building and shading the area around the airstrip. I got down to 250 meters as I crossed the start circle, and worked it up to cloudbase, slowly at 0,2 m/s at first, and getting near 3 m/s at cloudbase. Base was at 1500 meters today, much better than yesterday.
I crossed over to the next good looking cloudstreet, found a nice 4 m/s thermal at the same spot I landed on day 1. Approaching cloudbase it started to rain, and the area over to the next good looking clouds was in shade. It continued to rain, and I flew through lots of sink as the glider got really wet. I could see water flowing off the trailing edge, and there was some hail as well just to make it really nice for us pilots, glad I had my new helmet with visir. A swedish pilot on a Climax glided with me, we aimed for the next area with some sun on the ground, but it was in shade before we could make it out of the rain. I arrived with 100 meters above a nice big field where another glider was derigging, 27 km from goal, and landed safely there with a soaking wet glider. 1-0 to the weather deamons.
Nils Åge got off earlier and made a good run to take second place today. Håkan won the day.
Forecasts for tomorrow are mixed, we’ll see. Picture from briefing first day, it cleared up later.
