We were certain it would be good conditions for the students this weekend, northerly winds made it cold the whole week, and we expected frozen lakes to land on at Sundvollen. But it was open water and just hints of ice in shallow areas when we got there today. Combined with gusty and turbulent winds and snow squalls it was unsafe for the students today. I had a testflight to check out the conditions, it was OK at takeoff, but rock&roll over the LZ, I even managed to break one upright on the Falcon on landing when I got hit by a gust from the side just as I was ready to flare.

Some pictures from the day;

Today our beginner course had their last planned day of the course, we wanted to get their first footlaunch high flights done before the winter break in December and January. I met up with Terje Solberg at Lier and we both brought our gliders along. We drove to Hjartdal and met up with the students and instructors there, but it was foggy at landing and tailwind at takeoff. It was a very pretty view above the fog though, but I did not bring my camera to takeoff. It looked like it would clear up a few times, but in the end we had to pack up.

Terje S and I were desperate to fly so we drove to Flesberg in hope of better conditions there, the fog was not as thick in the valley, but it was still not possible to fly. We sacrificed two burgers with chips and salad to the weather demons, and drove home.

My new moyesmobile with depressing winter conditions in the background.

Tomorrow we start the first intro days to our beginner course this fall, the intro days are free and gives the potential students a chance to see and try to fly a little in the training hill. After this they can sign up for our beginner courses if they want to learn how to fly. The course will be run as a scootertowing course, making it very efficient and safe.

On monday we had an instructor meet, to teach all the instructors how to use the scootertowing system. All 7 instructors were there, and we had a good afternoon of towing with me acting as a student making all the normal mistakes we see among the students.

Today Terje and I sat down to make new bridles for the student harnesses, as our old and worn out bridles are getting unsafe. Since this was a lot of work we had to fly in some foreign labour from Germany to help us finish in time;

Fall is here, which signals the end of the season for thermal and XC flying. As usual I’ve been busy with running a hanggliding course for the Oslo club, we have a nice scooter tow operation to train new students. We have 9 students in our course, 7 new, one PG pilot, and one HG pilot that have been out of flying for the last few years.

This year it’s been me doing most of the instructing and organizing the course, Bjørn is working himself to death in his new healthcare job, and Steinar have started playing heavy metal again in addition to building a cabin and fixing MD 80’s for SAS. Luckily I’ve had Benedicte, Terje, Gunnar, Harald, and a few others helping out, so the course have been efficient despite lots of cancelled weekends due to bad weather.

I’ve squeaked in a few afternoons to get some quality time under my Litespeed, but I’ve been unlucky with the conditions at Sundvollen with too much wind on the last two days I tried to fly. Looks good again this week, hope I might be able to get a soaring flight in soon.

Yesterday we actually trained the students in rain, I’ve never flown in this much rain before, but the Falcon’s flew very nicely even soaking wet, so it was actually a good day for the students. The wind was very laminar and smooth, it helps a lot for takeoffs and landings.

This was the view from our training field.