Aerotorp

North England-Wales trip

2011-07-19T17:25:00.010+02:00

The background for this trip was the Eurotour F3F at Hole of Horcum hosted by North York Moors Ridge Soaring Club. I flew in to Birmingham Airport and Greg was there to pick me up. When we drove back to his place I discovered a slope near Greg's house which he had not seen himself. The reason for this was that it is a man made slope recently made. Well we had to test it and Greg found his aerobatic model Vector III from RCRCM. The slope looked OK and the wind seemed to be fine but there was not many places to land. Anyway Greg got some air time until the wind died and an emergency landing had to be done. A little damage to the leading edge and that was it. I doubt Greg will fly there again at least for some time.
Next day we drove up to Pickering and the Hole of Horcum only to be sitting in the car at watch some other model fliers get extremely wet in the massive rain. After some time Stefan Bertschi, Dieter Perlick, Peter Kowalski and Torsten Herman came up from the main bowl.
So no flying for me and Greg this day so we went to our hotel which was a pleasant surprise. We got installed for the next 3 days and had Internet, TV and a pool table. So if the flying did not go well we could always play pool.....
First day of flying did not promise well. We only managed 2 rounds in rather uneven conditions. Again this type of conditions showed the need for an automatic weather station as the one our club has made(more info about the device is here in the blog somewhere). Typical problems that occurs is wind direction is off and very hard to measure manually, the same goes for the wind speed. The contest director had a very hard time to keep track of this and extra personnel was needed to try to monitor this. From my point of view we must make a rule change to get rid of this problem. Our experience is that pilots trust a machine doing these measurements. All the CD has to do is to read out the results after the run and give the pilot a reflight if conditions was under the minimum criteria for the day/slope.
Next day was similar but I must admit that I thought we could not even manage a complete contest as we experienced in Denmark 2 weeks earlier. Luckily I was wrong and 3 more rounds was flown and we saw some good rounds flown by pilots further down the lists which actually had some impact on the total results. Dieter Perlick did the most out his DP-Air and won clearly with me taking a lucky 2nd. place. I say lucky as Joel West should have swapped his third to a second or first if he did not make a big mistake in very good air in the last round. Results can be found following the link to the NYMRS club. Many thanks to NYMRSC and their sponsors MKS Servo-tech, T9 Hobbysport.
Since we had no plan to leave the area before next morning Team Tea Swillers took a trip to visit Whitby for a meal so Greg could get his well deserved Fish and Chips. Nice trip indeed and we rounded off the day with some pool with me and John struggeling to give Greg some competition in this game. We could not!

Next day we drove over to North Wales to visit an old friend of mine, Nic Wright. We met Nic in his home (which he built himself as you would expect from a guy that used to build all of his models himself and the fact that he is a building engineer). After tea and lots of catching up (we met last time in South Africa in 1999) we decided to go to the Llangollen slope an hour from Nic's house. It turned out to be a very nice afternoon and some gentle flying were I tried to show Nic the new Dynamic flying style. I could not help noticing that even Nic has not been seen doing competitive flying for more than ten years he was more than enthusiastic about me and Greg showing up and also how our models were performing.
After the flying we drove down to Llangollen and Nic knew a good restaurant and again we got some good food. A perfect end to a perfect day except one little thing, Greg had to drive 2 hours to get us to our hotel in fashionable Llandudno.
Next morning I was out early to get a good look at Llandudno and it was much bigger than I thought. Clearly a place a lot of tourists chooses to go to with many, many hotels and nice beaches.
Anyway we had a little bit of bad luck as the air was moist and fog was present. So I am sorry that we did not get the chance to check out the big slope The Great Orme.
We headed over to Nic's place again and we hope to get out and fly again with the Legend. But due to lack of wind there was no chance and we took a walk up to one of Nic's local slopes facing North-East. What can I say, there is many, many nice places to fly from and scenery in Northern Wales is very pretty. No doubt this is a good place to be if you are interested in the sport of slope flying. Here you can combine beautiful nature and the thrill of Radio Controlled Sailplanes and not to forget the local pubs and resturants. Perfect!
Going back to Swadlincote was for a change an easy ride as summer traffic was not so bad and Greg and his SAAB did a good job bringing us home. A quick sleep for 4 hours and we had to get up at 04.00 for me to catch my flight.

Pictures from the trip can be found here
Espen

Norway Open 2011, Eurotour F3F

2011-06-12T01:11:00.026+02:00

This years Norway Open, the 9th. turned in to be the best since the start 10 years ago. The competitors list had names from 7 different countries and we were 25 pilots in total.
All pilots did a super job helping us to gain 16 rounds over two days. Friday was cancelled due to lack of wind but the forecast indicated around 8m/s from northwest the following days so we were not worried. Well, the forecast was wrong, in the end of the day it was around 15 m/s! 10 rounds was flown and hill record was achieved by Helge and Espen with 36,7 seconds.

To have a competition like this once in a while makes all the effort put in worth it. I have to thank all pilots for showing up and helping us with this event.
Saturday started with 9-10 m/s wind and when we finished it was around 14 m/s. Our timing gear/weather station did a good job and we will present all the weather data soon. Sure we have some variations but if you look at it round for round it may start low and go up but it also go down again in the same round.

It was quite clear even before the competition that it would not be easy to brake into the top 10 in this contest. Everybody was fighting very hard and trying their best. We had two crashes due to pilot mistakes and luckily nobody got hurt. But this was a reminder to us all that it can be a bit dangerous. So the layout of a comp like this must be thought about where to have the depot and make sure there is no people near to the course. Even you do all this something bad can happen but at least you can say that you tried to make it better. Safety lines does not really prevent incidents like this.

