DAY .. 31. March - 2004
A long time ago I was 15 years old. It was the year 1986 and I had prepared the "best" F3F machine available to me. It was a Trico 2002 from Air-Jet that I had replaced in favor for a MPX Akro. The first flight was to be at Pellestova - a yearly slopemeeting with 120 pilots and lots of fun. I travelled 1200km by train and slept in a tent outside the hotel. I had been there 2 years before and was now confident that I had the "right machine" and the "right thumbs". First flight were on a poor hill with poor lift but most guys were flying and... Well anyhow the model went flicking around the sky for only a few seconds and I ended up with a broken wing. The kind dealer let me return the plane and I switched again to his MPX Akro (imagine a sad 15 year old). But I have always wanted to try the trico again.
So now it is time to make it all again. I have come across a brand new one and are looking forward to it. It will not be finished one of the first days as I have enough projects but maybe later this summer. Those with good eyes will see that my Trico from 1986 were built by a 15 year old boy. Look at the stripes :-)
Today: I was on the ice with a bungee and tested my Opus V to check if all were ok for the DS-season. A short bungee (10m and 20m line) were used and flights in the range 1-2min offcourse. The Opus launches fine on a bungee and now we just wait for the snow to go away. I also had a few flights with my Majko electric.

  DAY .. 30. March - 2004 Airshow indoor movie
The indoor video by my camera is edited and on the net. This is the one that I got hurt by the proppeler... 3,6mb .wmv can be downloaded here (modem users should right click and download first)

  DAY .. 29. March - 2004
Been busy with the airshow all weekend (speaker, pictures, background) but managed to borrow 2 motorplanes on Sunday (and an option for a third mini-ultimate) since it was my birthday :-) I flew both the Ultimate 120 Arild Hagabråten brought and a Norwegian UAV that I also flew in the military 10 years ago.
The airshowpage is updated with a bit txt (sorry only Norwegian), pictures and videos. It was a great show with 106 pilots and 135 for dinner saturday. We flew all days but also indoor and nightflying. www.vfkm.no/flyshow
Photoalbum | Videos produced by Erik Eggum: Openingvideo (17mb) | Showflying (10mb) | Indoor (16mb) | Nightflying (2,5mb) | Helicopter (6mb) | Jet (8mb) | Acro (4,5mb) | Jet Training Thursday (10mb)

  DAY .. 24. March - 2004
For the Norwegian readers that still havent "got it":
This weekend is Norways biggest show that anybody can attend to.
Last year 100 pilots attended Fagernes Flyshow

  DAY .. 23. March - 2004
Good day on the ice with my Pike Superior. I tested a bit launching camber and thermal camber with the Lolo onboard. Mostly I did it to check that my settings were right. The graph on the Lolo when I got home showed that evrything was as I expected. So I had 4x8-10min and one 5 min flight (testing brakes, turning etc).

  DAY .. 23. March - 2004 F5J Extreme III
Todays flying will be updated soon. In the meantime I did win Sunday's F5J Extreme III :-)

  DAY .. 21. March - 2004 F5J Extreme III
The third postal competition was today. Though the rules have changed a bit I think they are working out really well. I had with me Arild Hagabråten to take the time and he did a good job informing me what I had left to fly. I used my Organic 2,5m with Hacker motor and 10x1000mah cells. The conditions were not good with low clouds and snow but first round I found a strong thermal above the city (apx 6-700m away). So only 10seconds climb is very good in snowy weather!. My landing was not so good as the snow was too hard and I slided over the mark. Second flight and the weather was a bit better. I launch immediately after the first flight to take the same thermal. But now I had to use the motor three times. I had allready used the motor for the first round and some testing so without charging this could have gone bad. This time I punched the elevator on the landing and stopped a three meters in front of the mark and 5 sec to early... Man I landed bad today. Now we wanted some warm drinks (it was +4 degrees and fine outside but anyhow..). So we went home to Arild (just 50m from the flying spot) and tried to update the Extreme group with pictures. But the line went dead and we out for more flying. Third round went ok but not any better than the two first. Now we could see the sun for a brief moment and Arild flew his Cap slowflyer some more.

