DAY .. 12.Oktober 2008 - F3J
F3J open club championship in the Lillehammer club so me and my son Fredrik took the trip (about an hour driving) to finish of the season with these guys. It is so great to meet pilots that are eager to start competition flying. Very nice and relaxed competition. We had 3 winches and divided into two teams and flew 2 to 3 pilots in each round. My team was me, my son Fredrik, Stein Marius (another junior) and Marius (a very eager learner). We had a blast though it was very difficult in high winds conditions. I even broke a brand new 1,55 line that I was sure would hold up anything... We used 150m to the turnaround and with this wind direction one needed all the altitude one could get to get past a tree line that made it pretty turbulent below 30-40m. Some thermals past thru all the time and with careful selection on them one could actually follow them a bit. I never pushed my son over the tree line but instead urged him downwind far away from the turbulence. There he amazed me again with his turning abilities and picked up several thermals in some of the groups to get some thousands against very good pilots. I am so happy as a father. May it continue!! The other junior Stein Marius is also a very good stick and really wants to do it all. That left us a little bit hot in the landings loosing some landing points. But if these two juniors can keep their head cool and keep practicing we might have a fairly good team for international championships. Anders is also junior (17) but has not flown any F3J this year. He flew a completely unsuitable model for the conditions but are also a good stick and will progress incredibly with a Ellipse4 he has bought.
In the end the podium was filled with our team with me on top, Fredrik in second and Stein Marius in third. We flew 4 rounds but no finals as this was to be relaxed. I think I need to join this club as it is so nice to fly with other pilots that wants to develop and go further in the sport.
Also very cool to hear about is that the local store IMPX.no will stock full range of NAN models (ordered more than 50 models) and that I think will be a good boost to the community. Might be a competitor to my Pike sales but who cares as long as it is available and more people flies the good stuff. Heard his prices will be reasonable too!!

DAY .. 11.Oktober 2008 - Practice
Went up to the field the Lillehammer club has for some practice with my son. F3J open club championship next morning. A nice day out but very windy and turbulent. Fredrik flew one flight with his Supra but with no ballast we grounded that plane. I flew a lot with my Perfect extreme. Stig M. Olsen is one of the real pushing forces in the Lillehammer club and he had finished a Perfect from unflyable to a fairly good model with potential. He wanted to let 3 guys borrow this model but they needed a few flights on it. It went fairly well until a thermal came thru and gave one of the guys a launch he will not forget in a while. A dip down and the mode accelerated so fast the pilot did not understand what happened before it fluttered violently. Pitty but part of a learning curve. Next time we will do more talking about how a zoom is done. This was a good pilot that flies fast jets. Still a hard core F3J launch can be very special. We all laughed quite a bit of it so that's good ;)