On Sunday the wind dropped and we had between 4 and 6 m/s wind. To fly in this type of conditions was a challenge and many pilots mastered this better than others. I have not calculated the results only from Sunday but it would be interesting to see this list for sure.

The final results ended up like this:
1 Espen Torp 13663
2 Søren Krogh 13467
3 Joel West 13425
4 Helge Borchert 13391
5 Kaj Henning Nielsen 13323
6 Knud Hebsgaard 13314
7 Jesper Christensen 12958
8 Arild Møllerhaug 12847
9 Bjørn Tore Hagen 12815
10 Dag Skoglund 12724
11 Jørgen Larsen 12712
12 Andre Austen 12679
13 Peter Gunning 12619
14 Olav Kalhovd 12475
15 Stefan Bertschi 12475
16 Rolf Børge Rettedal 12225
17 Erik Bjørnstad 12085
18 Kjell Sture Johansen 11816
19 Jan Grannes 11670
20 Geir Njaa 11517
21 Erik Andersen 11372
22 Marius Leirdal 10740
23 Tor Bruun 10656
24 Ingio Herrera 10518
25 Kjetil Stensen 5147

I would like to talk a little about the slope we flew on, "Hodne". Hodne is the name of the farmer and is also the name of the place. We are really glad we have a good relationship with them. From the sea to the top of the stone wall it is approx. 24 meters high. We have used the slope since the seventies. From my point of view few other slopes produces this kind of stable and equal conditions. The other thing is the possibility to have a safe depot and a rotating shift of the pilots when organising the starts. We guide the pilots on the backside out to the middle and let one and one pilot come forward when their turn is up. When finished the pilot swiftly moves over to the landing area and next pilot can be ready within seconds. We always have base A to the right side so the 30 second window will make sure the pilot that flew is well out of the way when the next pilot starts.
Take a closer look at the pictures and hopefully this show what I am talking about. The CD and the timing gear is placed 10-15 meter behind the wall for safety reasons.
Next year we will try to have ready our system for counting laps (beeps) and a system for showing the time after each flight. I think this is a must.
Hodne is a perfect place to have a F3F contest!

I would also like to mention the weather station did the job this time also. As seen on the pictures we placed it a few meters behind the wall and it does not show give us the data 100% but more than good enough for indication of the conditions.
The weather data will soon be punched......

Espen

Fantastic!!!!

Quiet for a long while

2011-05-22T11:30:00.016+02:00

It has been quiet here for a long time. It is not because I have been sitting still and doing nothing. It has more to do with the fact that I have been busy with work.
Even I have been busy with work it has not stopped me from going to contest in and out of the country. Biggest event was of course the Viking Race last year in France(2010). I did well until the finals (6th before finals)and ended up in 11th. spot. I flew my Alliaj in all rounds and was relativly happy with it. Perhaps I should have had more time on it before the contest??
I also went to Vitoria, Spain (2010) with Tomas Eklund. Nice place!
I should have gone to Wales but I had to cancel due to work.
As many of you know I am involved in www.etair-uav.com and this has taken over from producing RaceM and in genaral my modelling business. UAV business is very demanding and also very interesting. We are still going good after 3 years and approx. 35 built Cruiser UAV's. We are currently making a new version which is just bigger....

Last year I did not manage to do much kayaking. I hoping to be able to do a lot more this year. But I had one very nice trip to Oltedal, added some pics further down.

I had to take a trip to Denmark to pick up my mother and her new dog called Fenris. Picture at the top.

Another trip to Slovakia and Czech Republic ended with me getting a Baudis Fosa. It seems to work fine for F3F also....still need to match it properly to find out if it can be a contender against all the Freestylers, the benchmark sailplane.
For the first time in my life I was out flying 2.1.2011 at my local slope(Hodne, stonewall).
This season is very important as it is the qualifying year for next years first ever F3F World Championship. So it is important to do some training even it is January and freezing cold.
Another Picasa album can be found here and here
I promise to be back more often this year.
E
Some pics:

Lift Ticket to Norway arrived!

2010-04-28T23:02:00.001+02:00

Lift Ticket to Norway arrived today and even I have a sneak preview copy of the DVD there is nothing like receiving the DVD with a proper cover.
I put a few of them together with my Cyril which I am preparing for the Viking Race in France next week. I will try to bring some copies to France for sale.

If you want one the easiest way is to go to Dave Reese homepage: http://www.reeseproductions.com/
Click on Videos and there you will find it there.

Espen

Hole of Horcum F3F

2009-07-24T12:31:00.004+02:00

Finally I got to go to the famous Hole of Horcum. I have read about this place for decades and I always wanted to go there. The good reason was to enter the North of England Open which is part of the F3F Eurotour. I needed to try and improve my standings and even I did not fly well or had the needed luck I still managed to get better points for the Tour :-)

It seems like this year there is a very good fight among pilots all over Europe to do well in the Eurotour. This is very good as F3F now is growing and almost wherever you attend one of these contests there are top pilots. It means there is no longer a walk over in some contests like it has been a little bit in the past.
With 11 out of 13 races there is probably around 10 or more pilots which still have a chance to win the overall Eurotour. This is a little bit unique compared to the other classes in the Contest system. Also there is now 227 registered pilots. Very good! http://www.contest-modellsport.de/2009/fr_f3f_ergebnis.html

Well back to Horcum. I teamed up with Greg Dakin and he picked me up at Birmingham Airport. Mark Passingham joined us early in the morning and we drove up to the Yorkshire Moors. Greg and Mark invited me to the new team of the "Tea Swillers" and I was proud to be part of this legendary team.
The local club, North York Moors Ridge Soaring Club with Jon Edison as CD had a tough week with very bad weather reports. But we where lucky, the weather both days was quite good but a bit unstable with lots of variations. But most important very little rain compared to the ugly weather forecasts earlier in the week.
They managed 4 rounds each day and I think with a little bit more luck a few more rounds could have been flown. The wind direction did not cooperate all the time and it was difficult to make the right decisions.
Greg flew well both days and did his part so the Tea Swillers could defeat the SAF team. But both me and Mark did not fly as we hoped for so the SAF team with Perlick, Kowalski and Liebeck beat us.
But more important was Greg Dakin's first Eurotour victory. Well deserved! Did I mention he flew his RaceM made by ET-Air :-)

Thanks to the NYMRSC for a good event and we will meet again next year I hope.