  DAY .. 20. March - 2004
Bad weather today but Arild just had to get the first flight on his slowflyer. Or not him because I wanted the first flight since I did most of the building :-) The first flight did well but we did loose the battery in the air - resulting in an "un-manned" flight that went just fine. These planes are so light without battery that it will come down like a tumbling piece of paper. I have some video so it might be a small movie later.

  DAY .. 19. March - 2004
Missing a bit on this day since I went to Arild Hagabråten and helped him building a slowflyer (a T3D II Wild Beast from Moss Hobby ). So here are a few pictures of the building. The model was finsihed in apx 3 hours and a few drinks.

  DAY .. 19. March - 2004 DS Theory
Webcamera and weatherstation on Storefjell were looking good but when I arrived the wind came too much from the side. I was hoping for some frontside action and DS in the back. But the meteogram showed that it should change in a few hours. So I killed some time by setting up a camera behind a big pile of snow. I used some tapestreamers to see what the wind was doing on on top and in the back. It was interresting when the wind was above 7-8m/s because then the light snow were turned around hard on the back. The wind died after a few hours. So I never got my flying done. But I have put togheter a funny video of what I could see on my tapestreamers and snow. Download it HERE (7mb .wmv)

  DAY .. 18. March - 2004
Slope flying finally. There are too much snow in the mountain to get on a big slope with DS but right in the middle of Fagernes I have a few slopes that are ok. I checked the weather this morning and 10m/s in the mountain form west should give good conditions in the valley mid-day. And so it did. I took out my Pike Brio and flew 30min full aerobatic and flew pretty fast every time a thermal came by. Those of you that wonder why I fly with a yellow elevator it is because there are two elevators available for this fuse. One big and one small. The small one I used today I have cut from a big one. But new moulds are made and smaller elevator is on its way in the correct colors.

  DAY .. 16. March - 2004
New day and more training in turbulent wind have to be done after the weekends dissapointing result. And since the wind was strong down from the mountain it was a good session on the ice with my Pike Superior. I had 3 flights and tested empty, with 550g lead and 600g lead with more forward CG. The test showed just as I found in the weekend that my CG is fine and that lead does not give me much extra speed. It helps a tiny bit on the way back form a thermal but most effect is given by having less dihedral in strong turbulence. This makes the plane more stabile in turbulence.

  DAY .. 15. March - 2004 DS Theory
Lots of appreciated comments from you out there and lots of thinking beetween my flying. There two bigger comments that needs to be mentioned (and they need to be read thorughly before I can give you more ideas):
- First out is email from Andreas Herrig in Germany. I have pasted his email further down on this site. He also provided a lot more webpage-adresses that I need to read.. (look at link section on DS-site)
- Second is email from Jean-luc Foucher that has made a webpage with calculations with new theories. Pretty impressive. Look at http://perso.wanadoo.fr/dsjlf/ . A I can see it these theories can be used at both vertical and horizontal rotors back in our loved DS-zone. I have actually seen some of these calculations before when Jean-Luc visited me here in Norway (see diary 2.may.2003 and 11-12.october.2003).

One of the first things I take from these emails is that Andreas thinks that (on the lifting egg theory):
"What actually happens is, that a vortex forms inside the glass, because the (at first) resting air is driven by the air moving along the opening. This is an effect of friction. Now the egg is lying in moving air. Because it has a lot of drag, it will be blown away in circumferencial direction. Seen in the detail it might also be lifted from the glass surface because of the pressure gradient towards the vortex center."
So maybe friction makes vortex, rotors, windshears or whatever we will like to call the moving air in the DS-zone. And offcourse we do not need a frontside slope to make DS (we fly DS behind trees and on a opposite seaslope). Anyhow this moving air makes energy that we can use. Thats a fact (according to my practical flying atleast). My point is that I am looking too why the rotors form in the DS-zone. Offcourse there is no way we can know just how they will form.

