DAY .. 29. June - 2004
- Weather is nice and it was almost no wind today. On the mountain the temperature is 15celcius (according to the webcam at Storefjell) and I can feel thermals as I pack the car down in the valley. I needed some more practice on landings in high altitude so me and my son went to Klanten airport at 820m. I set up the winch with 300m line and also tried to use only 4sec on the line. First start was downwind but right into a thermal so the start was good. I found thermals but they did not bring me much higher than launch height. But enough to give me as long flight as I wanted. The first landing was a disappointment as I came in too late. If it were competition I would have had to touch the ground 4-5m before the mark because of the time. We walked over to make some barbeque. Two hamburgers out of the cooler and out with the gas barbeque. Its good to be outside when all is prepared and ready... Second start my son wanted to fly. He normally gets only rudder control. I controlled the rest of the input and this shows how difficult it is to get a good time in high altitude I think. 2:30 flying time shows that one have to complete a round not by just flying around on the sky. 3 more starts and all of them with 4sec start, 10min flights and 0-2m landing. I was pleased with today's work :-) As you see Jane have borrowed my car so I had to get my mothers Landrover. It is expensive to drive (benzin V8, 3.9l) but is fun to drive on the mountain. Thanks mom!

  DAY .. 27. June - 2004
- Jane and Paul are here and I took them for a drive (long one) on the first day in Norway. But hey they only have 7 days so we have to make use of them :-) We went to Beitostølen that is the first part of Jotunheimen. The temperature was in the 20's but some light rain made us eat some lunch at a restaurant on Beitostølen. Jane and Paul had moose and after a small break we headed for the DS slope. There was almost no wind so Jane did not get to see DS today. But I thermalled my Organic on a small slope and found more lift just below Bitihorn. It was raining a bit but the sun also came out for us. We also went to Slettefjell (a 800m high slope) but the wind was a bit wrong. After stopping at every waterfall and viewpoint in two valleys we arrived home in the night for some night time boiled cod (a sea fish) and some Czech red wine and liqueur. Here are some of the 200 pictures that we took. Some of theme by Jane or Paul:

  DAY .. 26. June - 2004
- Had to pick up Jane and here boyfriend and what is more naturally than to go flying at the same time? I met up with my uncle Per Arne and Alf Erik at Spydeberg. Since I had to use my wife's car there is no room for big models. But on the shelf in the back my Organic got plenty of space. Me and Alf Erik (flew his big Graphite) used the winch and Per Arne his electro Organic and we also had a visitor with a "Signal". There was some rain but it cleared up and I had 4-5 flights before I went home to Alf Erik for dinner. Maybe I can squeeze in my Organic for WC in my small box ? It is not a perfect F3J model as it is small but it flies well and is fast in the start. Later in the evening my Czech friends arrived with the bus from Prague. I think were tired but were excited to be here.

  DAY .. 23. June - 2004
- A small trip to a local slope as the Paraglider guys was going out. The wind was pretty strong for them with tough thermals and rain showers also coming by. So they decided just to watch me fly. I flew first the Vector Zero to check the lift as there are little chance of landing out here. Then my Opus went for a spin and some light DS behind the slope. I did hassle the paragliderguys a bit not going out but one of them are on the National team (Gunnar Sæbu that also operated the camera) and knows when to stay on the ground. BTW we have lots to learn of each other when it comes to spotting thermals and I enjoy being around pilots with the same feeling for air that can be used.
While ripping a bit of air Espen Bakke called me. We shared some DS sounds over the telephone :-) A very short video is HERE (1,2mb)
Saturday I will have company from Czech Republic. Jane from Samba (producer of Pike Models) will be here with here boyfriend. They will stay a week.
 

  DAY .. 20. June - 2004 - Boat race
- Rain, rain and more rain. Damn should have flown F5J Extreme today. Instead I watched a Norwegian Cup in "offshore" model boats for two days. I made a video for them that should be ok even for us that likes 3 dimensions... It is 25mb of .wmv and can be downloaded HERE. The boat race was exciting as there were some crashes and the boats go much faster than we were used to before. Now they have gasoline engines in the biggest boats. Arild bought my Majko today so maybe I have one more to fly electro comp. with. He just had to fly it so we found a place and managed a few flights before it rained again. Seemed like he was pleased with it.