Espen

Trip to Mosteroy

2009-07-05T10:50:00.003+02:00

Got up early this Saturday to make sure I did not waste any time in traffic to get to Mosteroy when the water was still flat. I like it when I can look into the clear water with no waves.

On my way out I called my friend Atle and asked him if I could park on his harbour site and of course it was no problem. In return I brought out my helicam and got some nice pictures of his farm.

My plan was to go to the area around Utstein Kloster and back. It did not happen, after 3,5 hours of kayaking and scuba diving I was a bit tired so I called up Kleng and asked him if he could pick me up :-) Kleng came and he wanted to test my Kayak and reached 6 knots by pedaling. Not bad. Later I was invited for a barbeque with Kleng and his family. So I brought out my helicam and managed some nice photos of their farm.

I am glad I did the trip, the weather was very nice, the water was warm and meeting my friends was even better. Thank you for a super day.

Here is a link with some pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/aerotorp/Mosteroy472009#

Espen

www.birdy.no

Local F3F, Hodne

2009-06-24T11:28:00.005+02:00

We just hosted a local F3F competition on Sunday the 21st. of June with few pilots but super nice conditions on our local F3F hill, Hodne. The wind came straight in from the North Sea with 8-9 m/s strenght.
Rolf B flew very well with his Aris and won before Arild (Freestyler) and Espen (RaceM/Ceres)
12 rounds was flown.
Thanks to all 7 pilots that showed up and helped organizing the event.
I will try to post some pictures here later.

Results:
1) Rolf Rettedal, 10847
2) Arild Moellerhaug, 10759
3) Espen Torp, 10704
4) Rolf Inge Waaga, 10386
5) Erik Morgan, 9621
6) Richard Pleym, 9024
7) Marius Leirdal, 8458

Espen

Asturia F3F 2009

2009-06-02T14:52:00.006+02:00

I decided on a short notice to attend the 2nd. Asturias Open F3F Eurotour in Gijon in the north of Spain. I team up with Tomas Eklund from Malaga and he picked me up in Madrid.

We drove up to Gijon and headed directly to the slope. Several other guys was there already and the wind was pretty strong but a bit cross from the north. Tomas was keen to fly, I was not but it was good for me to observe Pierre Rondel who demonstrated how to deal with the tricky conditions. Tomas flew his Skorpion and I also tested it a little bit.
Pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/aerotorp/AsturiasF3FOpen2009Gijon#

Next day we were sort of promised similar weather conditions but that did not happen. The wind was much weaker between 4-8 m/s. I had a bad first round with 77 seconds. Tomas was a little bit happy as he made a 74 second run. But the winner of this round was Sergio with 55 seconds.

For the first time ever I saw an organizer who had a wind and direction meter that actually worked according to the current rules. It can always be debated where to place the unit but in general when placed it is the same for all. As one can see in my last blog post we have made a device that does not use current rules because we believe that measuring an average is more fair way of doing it. More about this later in this post.

There was many Freestylers around and I was interested to test my RaceM against them. I think the conditions was too difficult to actually get a good test but I learned a couple of things. One was that clearly the Freeestylers does not work well in bad conditions either. This was proven in the second and third round were I managed to beat all of them thanks to good conditions and I think some good flying. Both these rounds I flew 59 seconds.

The 3rd round was not finished due to severe wind change after 20 pilots had flown and unfortunately the third round was cancelled after a protest against the weather station, ironic since this was not due to failure over the weather station but more a failure of the current rules (3m/s min and max 45 degree cross wind).

We still had 2 more days to go so it should be possible to manage enough rounds to make the competition. Much was at stake here as the first prize was a Freestyler 3 given by TUD-Modelltechnik.

Two days later we still did not one single round and the competition was cancelled. It also happened last year for the organizer and I feel really sorry for them as they did a lot to make this happen. I really hope they will pull back and try again next year. This is definitive a place I would like to get back to.

I had 3 very nice days mostly because of meeting old friends and meeting new friends but also because the weather was very nice and the place has a lot to offer than just sitting there waiting for wind.

They are expanding the harbor and this alone was worth watching, lots of activity. I also liked the bird mountain close to the lighthouse. I could stand there watching the whole day.

Once again I would like to thank the Asturian club for trying their very best all weekend.

Espen

Timing gear with weather station

2009-02-09T19:02:00.012+01:00

Kaare and I finally managed to assemble the timing gear on Sunday 8th February.

Kaare has made a great job of developing the electronics and program. I have bought some materials from which to make a protective casing, the results of which are shown in the pictures below.

We will certainly make these units available for sale to the F3F community. Producing these in small numbers from our base in Norway is certainly not the cheapest method of production, but we hope that even clubs of modest size should be able to afford this unit.

What is so special with this timing gear unit? Well, we have incorporated the weather station in a very simple and effective way.

Todays F3F rules are rather simple except for one major aspect, the wind and direction measurement.