  DAY .. 14. March - 2004
Ok I did not sleep much but early up and on the ice at 09:00. 18 pilots were competing in this event that starts the season in Norway. There is only 4 rounds flown - no throwouts and no flyoff's but we have a good time and there is food and hot drinks after a few rounds. In other words there are many smiling faces that all wants to get track of their machines before the season starts. The weather was not good when we arrived with heavy snow but it cleared up a bit and with strange winds coming down from the mountains in the south we had a nice day with lots of thermals that almost nobody figured out! Well not quite true - but the starts were bad as we only used one runner and under 100m it was a lot of turbulence. In the end all pilots had one or two bad rounds and the winner was not clear untill the computer showed us the winner. Ronny Sandslett from Tromsø (had travelled 2000km for the event) won with his Tsunami just ahead of Arnfinn Lie and Tor Midtlund. I ended up in 4th place and thats ok but not good. I did one mistake in one round and that was to fly over the water. Last year the open water was warmer than the ice and gave eus some lift. Not this year. So I learned that one needs too think a bit of why one area lifts compared to another.
Thanks to SFTH for a nice event again. It is good to have started the season. Results at their page soon I hope
Sorry for the poor pictures. I had too much to do spotting for all my team mates that ended 1st, 3rd, 4th(myself), 6th and 8th (we had 5 pilots in each team).

  DAY .. 13. March - 2004
Managed to get early down to Jevnaker for some F3J training before tomorrows competition on the ice. I think that I will NOT do that again or atleast NOT pull the winch on a snowboard apx 400m in deep snow just to get some flights with the other guys. I was so tired in my already bad back that I did not sleep at all this night. But it was nice to meet the others and I did fly 4 flights with my Pike Superior.

  DAY .. 12. March - 2004
Indoor flying and I was alone most of the time. But Erik Eggum stopped by with his video camera just as I was about to shut off the light and head home. It is always nice to fly with someone and not alone. I flew 25min with the X-wing.

  DAY .. 11. March - 2004
Today I had some very important training. The wind came down from the mountains but not with more than 1-2m/s. I set up the winch on what I thought was headwind but by the time I had finished setting it up and mounted my Pike Superior the wind had changed all opposite. Well then I could make some testing with downwind starts. I mounted the biggest drum I had on the winch and installed the Lolo (the drum should have been smaller on this big plane). I could have gone flying around the turnaround but since that is not possible in a F3J event with all starting at the same time I just went straight up every time. So I expected poor starts but I hoped to get differences in the starts (otherwise I could have turned the start direction immediately).
First start I changed the hook to most aft position possible (4mm back) and did two starts: 140/185m, Second start 122/167. Then I changed the hook back to normal with same CG (116mm w/Lolo, 118mm without) and made two more starts: 140/185, second start 130/190m.
Looking at the model going up the line with aft position hook does not look good. The tail is low and speed is not good. Hook forward again it is easier to get the tension and easier to control on the line. It must be said that I did not use a full power battery today as the number one was on charge at home. So to the flying: The thermals today was not easy to work out. They were there but not strong. So if you flew a bit on the side of them you would fall down and fly on the tail. So I tried flying a bit more in neutral flapping but it did not help on the flying times. So I ended up flying away from the thermals and got more "neutral" air and therefore less sink. Typical times today were 7-8min. All four landings were 95-100p but I did break a control horn on the last landing so I packed and went home.