  DAY .. 18. June - 2004
- For those of you that just "have to" download any video on the internet I made a video from the 16th.june. It is not good quality as the sound was just wind-noise and the camera should be zoomed more in. But Christian did a good job with the camera as a first time watching DS and using my camera. You cant see it on the video but in the last session we fly with video streamers (VHS) on my Opus (what kind of video ? who knows..). The video shows only a small part of the flying but the speeds can be measured on the video to apx 200-250km/h (apx 130-160mph)
The video can be downloaded HERE (7,8mb .wmv)

  DAY .. 16. June - 2004
- Christian asked me yesterday if we should go slope or winch flying as he had a Simprop model he wanted to test. The wind was still strong today so we went to Beitostølen. We arrived with 20m/s on the front and that is a bit too much for his 3,4m model. But my Opus was up to it and I made some of the fastest (maybe the fastest) runs I have ever flown. It had to go wrong so after a low and near pass I fluttered the Opus for 4-5 seconds. The aileron servo is gone but the model!!! is still rock solid. I think it is about time Hitec replaced the gears of their 5125 servo. It is not up to this kind of flying. The servo is still working but now the gears are very sloppy around neutral. If I set the aileron offset it is good again. On the other hand I think it is too expensive to use good Graupner servos in this model.
After a while the wind went down to a more moderate level and we flew Christians Simprop model. The CG was a bit up front, the hinges need replacement but the model flew well. We also had a good time flying my Vector Zero wing and went banging the hill trying to DS it. A wing is the perfect tool to go banging. It never dies!

  DAY .. 15. June - 2004
- Finally I went to Beitostølen for some DS this year. I had not been here earlier this year but now finally the conditions were right and I had my weapons ready. The Opus went screaming but also went very quiet as there was some rain coming in. It was fully loaded and is then apx 2000g. Today I could have easily have taken twice the weight :-O Luckily there is a big rock here that 5-6 people can easily get under during rain showers. But maybe I am just lazy because there are only 200m back to the car... Took some video and might put it out later. also flew my Vector Zero combat wing but the conditions were a little hard for it. So it twisted a lot and might need some new tape. Did not bring my wind meter but I would think it was apx 15m/s on the front side.
 

  DAY .. 13. June - 2004 F3J National Cup
- Another day with F3J but now a more "fun F3J" since it was not national cup. But the competition was just as high when we just got going. We had lost a few pilots from thee day before and were down to 10 pilots on the field. Today the weather was very warm and thermals were all over. But again some groups were lost in sink. After 6 whole rounds I had again earned a 6000 points and "had to" discard a 1000p :-) But I had to share the first place with Aril Røsvik on my team that had 5000p after discard. But that's ok :-) I had much good help from my team that were Me, Aril Røsvik (also National team pilot for Canada) and Alf Magne Andreassen that is going for Canada but just "does not know it himself yet"... Alf Magne we need you! BTW Alf Magne and Aril came almost 2000km for this event! Norway is a long country. God save the airliners or something.. Thanks to Vingen for a super event. Everything worked and I cant wait for the Nationals in September. I used only my Superior today for those who want to know :-) But in the last rounds I should have used the Giant as the wind picked up.
As said before we used winches with 150m to turnaround thru the whole weekend. This worked well. We did have some linebrakes but that was because of old and too thin lines. We all felt the starts were fine and mostly even for all. This time we switched winches every round since the organizers had organized most of them.
Detailed results Sunday can be found HERE | Report from organizers HERE (nor txt) | More pictures (opens two windows)

  DAY .. 12. June - 2004 F3J National Cup
- 12 competitors is not much but we have now started to use winch in National Cup events so it is easy to set up many pilots in each group. This is off course also because there are many winches around here in Norway. So we managed to set up 8 winches and supplied them with lines (150m to turnaround!). And that was maybe the only problem we got. We are waiting for lines from EMC-VEGA but they are slow and have probably much to do? Before lunch wee managed 3 whole rounds but then some rain showers stopped us many times. We finished a complete 6 rounds at around 17:00 (no round were to be started after 17). It had gone well with myself and I won every round to give me a total of 6000points (- one 1000p discard :-). In the finals the wind had shifted so I planned to take a big chance. Since the wind came down from a small hill just beside were we launched I assumed there would be a lot of downdraft. So I flew over the valley and hoped for better air. This was not the case as the wind shifted and all the others flew in calm nice air just above the field. So I ended up with a lot of distance flying and did not bring the first price home. But it was well worth it since I needed to see that I can do such huge mistakes. One has to learn from it. The conditions in the event were all from monster thermals to big downdrafts. So there was no easy solution to anything and some flights were even won by flying only 5 minutes.
In the evening we had a great barbeque and since there was only a fun event next day we could have a few drinks that the local farmer brought... The farmers also shared the gifts we gave (more drinking) and joined the party. So it became a long and nice evening (even though most of us were in bed by midnight actually). In the morning before the competition I had got a super start with my AVA as I launched straight into a thermal. Sadly it broke the same place I had repaired it. During the evening we repaired it but the curing of the epoxy in low temperature was not good. So today I used my Superior and the Pike Brio Giant.
Detailed results can be found HERE | Report from organizers HERE (nor txt)