We have considered this rule in detail, and designed a system to simplify the Contest Director's job, by providing accurate and meaningful information.

By capturing wind and direction measurements from leg one to leg ten, average values can be calculated for both parameters, and the results displayed along with the time of the flight.

As such, the CD or timing gear operator will be empowered to confirm the validity of the flight conditions.

The functionality will also enable the CD to define the windspeed range for the chosen slope, if required. It must be recognised that not all slopes produce sufficient lift at 3ms/+-45 degrees direction. If the CD sets a value for the given day we now have a machine to monitor weather activity throughout the competition lifecycle.

We also recommend that the pilot finishes the flight irrespective of conditions, and receives confirmation of the validity of the flight. The pilot can then decide whether to retain the flight or request a reflight if the conditions fall beneath the predefined limit. The pilot may wish to retain the flight if a thermal was experienced on course, in which case the pilot's wishes should be honoured. (Or maybe not, I would leave that to the CD or a definitive rule change)

Aside from specific rules, the weather station also possesses functionality which is also interesting. During training sessions it can be very valuable as testing becomes more accurate as variations in the weather can be seen very easily.

Very often it is difficult to judge whether a flight was successful because it was flown well or if conditions were particularly good. Now you have a tool to take care of at least the wind and direction and tell you from flight to flight what happened. We have not yet figured out how to find the thermals but we are working on it. It is possible to add sensors to the unit.

We can sell it with or without the weather station. Send me an E-mail if you are interested. We have estimeated the price to be around 400 Euro including the weather station.

The TGW (Timing Gear Weatherstation) will be delivered without the wires needed to A and B base. Apart from that it will come with the wind/direction meter as shown in these pictures.

We have made it with coax bayonet connectors to make sure of a solid and relatively weather proof connection. We deliver small coax cables (with the connector) so users can solder these to their own cables. The weather station has the same coax connector. The signal horn will be made (not ready when pictures was taken) with a separate connector to prevent mistakes.

The unit has a serial port which can be used to dump results to a Laptop or similar or dump the last result to a screen for the spectators to see.

It also comes with a rechargeble battery which will last all day long....

We might need to change the box itself as this one was rather expensive here in Norway.

We are already working on some "add ons" to the unit.
First on the list will be a MP3 player counting the 30 second to enter the course.
Secondly we would like to utilise the serial port by sending the data to a laptop using a wireless connection. The laptop could be placed in the area of the crowd and could display results as it happens. Furthermore take care of the data and store them. In the end I hope someone can make a scoring program.

Espen

Norwegian Championship F3F

2008-09-22T09:55:00.006+02:00

The lcd display showing the weather data
Not much space to do landings, but I think no accidents occured.
Depot, very close to the edge. But OK for this time since the wind speed was low.
Sceptical guys following one of the flights.
The weather station was placed a little bit down into to the slope to secure good and correct values.

This year it was held north of where I live approx. 2 hours away. I get there by driving through 2 under sea tunnels and a gas driven ferry which really can take a lot of cars and trucks.

I wanted badly to do well in this competition and I was thinking this was the most important contest this year. So there was nothing wrong with my motivation. But looking at the forecast earlier in the week it looked like it could be a no comp. On Saturday we waited patiently for ca 6 hours before we got legal wind. Everybody was keen and we installed the weather station and managed to start ca 15.30. 3 hours later we had 4 rounds and the Championship was secured. Good because we had 6 guys coming from the north of Norway and some other from the south as well. With wind from 3-5m/s times varied from 48 to 97 seconds it was not exactly even conditions but at least by using the weather station the CD had an easy task giving a few reflights. By all means even with this device it remains an outdoor sport with sometimes huge variations, but at least you can understand why you did not manage a good time or even realise that you in fact had some luck if you did a fast time. It is not very difficult to see what is going on when you log every flight.

After 4 rounds I was in the lead ahead of Arild M and Bjoern Tore. Some new faces also showed up and the 2 youngsters from Bodoe, Joergen and William flew very well.

Next day was a bit better and we could start the flying much earlier but we also had to quit early as people had planes to catch. But 5 more rounds made it a good event and it was more even with less thermal influence. Times was between 48 and 65 seconds. Winning times each round was between 48 to 53 seconds.

I extended my lead and won ahead of RollaRolf and Bjoern Tore.

Espen Torp 7796

Rolf Inge Waaga 7384

Bjoern Tore Hagen 7344

Dag Skoglund 7204

Arild Moellerhaug 7192

Joergen W Stensen 7115

Rolf Boerge Rettedal 6897

Geir (8) Njaa 6817

Kjell Gai 6699

Bjoern Andersen 6578

William J Ringkjoeb 6548

Richard Pleym 6349

Tor Bruun 6137

Oystein Aadland 2386

Jarle Aadland 2286

The organizer of the contest was Haugaland RC club and even they did not get as much helpers as expected the competition was a success and also thanks to Kaare who operated the weather station.

Espen 23.9.2008

Viking Race, Slovakia 2008

2008-09-03T18:48:00.018+02:00

Kjell Gai, Norway
Doug smiling renaming his Furio

Vaclav waiting for yet another launch.

Greg Dakin, UK

Mathieu with his solid stance
Kai and Majo
Mark taking a bite of Grahame's BP sponsered Ascot
Kyle giving the model a good launch
Rado after a good flight, in the lead after 14 rounds

ET-Air fleet, 2 times RaceM X-tail
Benthe and Kai taking the "boat" down after a long day.

Me and my "brother" Grahame Reed

Marian "Majo" Maslo preparing for yet another round with big thermals coming his way.