  DAY .. 10. March - 2004 DS Theory
So the next "issue" of my "DS theories" comes here. I had a long talk with an airline pilot that knows a lot about windshears and microburst's. The theory about DS "accelaration" is therefore explained easy like this: The mass of your model hitting headwind increases the airspeed that will be outlined if you continue flying in the headwind. But since our DS plane turns immediately into a new headwind (circling) the airspeed increases yet another time. Everytime we hit the headwind the speed increases. BUT Many times have I been flying below the "shearlayer" of wind coming over the hill and there it can be both rotors or almost no moving air at all. I can continue flying well below the "shearlayer" faster and faster. It might be that we are thinking to easy on our headwinds and what that is a shearlayer. Any change in wind will be a shearlayer and change of winds are seen all the time on the backside of a slope. Maybe by just flying thru a rotor will accelarate your plane ? I dont know yet. So anyhow we know that rotoring winds are happening on the backside of a slope but why ? The answers I have got from many is that it "just happens" because of the wind is not able to follow the terrain and will make a rotor because of this. I belive or have been thinking that a rotor happens because of the venturieffect. This effect will be made by the strong wind coming over the slope that makes the air becoming high velocity and low pressure compared to the air below. I say this because we can fly DS behind a treeline or on a seaslope when the wind is from land. Then the air is not compressed but moves freely over the slope. Again I am not an engineer so this is just practical thinking from my side. All thinking is brought to the DS-SITE

  DAY .. 10. March - 2004 New "Big Brio"
I have also made some new work on my Brio today. Since December I have been thinking that the Brio might be good in F3J (and I have been using it in F3J with success) but it might be even better with a bigger wing. Samba Model have no time to make this right now so I have started on the work on making my Brio wing a 5-piece wing for testing. From Samba Model I have got some materials and tubes that I needed and today I started the work on making wing skins. It might take some time since I am not a proffesional builder but I think it will be ok.

  DAY .. 9. March - 2004 
More launching, thermaling and landing practice on the ice near Fagernes. Today it was -4 Celsius, 1m/s headwind (at the most) and calm conditions with only small differences in the air. I pulled out my Pike Superior of the car and launched with 200m line on the winch. It felt a bit better flying near the mountain but tests on my last flights showed that it was just as good out on the ice. The mountain gave some small thermals (narrow width) but the air around was sinking so it was just as good or maybe better to find thermals before they hit the mountain.
I tested a bit on changing the hook position backwards on my last two flights and it felt better. According to the Lolo the first was better but I also made a better zoom. The second was normal zoom but it did not give me better height. I used 1,25 line and 40mm drum (no extra diameter). But the main issue today was to nail the landings without sliding too much on the hard snow.

So here are a few pictures and why I got better:

Here is a landing coming in fast and gives full crow 5 meters ahead.
Then taking in the brakes just as one touches the ground.
Taking in the brakes makes the plane accelerate. I slided over the mark and only got a 85 (3-4m).
This was my first landing of the day.

Here is one almost perfect landing. Coming in fast but full crow and a little up stops the model.
Then full down and you can keep the crow out since the speed is low. 100points (0-1m)

This is my normal style. Coming in fast at 1-2m height
(give me the opportunity to slow down if I need a few more seconds in the air)
then give full crow and down elevator a few meters before the mark.
Don't do this if your model has poor crow or easily breaks in front of wing.

  DAY .. 8. March - 2004 
So back to "work" again. Or at least some practice on the ice with Pike Brio :-)
The weather was nice and calm and I got good starts with my model. I tried to get some practice on landing on hard snow today as next weekend there is a F3J on the ice near Jevnaker (read invitation here). I was not happy with my landings but they are actually ok since the snow is "slippery".  I had 5 landings +/- 3 seconds and 85, 90, 100, 95 and 90. All flights were 9min +.

