Last week the famous Norwegian hang glider team Loffdesperados had their annual Loffe-uke (Loff week). Loff-uke basically is a a gathering of hang glider pilots driving around looking for the best flying conditions possible while sleeping in their cars, trying to fly as much as possible and drinking lots of beer. More or less a “test what your body can take of punishment over a week” experience.
This year we started in Hallingdal, but after just two days headed for Vågå and spent rest of the week there. We had some good flying days and some bad ones. Steinar had one exceptional flight of 137 km from Vågå to Røros, but generally conditions were never very good and we also managed to ruin a couple of days because of bad decisions on where to fly. So, we had hoped for a little better conditions, but good company and good experiences make up for this.
Join the main hang gliding happening this spring – Hallingdal International Fly-In and Floater Competition 2010. All pilots are welcome, also from outside Norway.
Dates: April 16th-18th (Friday to Sunday). In case of bad weather, we will try again the following weekend.
Base camp: Sutøya Feriepark.
Questions: Post it as a comment to this post.
This weekend I was instructor at the Hang glider and paraglider section’s instructors seminar in Vågå. Same procedure as Bergen two weeks ago, but as Kjell Chr. could not attend I had to cover his topics as well. It was nice to visit Vågå again.
Øyvind Ellefsen, Terje Birdman Brønstad and I had instructor duty this weekend. Saturday the wind was too strong and we had to give up after a few hours. The students got some training in handling the hang gliders in relative strong wing, useful but not what we were hoping for at this stage in the course. Sunday conditions were almost perfect except that we had to take a two hour brake between 1400-1600 due to rain. Besides from this we had an efficient and good day scooter towing our student. All of our students showed good progress today and we do not need many more days like this to complete the course.
This weekend I was instructor at the Hang glider and paraglider section’s instructors seminar in Bergen. In Norway hang glider and paraglider instructors must attend an instructors seminar every forth year to maintain their license as instructors. It is a group of four of us (no: faglig ledergruppe) that is responsible for arranging these seminars. The main idea with these seminars is to update the instructors with new info, but the most important points on the agenda are sharing knowledge and ideas. As usual both the seminar and the social evening activities were nice, with good discussions at the seminar and lots of beer in the evening.
Returning to Oslo my flight was delayed, but it was worth the wait. The plane was a brand new Boeing 737-800, and the weather was clear blue and the view from the air was spectacular. I was basically hanging out of the window the entire flight. Just after take off we flew over down town Bergen, then we flew over Hardangervidda before we flew just over the hang gliding and paragliding launch at Sundvollen before landing at Gardermoen.
I strongly recommend a virtual tour of the flight between Bergen and Oslo in Google Maps; not as good as the original but still a nice “journey” over a the best Norway can offer of fjords, mountains, glaciers, valleys, lakes, and rivers.
The bad flying year is continuing for me and it has been no flying since Flå. Still, autumn means hang glider course and this year is no exception, so at least I am involved in some hang glider related activity.
This year Øyvind Ellefsen has been the main initiator and instructor for the course. He, and Steinar J., have made a great effort thus far, and it seems like we will have 6 or 7 students at this years course. Today Øyvind, Terje B. and I was instructors, and we were at a field just north of Lillestrøm. As bad weather has slowed down the course progress, we opted for a long day today to catch up, and we ended up with a course day from 1000 to 1945. But unfortunately we were troubled by relatively strong winds during the day so we did not get a very efficient day, but I think we managed to get the best out of the day. The price to pay for training in the strong wind as a lot of uprights, and by the end of the day we ran out of spare uprights. Hopefully we will have everyone on Falcons next course day, and after 4-6 more effective days we should have most of the students through the course.
May flying at Lillestrøm (photo by Line Hagen).
Pictures from the day HERE (photos by Line Hagen).
After a disastrous July for flying, today I made a last desperate attempt to get some airtime at the end of my vacation. So after a few phone calls and sms’ yesterday evening, a bunch of us (Steinar, Stein SP Fossum, Truls S, Petter P, Vegar H, and me) decided to give Flå a try. As we arrived at 1030 conditions looked quite good, but it seemed like it could be overcast. So we drove up to the launch as fast as possible, but it turned out that the shades kept away and we had nice sunny conditions until almost 1700. The conditions proved to be quite weak but enough to provide safe and easy soaring, mostly ridge soaring from weak thermals, and it was difficult to get over 950 masl. Still, we could at least fly as long as we wanted. I got a nice 2 hours 14 minutes flight.
Below, a bad video filmed with my photo camera – hand held.
This must have been one of the worst summer vacations I have ever had in terms of flying, and also this week seem totally wasted when it comes to flying.
Last week Vågå Paraglider Open was arranged, but they were only able to fly two tasks because of the weather. Bad luck, as Vågå in July can proved some of the best flying in the world.
So in the mean time, as it is not much flying to write about, here is a short documentary about Norway, this is Norway:
My blog went down just as the main flying season started, but nothing much has happened here in terms of flying. Actually I have only flown 3 flights in July, this must be an all time low for me. Still, I have one more week of vacation so I hope to get a few more flights next week.
Last week I flew for the first time from Flå, a new site Steinar Sverd Johnsen has explored and developed. This site seems very promising. Hopefully I will get a few more flights here this summer.