Gerardo with a nice handle bar on his Freestyler3
We are well into the Viking Race 2008 which is this year held in Donovaly mountains in the middle of Slovakia. The same place as 6 years ago.
The competition has so far been a lottery (5 days of flying) and many pilots are happy and many pilots are not so happy with the conditions they are given. I am in the last group....it unfortunatly means far, far down the ranking. Right now after 14rounds I am at place 31. Only 25 points behind my rival Greg Dakin! I will catch him in the end I think.
I discovered a new method of getting to the horizon after falling down the slope due to not much lift. Lukas Gaubatz showed us the first day a spectacular way of doing it. When he first did not make the horizon he dived to get more speed and pulled up in the last second to make and tailslided back towards the ground but he recovered nicely and now has put a name to this manouver which is now called a "GAUBATZ"
However if you do not make it and end up in a tree it may be called a "GAUBATZ-REED".

More pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/aerotorp/ETAirSlovakia2008Tour#

After Thursday (4th of September) we have completed 18 rounds, The conditions on Thursday was still variable but not so much. If you got a thermal it was possible to do a low 40 second run. Most pilots ended up in the 50-60 seconds window. I jumped to 21st. place mostly because of the second discard round was applied. It is very even between pilots anywhere on the list so full focus is needed the last day that will be Friday. No flying on Saturday in other words. I hope all pilots agree that this is enough.

Finally a little bit time to write again. Congratulations to Marian Maslo with Slovakias first win in a Viking Race. Radovan Plch took 2nd. place while Pierre Platon grabbed 3rd spot.

Really important to mention was the job of the organisors, they did a good job for 7 days and without them there would not be a race!

Espen "Schnell wie die Forelle" Torp #21

New activity

2008-07-27T14:44:00.010+02:00

This morning I got up early and decided to take a trip to Feistein Lighthouse just offshore close to where I live. The weather was very good and it must be for a beginner like me to make a trip like this. The day before I was practising falling out and entering the kayak and the test went on fine so I felt a little bit secure after I had done that. The waters between Sele harbour and Feistein is known to have very vicious under currence and very often the waves get quite big in this area. But not today, I checked the forecast and it looked good. To get out there took me only 25minutes. I had one and a half round around the islands before I found a place to go "onboard". You can see from the pictures how wonderful it is out there. The temperature was around 25 degrees and my guess is that it is probably only 5 days a year out there like this one. This was actually the second time on the Lighthouse, last time was in 1983 when I was serving in the Navy. I had a task to operate a camera sensor which followed a "Penguin-boat to boat" missile during the Penguin test program. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_(missile)

http://picasaweb.google.com/aerotorp/27_7_2008PadleturTilFeistein#

Eurotour Portugal

2008-07-22T14:44:00.002+02:00

I finally decided to attend the F3F Eurotour in Portugal. I made a short detour via Madrid to meet some people in a company making UAV autopilots. Then I got a ride with Alvaro Silgado and his girlfriend Manuela over to Lisbon. The trip took a couple of hours more than normal due to heavy traffic out of Madrid. Alvaro had a new nice Tiguan so the trip was very pleasant.
When we finally arrived in Lisbon my good old friend Jorge (JC) Infante met us and he took me to his new home in Estoril (not far from the famous Estoril F1 Race track). Next day we went to the Santa Iria flying field and several good friends was here already. This was where the Viking Race was held 8 years ago. We had a promising weather forecast with lots of wind. In fact I measured wind speeds over 20 m/s both days. We had 11 rounds the first day and 5 the next day. 24 pilots started and not so many finished all rounds unfortunately. With rather tough landing conditions it was a fight to keep the models ready for the next flight. I had a good lead with almost 400 points before the last day but it was not enough. Franz Demmler (Germany) made use of all the good air he got and beat me with 650 points in 5 rounds! (he had a 100 points penalty also, so in the end he was approx. 160 point in front of me). My conditions was not the best but maybe I got all the good air already in day 1? Inaki Elizondo (Spain) managed 3rd spot. Kjell Gai (Norway)flew really well and took 8th spot with his Pike Brio. I am looking forward to see what he can do with his new Ceres F3F. I flew my RaceM X-tail and a set of Aris wings on a RaceM X fuselage. Both of them working really well. I think the Aris wings on the X-tail fuselage seems to be a very good model. The CG can be brought back and suddenly it can turn much quicker than normal. My RaceM worked well for me as it has all year since I got the X-tail fuse. It is a dream to fly and handling is so easy.
Fastest time of the comp. was Jose Carrion with a 35 second ballistic run!

Pictures http://picasaweb.google.no/aerotorp/Portugal2008

Results:
1 Franz Demmler 12701
2 Espen Torp 12540
3 Iñaki Elizondo 12270
4 Gerardo Lozano 12160
5 José Carrion 12131
6 José Costa 11980
7 André Austen 11974
8 Kjell Gai 11825
9 Álvaro Silgado 11783
10 Andoni Gorriñobeaskoa 11718
11 Pedro Lemos 11477
12 João Faria 11454
13 Claudio Figueiredo 11305
14 Américo Gonçalves 11155
15 Vitor Gandarela 11055
16 João Figueiredo 10867
17 Manuel Costa 10661
18 José Rocha 10567
19 Tomas Norrby 10446
20 João Costa10134
21 Lorenzo Dávila 8585
22 João Mestre 6237
23 Rui Silva 4423
24 Fernando Moro 2293

