Algodonales, Spain. World Championships 2001. Day 2
Strong wind from the East made it impossible to have a competition today. We still had to wait on top over 3 hours until it was cancelled. The forecast for tomorrow is even worse with quite strong winds from the East.

Algodonales, Spain. World Championships 2001. Day 1
Wind from the NE made it difficult to launch today. We got a task of 96 km to Tarifa Beach (Any further south and you’re in Marocco) Dustdevils made it interesting at launch, and quite a few gliders got trashed and broken. I never set mine up, as we were far back in the line. The day was called at around 17:00, when only one pilot had taken off. The forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday is strong wind from the east. Bad news for any competition flying. We’ll see, the forecast have proven to be wrong here before.

We spent the rest of the afternoon bathing, and walking up to the castle in Zahara, nice view and cool water.

Algodonales, Spain. World Championships 2001.
Tonight we had the opening ceremony in Algodonales. Less chaotic than last year, and shorter speaches. Great fun with the local clown team behind us in the parade. Tomorrow’s the first day in the comp, weather looks quite stable like last year. Today it was not possible to fly off the local site.

Algodonales, Spain. World Hanggliding Championships 2001.
I found a Internet/Computer training center here, it was not here last year. They have 12 computers and a reasonable access speed, but it´s difficult to navigate a Spanish keyboard and Windows. ñç :-)

Yesterday Nils and I flew a local flight, the conditions was great, but still quite low cloudbase at 1700 meters. I still have some adjustments to make on my harness as it did not fit quite perfectly yet. The rest of the team arrived yesterday, Olav, Tor Erik, Ingar, Robin, and Arnt.

Algodonales, Spain. World Hanggliding Championships 2001.
3800 km from Oslo to Algodonales, in 37 hours straight. It went suprisingly easy as we never hit any traffic jams or slowdowns, stopping only for food and fuel.
The gliders for Nils Åge and Olav are here, so is most of the teams. Mike Barber had a chrash a few days ago and dislocated his shoulder, he’s gonna go back to the states.
The weather was nice today, but cloudbase was low. Lots of pilots in th sky this afternoon. We’ll set up the gear tomorrw, and then go flying. Nils needs to fit the carbon A-frame to the new glider, and I need to adjust my new M2 Cigar harness.

GSM data connections fail all the time, I’ll try to change operator if it helps.

I’m off to fly the Worlds in Spain. I’ll update these pages as always, stay tuned! After the Worlds Nils-Åge and I are driving to Slovenia to fly the Pre-Europeans.

Have a nice summer with lots of hours in cloudbase!

The comp at Ringerud last weekend was great. Saturday was quite gray and slow, I never got up over start, but Olav flew the whole task of 46 km to win the day. Sunday was quite windy early, but it calmed down enough to safely fly a comp. We set a race of 66 km to Lampeland, I came first with Sverre and Ingar just behind. The conditions were great with cloudbase around 2300 meters and strong tailwind. Monday was even better, with weak westerly winds and strong lift. We set a local task of 55 km, and took off around 12:30. I lost some time getting up in weak lift while the others got strong lift to cloudbase. In the strong conditions it was difficult to make up the 15 minutes I lost. I came in to goal at 3. place on Monday, and got 2. place after Sverre in the toal scores.

Total results here

We finally got some good weather in Hjartdal. Thursday was very windy, and we cancelled the day. Friday was good, we set a short race of 38 km. Sverre won, Ingar second, and I came third. It was good flying, but I got stuck below the inversion and lost some time getting back up. Some people got over 3000 meters high. Saturday was a little gray, and more wind made it hard to get back from the turnpoint and back to goal. I won the day, Sverre came second only a few hundred meters behind, and Robin third. Sunday was cancelled bacause of wind and hungover pilots.

Had a nice flight yesterday evening from Brandbukamen north of Oslo. Erik V and I met with Steinar + a few PG pilots. The clouds scattered as we arrived and thermal conditions picked up. I took off at 17:20 and it soon shaded over again, but I got a nice 1:20 hours in weak lift, never got over the inversion at 1000 meters.
Tomorrow Fredrik and I drive to Hjartdal, lets pray for good flying conditions.

The weather was a little better yesterday, but a warm front moved in and shaded the area, while it overdeveloped heavily from 10:30 around us. We did a few tows and Trond Olsen got up, but only made it 20 km before he was stopped by rain. I towed up through layers of rock’n roll air but found only broken and weak lift, never got over the release height again. As we packed up it started to rain and hail. I had to stop the car several times on the way back because of heavy hail showers.

I had a look around the area while searching for lift, and it sure looks great for spring and early summer flying, with large plowed fields everywhere and easy XC terrain where you don’t need the high cloudbase as in the mountains to go far. North to Tynset it’s 192 Km, and SE to Karskoga in Sweden it’s 205 km over Flatlands the whole way.

Next comp is Hjartdal Cup in Telemark, the forecast is quite positive this time, little wind and higher pressure moves in in the next few days.