DAY .. 28. October - 2003 Looked like some DS conditions on a local slope near Fagernes but they were not as good as expected. But I did fly the Vector zero (combat wing) and the Organic. Both were started on a small bungee and I made this years smallest video (just 2 seconds) for you to download.... Download the 160kb HERE      DAY .. 27. October - 2003 New DS record of 373km/h !!!! I was just finishing my Opus to fly DS next weekend when I heard that a new DS record has been made. Congratulation to Gary Legerton that have reached 232mph (373km/h) with his Opus. Read more and download a small video at Gliderking.com or see what Gary writes himself at Yahoo. This is an amazing achievement with a 1,9m plane. And the coolest is that this plane is almost standard carbon. Not any hi-tech UMS-carbon, double carbon or anything. Just plain good old building. Pretty cool. I think the secret is in that the plane is only 1,9m and not +3m. This means that the overall bending of wings and tail is not as tough as for a bigger plane. So then I go to my cellar to finish of my Opus.... :-)      DAY .. 24. October - 2003 Indoor again. Have not had so much time to go on the indoor events yet since it is on Friday's but now we are on track with snow outside and cold temperature.. Inside the air blows warm and nice and my X-wing can make rolls and loops as I want it too. Today Erik Eggum arrived and he got some test flights with my wing. He was immediately hooked when he could see that the wing was almost indestructible when flown straight into one wall :-) BTW There will be an F3F-event in Haugesund or Stavanger next weekend and I am going.. It might not be in the National league but we will have some fun and the autumn winds have started...

Siste nytt: 23.10.03 Rakfiskfestivalen En av vinterens store begivenheter nærmer seg. Sjekk ut årets program på: www.rakfisk.no Sulten ? Les de første sidene på "Smak av Valdres"      DAY .. 19. October - 2003 Competition day and off course there was very little wind. The comp. was to be held in Stavanger a few miles and a ferry south but near us there was enough wind (5-8m/s) to have a competition. Sadly the other competitors did not believe us and did not want to make the trip. So we had some great sports flying at this great east-slope at Bokn near Haugesund before we went for some DS at another slope nearby. I had brought my Pike Brio and was not so eager to fly DS at a new place in only 5m/s wind. This DS-slope does not give room for error but it goes really fast here. They have been flying DS-F3F here (F3F on the back on a slope) and the record is now at 33seconds on 10 laps. Vector multitasking is this movie called.. Many places and ways to fly a wing... 6,8 mb of .wmv Also two bonus tracks: F3F practice at Bokn (9,6mb .wmv) and (7,5mb .mov) The other guys (Rolf Inge Waaga with Opus and Pike WR and Arild Møllerhaug with Brio and Accacia) showed the way and flew some DS so I just had to try. After 4-5 rounds I made a mistake and had a big problem.. The backside of the slope is so steep that you cant see slope side and worse the only place to land is on some farmers fields 200m below! Happily there was some sun and after searching for thermals a few minutes I aimed my goal for a 50-100m field below. I could see the shadow of the plane and started circling to get closer to the ground. THEN "piiiing" and my model suddenly bounces some meters backwards before it falls to the ground. What on earth was that? It was a 5000v power line that we did not see... OK we went down and found the plane. It was actually very little damage and the power line had just left some small markings on the midsection. The fuse broke and some small markings on one tip but in general I was very lucky!! On our way back we went for the Vector wing that was in top of a tree. It was still there but Arild climbed up and collected it for me (thanks Arild!). Cool was it that the wing had still some power (the MPX IPD receiver I use cuts the power when there is no signal) so we flew the model down to the car. We finished of the day at a local model field for power flying. We did not fly power planes offcourse.... But we had great fun throwing the Vector wings as a DLG plane. A power plane pilot showed up but his engine stopped, had to be adjusted, was smelling and at last it ended up on its nose with a broken front leg. So we never could see it in the air.... Thnx for sailplanes :-)      DAY .. 18. October - 2003 400km from home and some west coast slopes are great. I am here for F3F tomorrow but today we had some practice on a coastal slope at Bokn near Haugesund. I brought my Pike Brio with V-tail and a Vector zero flying wing. The Brio was used a lot and even my friend Rolf Inge Waaga got to fly it a bit (he is normally flying Pike WR). I also flew the Vector Zero and had a great time on this slope in great lift. It was only 5-6m/s North-west but the hill is rather steep and big so the lift is awesome. On the way down I flew the Vector and landed in top of a tree! The tree was rather high and old so we left it there to see if the wind could get it down.. More on how we got it down next day!