Ørebro Open F3B

2008-06-03T09:23:00.003+02:00

I do not know exactly how many times I have entered this competition but it must be close to 17 times now. And why do I keep returning to this competition? Several reasons I think. First of all it is tradition, second it is the people and the third reason is that it is relatively close to me (only 14 hours one way.....)
The club members of Ikarus is doing a good job I think, year after year more or less the same people show up and run the comp in a relaxed way. They now also a have some catering and that makes it more easy for us pilots.
The participants from year to year is a good mix of newcomers and veterans and it is always good to see some new faces and the old friends in F3B. I certainly missed the Danish pilots this year. I hope they can make it next year.
Well maybe the distance for me to Ørebro is not so close but at least I do not have to take a ferry to get there and that is good.
We had very good weather this time and pretty warm as well. It was close to 30 degrees so we could not complain.
I had a plan to fly to Stockholm this year and drive with Conny Ulvestaf to Ørebro but I changed my mind since Kjell wanted to tag along. Kjell did his first ever F3B contest and was up against Martin Weberchock, Martin Herrig and Pasi Vaisanen in his first ever distance flight. Kjell flew his Pike Brio to perfection and got a win over those experts!
Kjell and me flew with Team Tornado (Conny, Owe and Peter) and the team worked well both days.
I got 8th. place this time and was pretty happy with that given I missed 3 minutes in the first duration. I flew a sub 15 speed for the first time since 1997 I think and won the second speed round. Also distance was good and I only lost 1 lap to Andreas Herrig (24 to 23 laps). I had a good fight with Martin W. and won with 26 against 24 laps in the last distance.
Results can be found here: http://www.f3k.se/orebroopenf3b/
Pictures will come....

Espen

Neuhardenberg F3B

2008-05-21T12:03:00.004+02:00

Last year Francisco on the right asked me if I would like to join him and the team he is flying for (TU Dresden) in some Eurotour event and I must admit that I was very glad to get this opportunity to fly in the same team as the best pilots in the world at the moment. Their team spirit and professional attitude is very high and to experience this from the inside was very interesting. I was very glad Axel Freiberg could pick me up from the airport in Berlin. I am also thankful to Holger Au (Contest Director) to stay in their house over the weekend. The contest was held in a relaxed atmosphere and it seemed that all participants was enjoying the contest. The flying field is very well suited for this activity and it also provides for variable conditions.
As mentioned the Dresden Team worked well and they do in fact have an own Team Manager in Reinhard Dylla. This is not something that all teams have of course but from my point of view a big advantage. In this contest also the father of Mike Müller was present and did a good job.
I got very good help from all the team and in the end had a good result with 7th. place. Martin Herrig won with Thomas Dylla and Mike Müller on 2nd. and 3rd. place.
For full results check www.f3b.de and www.contest-modellsport.de/
Look here for more photos: http://picasaweb.google.no/aerotorp/Neuhardenberg2008

Norway Open 2008

2008-05-13T11:11:00.005+02:00

The weather forecast did not look good for this years Norway Open, nice weather but not so much wind. Luckily the forecast changed the last day and we managed 4 rounds with minimalistic conditions. We are proud to announce that we used our new weather station with great success this day. All flights were measured and we will soon publish the results. We used an average for the flight itself both for wind and direction. All pilots agreed on this new method instead of the old rules. We also agreed that a re flight would be given after the flight was finished if it was ruled under the level and that the pilot could choose either reflight or keep the score.
It was quite amusing to see the pilots being more interested in the weather measurements than their times. It is our club member Kåre Aareskjold who have made the weather station. We will look into offering it to others.
Slope used was Obrestad south.
Windspeed was between 3,1 to 4,5m/s.
Fastest time of the day was 66 seconds.

The conditions was not super but I think very, very even and to master so little wind is just as difficult as master other conditions. It is not so nice to hear comments like "this is not F3F". F3F is not about the fastest speed, it is about mastering all kind of conditions and slopes. Those who can do that will do well, always.

So we had a competition (4 round) and the next day we choose to go to another slope (Austre Bokn) which is much higher and has more thermal influence than the previous slope. This turned out to be a big success with another 8 rounds with pretty good conditions. The weather station was used but since the wind speed and direction was not an issue the results was not so interesting as day one. But we have the data and will publish them soon. Windspeed was between 5 and 9m/s Thermals where coming and going but the variations was not so big.
Some pilots did DS circles in the landing area and this was not so popular among the organizing staff. Please let us not see this while we are trying to run a competition. Some pilots had trouble in the landing and got minor damage.
Fastest time of the day was 41 seconds.
So we had 12 rounds after 2 days and we were very happy with that.

Next day did not have a good wind forecast but we could maybe make a round or two. Unfortunately one pilot provoked the Contest Director by flying a DLG on the slope when the organizer was still setting up the course even he was strictly told not to fly. It almost came to a fight between the CD and the pilot and the jury made the decision to call off the competition. This could be seen as a drastic decision but the pressure on the organizer had been built up over the whole weekend and enough is enough. We have always had a non flying rule before the contest start. This was told specific for the last day and when someone chooses to ignore this just to provoke certain people we will and can not tolerate this. Everybody wants to fly before the contest and that can sometimes be solved with a zero round. But we never do a zero round after round 12! If we let everybody fly, time will run and this could effect the number of rounds. One guy asked for a flight to test his newly fixed V-tail, he was not allowed this. A hand launch on the field would have solved this this problem.
It was unfortunate that this time we had to cancel the whole day but we still had a good competition. It is really sad that one person can cause so much problems.
I would like to apologize to all participants for his behavior. We hope that we can invite to next years Norway Open after we have evaluated this years event.

Espen

Our sponsor http://www.smartmodel.org/ offered us a Swift EPP model which was won by Kåre Aareskjold.

Many thanks to all that helped us during the competition with buzzing etc.