  DAY .. 7. March - 2004 
Indoor flying is the "new thing" so when Cirrus RCFK had a full 75x40m there had to be some action. 30 pilots, 290 spectators and 5 dealers had 4 hours to spend. I had to be speaker for a few hours, take some shots with my camera and fix the webpage for the event. I also managed to get some flying done. My Mini Phønix (scratch built replica of the 2m Blue Phønix) was pulled in the air by Pål Vindfallets Vertigo and I also used the winch (speed 400 with Rx). There were also a pylon race that I won with my X-wing. In first round the winner was announced as another guy but I was already taken him by 1 round. SO while I had flown 4 rounds he flew only 3. It was great fun and smiling faces mostly. Maybe the coolest thing was the worlds smallest RC helicopter on 6,5g was there. It worked perfectly. BTW Arild Hagabråten was my personal driver today :-) Event page - lots of pictures

DAY .. 4. March - 2004  Yet another day with sun and time spent on the ice. Sorry for all the launch pictures but not many other "actionpictures" are possible when I am the only one on the ice. Well thats not all correct since both Arild Hagabråten with Sonic and Kjelle Arne Weeg with Cessna were there for a few hours. But they are hooked on power so not so interresting for my diary. But some pictures end up on the club page now and then ( www.vfkm.no ). Today I brought two models on the ice. The Caracho had its Superior V-tail again but now with stiffer flippers (it was an old worn out tail so it needed some UMS carbon :-). Now the zoom was ok but the height is not super in calm weather. But my Pike Superior was also taken out of the car and it took over all the flying after a short while. It is much more fun to fly a model that pulls the line properly and circles like it have never done anything else. Oh I love my Pike Superior!

   DAY .. 3. March - 2004 
Yesterday my uncle was set to calculate if the tail of the Caracho was big enough as I was not happy with tracking in turns. So I prepared a much bigger Pike Superior V-tail with 106 degrees angle instead of the Caracho 110 degrees. This was an old abussed tail I had so it was not as stiff anymore but would do well for test. The test showed that I was lacking a bit of stiffness for the start but now the directional stability was much better. Now the turning went smooth and I did not have that "low tail" I had experienced on all earlier flights. Happily I had fitted with a good EWD so I could fly with neutral in the speed and just a little up in the thermal. It also tracked better in the start so I moved the hook a bit backwards. So my conlusion: The V-tail of the Caracho can be a little bit bigger and the dihedral of the new tail made it easier to thermal. The tail I used might be a bit oversized but it was also 15g lighter than the Caracho (so I could take out some lead in the nose). I would preferably have made more dihedral on the wing but that is not possible since the wing is in one piece...

   DAY .. 3. March - 2004 - DS theory
I have been editing the video since some of the guys thought I was blowing down into the glass. So this time I blowed from under the glass like on a slope (or atleast creating slope lift). I have also made a page with all the discussions and info gathered. Then it will be easier to read it without finding all the forums etc. DS SITE
- Video - Frame by frame pictures

   DAY .. 2. March - 2004 
Great weather but the wind came strong from the town so pretty turbulent and my winch had to be set 90 degrees to the wind. But hey thats good training! So I pulled out the Caracho (had put it in the garage but got some new settings from Jonas Ekman I had to test). I made 3 launches and found some nice thermals I followed way back with the wind. The launch seemed fine with the new settings and sidewind but they only gave me just above 200m (ok it was kind of turbulent). Arild was with me so he took a few pictures for me.

   DAY .. 1. March - 2004 
The wind was strong on the ice today but the temperature was ok peaking at +8 Celsius. Me and Arild Hagabråten just had to fly a bit and while he is hooked on power models I rigged the winch and my Pike Brio. First flight I broke my 1,25mm line in the start so I was easy on the power for the rest of the flights. The starts were in the high 250meters all the time (according to the Lolo). While resting for a bit Arild jokes about flying DS behind the car and that he also should have an EPP model ready in the car at all times. I just had to bring my X-wing out and we flew behind the car for a few minutes continuously laughing :-)

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 winterflying (Denmark) and bought a Caracho as a spare F3B-model
March - Good practice on the ice, Indoor and Fagernes Airshow
April - DS three times, new and bigger Brio for F3J, electro fuse for Superior/Brio and the AVA
May - Started editing

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