     DAY .. 17. October - 2003
Do you remember my flight in Vøringsfossen that ended up with a lost plane? I stopped by this place today on my way to Haugesund. The model has disappeared!!! A pitty I did not bring a new electric one this time because then I would have flown :-) We also stopped for some "Peppe's pizza" in Odda and found the place full of model airplanes. Now that is the way to run a restaurant.

     DAY .. 15. October - 2003
Those of you with good connection or enough time... I have made some more videos from the seaplane-event this weekend. 4 videos are now out and should be worth the download I think. Visit the clubpage

     DAY .. 14. October - 2003
Today I wanted to fly a bit electric again. My Pike Superior came out of the car and was equipped with the electro fuse and only 6 cells. Yes you read correctly - only 6 cells of CP1700 does not give awesome climb but apx 4-6m/s climb and a motor time of 1:20. This gives me 3 climbs to thermal height and a lot of fun. After the first trip I also flew the X-wing while I waited for the cells to charge for a second flight. The temperature is now down to 5 degrees here and only weak thermals can be found. But the sun was there to warm me up and it was a great hour of flying just above Fagernes.

     DAY .. 12. October - 2003
More seaplanes today and less wind. I flew a few flights with the Osprey (I even managed to dip it in the water :-) before I left with Jean Luc for the mountains. Or actually not the mountains but 5-6km up in the valley for a small DS-slope we found on an earlier trip. Today this DS-slope worked really well and we had lots of fun here. It did not go super fast but it worked pretty well and we had some nice sounds coming from the planes. Video of Jean Luc HERE and one of me coming soon. Jean flew his DLG (it is pretty stiff for a DLG) and I flew my Superior electro. I also tried to fly the Vector Zero but the slope in front was not so good. This DS slope however did work well and is only a short trip for me from Fagernes. It is best to have electro or a small bungee here as the slope in front rarely have the wind coming straight on. Some of the photos are taken by Jean Luc. Some pictures at the club page - direct link to pictures

Jojo flying "soft" DS (2,5mb .wmv) | (right click and "save as") | Jean Luc flying "soft" DS (2,4mb .wmv)

     DAY .. 11. October - 2003
Today we had our first seaplane event in our club. 9 pilots got into the air and also my own Osprey from Østbye Hobby & Sport. We had a great time even though the wind was a bit hard (10-12m/s). Luckily we were at Fagernes Camping and was well out of the hard wind since this is behind a big mountain. I also got a visitor from France again. Jean Luc Foucher is still in Norway and brought his sailplanes. Tomorrow we will try to get going some DS-flying for him. Some pictures at the club page - direct link to pictures

     DAY .. 10. October - 2003
OK here are the details as promised.. Today there was indoor flying in the sports hall in Fagernes. Me and Frank Olav had great fun with our wings and even hit each other a few times. The last time my EPP X-wing was too hard for Frank Olav's V-tronic and his wing went sacrificed to the combat gods.... See the picture.

     DAY .. 10-12. October - 2003
Sorry no update YET as I have had too much to do. But the weekend was full of flying. Friday with indoor, Saturday with seaplanes and Sunday with seaplanes AND some DS flying together with Jean Luc that came for a visit. Just a teaser can be found HERE (right click and download). It is a 2,4mb video of Jean Luc flying soft DS at a local slope near Fagernes. Also a background picture by Jean Luc that helped me take some great photos of the Osprey. Click and right click the picture - "use as background".

     DAY .. 8. October - 2003
Just out flying my Pike Superior on the winch. I was not happy with my brakes so I adjusted a bit and after 5 flights I am now happy. To get good breaks one have to get 90 degree flap and just slightly up (or neutral) on the ailerons. This way the model really stops in the air. The weather was really calm with some rain and fog so I also got some good testing on the thermal flap. In this kind of weather one needs to fly on lowest sink rate. And how does one do that ? Well you need as high camber you can and just let the plane fly by itself (just guide it away from bad air and into better air...). Today I flew 3 out of 5 flights with 10mm flap. All three ended on apx 8 min while the other two with neutral flap ended on 3-5min. In other words this was a useful day out.
For those of you that wanted to know how my Pike electric fuse is layed up I have made a drawing.