End results:
1 Espen Torp, Norway 10719
2 Bjørn Tore Hagen, Norway 10565
3 Dag Skoglund, Norway 10289
4 Jørgen Larsen, Denmark 10119
5 Arild Møllerhaug, Norway 10116
6 Tom Erik Smedal, Norway 10032
7 Rolf Inge Waaga, Norway 10019
8 Jack Farstad, Norway 10013
9 Angus Lee, Hong Kong 9749
10 Andre Austen, Germany 9744
11 Rolf B. Rettedal, Norway 9674
12 Geir Njaa, Norway 9539
13 Kjell Gai, Norway 9495
14 Jo Grini, Norway 9184
15 Jørg Becker, Germany 8973
16 Martin Knöpfel, Germany 8489
17 Jan Eric Klausen, Norway 8427
18 Tor Bruun,Norway 8050
19 Kåre Aareskjold, Norway 6130

Rennesoy, 2.5.2008

2008-05-03T22:11:00.008+02:00

Gloomy rainy day and not so cool to fly F3B

Me with my new Foxtrot Aerobatic glider
Arild is really making it clear what I shall to in the DS circle!
Landing approach, it does not look to be but it was.

1st. of May should have been a local F3B contest here in my region but bad weather with rain stopped it quickly. Next day was much better and Kjell Gai and me met went to Rennesoy to meet Arild Moellerhaug for some fun flying and F3F practice. Forecast was promising and it turned out to be even better. We all clocked sub 40 times with Arild all the way down to 34 seconds using his Aris. I flew my RaceM and my best was 38 seconds. I did not bring any ballast except my steel joiner so I hope some of the lost time was due to that fact. But Arild looked sharp and I was impressed. Kjell flew his Brio very well and I think he will move up the ranks this year. I also had the chance to test my RaceM in some rather light DS but rough air DS and it was steady as a rock.

I spent the day before to finish my Foxtrot which is an aerobatic model made by some of my friends in Slovakia. This was a very pleasant surprise and both Kjell and me enjoyed flying. I even tested it in DS and it was very easy to control. Landing was not so easy as this slope really demands crow brakes. But I managed so it was all in all one of the best flying days for a long time.
All pictures: Kjell Gai

Norway Open 2008 Eurotour F3F

2008-04-19T09:22:00.010+02:00

This years sponsor is: Smartmodel, Hong Kong

This years Norway Open is held the 10-12th of May. The entry list is very good and we have pilots from 5 nations so far:

1 Andre Austen, Ger
2 Jörg Becker, Ger
3 Espen Torp, Nor
4 Rolf B. Rettedal, Nor
5 Geir Njaa, Nor
6 Arild Møllerhaug, Nor
7 Rolf Inge Waaga, Nor
8 Tom Erik Smedal, Nor
9 Jørgen Larsen, Den
10 Bjørn Tore Hagen, Nor
11 Jack Farstad, Nor
12 Dag Skoglund, Nor 66154 75/76
13 Angus Lee, Hong Kong
14 Kåre Aareskjold, Nor
15 Kjell Gai, Nor
16 Jo Grini, Nor
17 Tor Brun, Nor
18 Martin Knöpfel, Ger
19

It is still possible to enter.

This years sponsor is: Smartmodel, Hong Kong

Spain, La Muela 2008

2008-04-05T14:55:00.007+02:00

Finally I was back at the Tooth after 4-5 years. I like this place and it is a good place for hosting F3F competitions. Yes it is inland but the fact that it is sticking up like it is makes it suitable for any wind direction.
This year only 35 pilots entered the contest and some of these did not show up so the total was around 30. A good number if you ask me. You get to fly relatively often and this is good. As far as I can remember we had all kind of conditions from 3m/s to 20m/s and with sun, rain and even hail. At least 2 rounds was cancelled due to change in conditions (I think).
The organizers did a very good job and we all got a T-shirt and a goodiebag. One item I liked was the A3 size calendar with all F3F Eurotour events already plotted into it. I was in the lead from round 2 and kept it all the way. But I really had to fight and Carlos did what he could to try and catch me. Variations in the conditions made it more exited than I like. Alexis Marcheal was 3rd and could have been a lot closer if he did not do so many mistakes. Well I guess it was an early start even for Alexis. My new team mates, Juan and Tomas from Malaga, was taking care of me during the contest and I really apriciate that. Tomas Eklund is a Swedish guy who moved to Spain some 30 years ago. He is now a Spanish citizen. He used to be a hang glider pilot but have now moved to RC gliding and has quickly become an enthusiast.
On Sunday one of the bases was hit by a model. Luckily nobody got hurt. This happend when the wind was very weak and the model did not have much speed. Please consider at all competitions to move back the bases so people can be in safety when we do our sport.
Some results and info can be found here: http://www.livef3.com/reportages/2008F3FInternacionaLaMuela.html

Tomas, Juan and me. The Malaga Fantastico!

French camp.

Rainbow

Tomas Eklund and me after the contest

Weekend trip to Manchester

2007-12-16T00:09:00.000+01:00

Had a nice weekend in the Manchester area last weekend and visited Ian Masan and Greg Dakin. The idea was to go to Wales and attend the Wales winter league event with Greg. Well the weather did not cooperate so we did something else on Sunday. Monday Ian took me to a trip to North Wales and the Llangollen slope which turned out to be a very, very good slope. Even it was a rather cold day with sunshine the thermal influence was clearly there. But the slope was pretty good just windriven also. I flew my Ultimate and Ian got to test his brand new RaceM F3F and I could tell he was pretty exited.

Many thanks to Ian and Cubbitt's models to get me a very, very needed mitt for my new Futaba 12Z radio. In fact I think I will start to fly in the winter now. I have had big problems in cold conditions before but these days seem to be over now thanks to this excellent product.