  DAY .. 11. June - 2004
- This weekend we were going to have Nationals F3J but because of few pilots we decided to have it later in the year. There were so many that wanted to be there but did not have the chance because of various reasons. But Vingen the organizer club set up a National cup event on Saturday and a fun F3J on Sunday. I went down the day before to have some practice and take part of the evening fun! Many of us camped on the site and the organizers provided us with big tent and barbeque all weekend. Today there were some rain showers so we did not fly much.

  DAY .. 9. June - 2004
- Me and my son went to Klanten airport (820m) for some practice in nice sunshine and 16 degrees celcius. The wind was 3-5m/s so it was time to check if the AVA was up to the wind at this altitude. It was not. After 5 flights I gave up learning my son to fly as the flights were extremely short. If I found the thermal right away it was no problem but the sink was so strong that the AVA would need a lot of lead to penetrate (and I have not yet installed the provided ballast tube). So I switched to Pike Brio Giant and that was a whole different weapon for the conditions. The sink was still awesome but now I had some speed to find the thermal. What was interesting was that the AVA launched ok in the wind even though I had set up the winch downwind. The Brio launched higher but needed some extra launch camber to be as good as I am used to. Very interesting day indeed.

  DAY .. 7. June - 2004
- 12:00-16:00 . Just a test. Watch me and Alf Erik repair his Graphite the next coming hours in my workshop. Watch the webcam picture (you need to refresh every 60sec yourself).
- 16:32 - Last picture today is taken. The results are as you all can see on the picture. Cool to hear that many of you watched us during the day :-) A selection of photos HERE
Alf Erik drove here to get his model ready for this weekends Norwegian Championship F3J. Now it is clear that the championship is not going to happed due to low participants. As long as don't have enough people to get 3 pilots in the air at the same time it will not be a quality event (as the rules says). We will still have a national cup event on Saturday and a fun F3J on Sunday. The winner Saturday might call himself... well it can be fun! National Championship will be 25-26.september instead. See you there.

After the repair session we went to a local field and tested the fixed Graphite. I also flew my AVA a bit on the small bungee with short line that we used. There was some slope lift but also passing thermals although they were not strong enough to get any height. Alf Erik seemed happy with his repaired model and I think one should look close to see that it is repaired! Pictures of me by Alf Erik.

  DAY .. 6. June - 2004
- Fixed my AVA so that my son could fly a bit today. A bit strange colours on right versus left wing but it flies well. We used a small bungee with 10m line to get some 2-5min airtime. Picture by my son. Not much thermals but a fine breeze made it easy to stay up on some trees.

  DAY .. 5. June - 2004
- Finally wanted to fly a bit again and it was time to bring out my Pike Superior for some good practice at high altitude. My son came with me to Klanten airport at 820m above sea level. It is great to be a member also in this club. House with toilet, freezer with both hamburgers and hot dogs just waiting to be eaten. I powered up the gas barbeque while my son (7) had some fun on a trampoline. Nice weather with 2-4m/s wind gave me good practice on the winch while other members were out flying big planes. 5 hours later I wanted to go home but my son was stuck in the sandbox.. :-)

  DAY .. 4. June - 2004
- Sorry no new flying day but a link to a video that shows DS on a sea slope in Denmark. At www.dynamic-soaring.de you will find a video showing Jens Kleinert (5,7mb .wmv). It shows that one does not need to be above the ridge to fly fast/accelerate and a single throw can get you going. The plane is a DS-eclipse

January - Won the first F5J extreme postal competition and first flights of both my new Brio and Superior. 9 days of flying in total
February - New Pike Superior, won Arnborg F3J winter flying (Denmark) and bought a Caracho as a spare F3B-model
March - Good practice on the ice, Indoor and Fagernes Air show
April - DS three times, new and bigger Brio for F3J, electro fuse for Superior/Brio and the AVA
May - Won two F3J competitions - one of them with my Brio Giant. 3 days of F3B flying and I got to be speedmaster.
June - National cup F3J and fun F3J event. Won all rounds! Jane and Paul came from Czech Republic to visit.
July - Started editing

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