     DAY .. 5. October - 2003 Ekeberg fun-event
Every year Cirrus model club finish of the year with a LSF-competition and air show for the public. This year the weather was great and more than 1000 people watched us fly the LSF and show up all that model airplanes is about. I did not make my best as it was a bit social the night before..... :-) So I missed a landing! (LSF is all about landing) But I did fly both Pike Superior, Pike Superior electro and the X-wing in the air show. And I also won the Cirrus cup this year. This is best man of all the competitions that the Cirrus club organizes each year. It includes F3B/F3J/Electro thermal and LSF events.

Read more about the event HERE (nor.txt.)
 28 Pictures by me | Detailed results

     DAY .. 2. Oktober - 2003 More testing of Pike Brio Electro
It is so great to get out and fly anywhere at anytime. One needs just 30min of free time and the cells of my electric Brio is anyhow charged on the way to the flying field. Today I was on a "slope" just by Fagernes were I fly a lot ahen I want a few minutes in the air. The Brio came togheter and the electric fuse were fitted. 30 minutes later I had used all the power but had also found 3 small thermals that I could work on the front of the hill. A great flying session today.
Many have asked for some pictures of mounting of servos etc. HERE are some pictures. BTW The cells (CP1700 or 1200) can be soldered the old fashion way and there should be plenty of room. My cells are soldered a bit strange because I use them in the Organic also. The Rx battery is a 700mah AAA-size NiMh and is taped to the motor battery.

     DAY .. 1. Oktober - 2003 Testing of Pike Brio Electro
Today it was time to test the Brio with electro fuse (see also the Superior flight in the September issue). The weight is now lower since my Brio wings is lighter than the Superior. MY wings Brio carbon is 1375g and the wings Superior carbon (with extra ballast tube) is 1535g. Since the fuse with electro is 1265g the total weight for flying is 2640g. This I am VERY happy with!! And even better the Brio electro had a good climb of 9,6m/s on the first climb going down to 8,6m/s in the second and 8,5m/s in the third climb. Now I just have to get some new cells for that machine.

January - Not extremely much flying this month but many flights with many planes. Biggest of the month was the new video "Pike-launch". It should be well worth the download of 13,5mb
February - What a trip we had. 10 days in Europe visiting many of the finest developers. Learned incredibly much.
March - Back from the trip and tested the new X-tail for Superior. Came third in the first event with 24 comp. Majko was cool and Fagernes Flyshow was a spectacular event with over 100 pilots.
April - Great month and the spring is coming. Pike Mini with Superior tips is great - Great DS in Haugesund - and first session this year on my local DS-slope. 
May - Wow what a month. Jean was here - speed training - Yellow Eagle Trophy - Spacewolf and most important my new Pike Brio. I think I am ready for the summer now!
June - Jihaa! I got to be National champion F3J for the second time. I was also practising a lot with my new Brio and went to Ørebro Open (Eurotour F3B). I also became Club Champion in the club Cirrus.
July - Got gold medal in the Team and 7th overall in Nordic Championship. Crashed my Brio in F3B and had plenty of friends stopping by for longer and shorter time. New personal best of 17,68s in speed F3B and my first flight with Paraglider. Also pretty irritating that I am not at EC F3J....
August - 3x12 electro (1st), LSF at Vingen (1st), F3J at Nome (1st) and Hollandglide F3J (did not win..). But a great month with lots of flying and lots of good feedback from Hollandglide.
September - This month I was into some more "speedy" flying. Nationals in F3F, F3B and Scaleplanes (slope distance). But also the last F3J-cup this year. F3F was ok but can be better. F3B was great with 4th place and 2nd overall in the league. Scale sailplanes Nationals was good with 2nd place (silver). In the last F3J I came 2nd behind a Swede and by that I have won the National league for the second year in a row. Last I have also tested a Pike Superior X-fuse with electric motor.
Oktober - More testing of electro fuselage and it shows that even 6 cells can work in a F3X-machine. Also this is the end of the season for competitions and only fun left.. Seaplanes and DS (Dynamic Soaring) the rest of the month for me.
November - Last DS of the year in Haugesund and me and Espen again went on a trip in Eastern Europe.
Desember - Started editing

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