Thanks to Ian and Greg for a nice weekend.

Pictures by Ian Mason.

Good weekend in Wales!

2007-09-18T12:14:00.000+02:00

Just back from the Welsh Open Eurotour 2007. This an event I have been visiting regularly since 1999 I believe. Last year I did not attend because the Viking Race was so close.
This time I had Bjørn Tore Hagen with me. We flew in to London and Alex McMeekin picked us up and we drove straight to Wales and the Bwlch (yes, try to pronounce that if you can!)
This year it was a 3 day event and 50 competitors showed up. Lots of withdrawals but who cares, the size of 50 pilots is very good.
Friday started out with low clouds and rain and we waited for 3 hours before we managed to get in 1 round at Mickeys slope before the wind turned so much that we could fly anymore.
Next day the forecast was light winds and we could fly on "Back of the Wrecker". This is a fairly good slope and with 5-7 m/s wind we did 4 rounds. I got lucky and pulled out a 37 second flight in round 5. I did not have any bad air so I had fairly good times in all my rounds so far and was the overnight leader. BTH and Alex also did well with 7th. and 4th. place before the last day.
Long before we started the comp. we formed the TGT team and we were all agreeing that this year we should try to make the podium in the team event. This team effort made us all work for the team and trying to avoid mistakes as they would effect not only yourself but also the team. Before the last day we were doing well and was in the lead.
The last the the forecast was good but with much higher wind from the south west. So again back to Mickeys and again waiting for the clouds to lift. Finally it did and we started in 15-20m/s wind. Many people set PB's and fastest time came from Jarda (CZ) flying his Ascot to perfection with a 32,7 second round.
Unfortunately the wind increased and the organizer could nothing else than to stop the flying until the wind came down under the max allowed wind speed of 25m/s. That did not happened so we only got this single round on Sunday. I stayed in the top, Alex moved to 3rd place and BT moved down to 9th place after some bad air in the last round. But the team The Gnome Team stayed in top and won the team competition with a good margin.
Many thanks to the Welsh organizers who did another good event. I hope we all learned a few things when it comes to setting up the safety area. I also hope that the Viking Race committee soon can take a look on the current rules and perhaps make some suggestions in the future rules so organizers can have a manual on how to do it.
Look here for my pictures (not so good as there was something wrong with the camera)
http://picasaweb.google.no/aerotorp/Wales2007
For results take a look at Kevin's web page: http://www.knewt.com/ Also check out RC-Soar's http://www.rc-soar.com/gallery/2007/wo/index.php

Espen

F3F Norwegian Championship

2007-09-10T10:21:00.000+02:00

This weekend our club, Forus RC Klubb hosted the Norwegian Championship F3F 2007. 15 pilots entered and we had a pretty strong field of competitors. The weather forecast was rather poor but luckily for us it turned out almost perfect as we got good strong wind from northwest straight into our best slope for F3F. Thanks to Sigve Hodne for letting us using his fields.

We flew 14 rounds on Saturday. Windspeed was from 12-18m/s. Best time of the day was 40.16 seconds set by Bjorn Tore Hagen with Crossfire. Leader of the first day was Rolf Inge Waaga (RaceM F3F) only 19 points ahead of me (RaceM Ultimate, Aris, Ceres) with BTH in third place only 40-50 points behind.

Next day we had 7-9m/s dropping all the day so we managed only 4 rounds. Rolf Inge was still going strong and won 3 of these rounds and earning his first ever Championship! It was well a deserved victory as he made no mistakes and flew very close and short both days for 18 rounds.

I kept my 2nd place and so did Bjorn Tore. In fact the 4 rounds on Sunday did not change any positions. Results and pictures can be found here: http://www.f3x.no/

Also I must thank Jan Eric Klausen and Sigurd Torp for helping us organizing the event.

The slope on Hodne is quite difficult to master and some of the "new" pilots to this slope needs more time to adapt than the locals. The main reason for this is the stone fence on top of the slope + the narrow lift band. We prefer to use the slope mostly because it is very easy to host comps there due to very easy access, car parking and landing facilities. Also there is no doubt that this slope is one of the most equal slopes I have ever been to.

Espen

World Championship F3B

2007-07-30T23:23:00.000+02:00

I thought I finally should write a little bit about this years World Championship F3B. This was my first time in Switzerland since a ski holiday in the French part of the Alps (we could ski over to Switzerland). So it was really my first time here. I only regret one thing about the trip..... I should have made it to the top of the Pilatus! Well it only means I have to go back one day. Here you can see what I missed: http://www.pilatus.ch/
I was not really in Switzerland for a holiday anyway. Up at 06.30 every day is not my kind of holiday but F3B is something it is all worth getting up early for. I'll be honest and say it is easier when the results is better than I experienced this time but I have only my self to blame. No training and no preparation this time due to work related stuff was hindering me.
But overall I think I learned a lot and I will certainly not give up this sport. I could also see clearly that many countries had done their homework and came well prepared and their results showed that clearly. Good to see the French guys were doing well, likewise with the Aussies. Also Holland were doing well. The Americans surprised a lot of people grabbing 3rd place.
What I like about the sport is that it brings me around and I would not mind if the USA, Argentina, Japan or some other country would try to host it. I think it is about time that some non European country hosted the World Championship. My advise to any nation wanting to host this is to get an Airline sponsor if possible. This will make it a lot easier for most of the Europeans to accept a bid from overseas. Maybe it could be possible to charter a plane as well. A chartered plane from central Europe would be a very interesting way of doing it.

The contest was dominated by the Germans and especially the Herrig brothers. Martin Herrig only lost about 40 points of maximum and that is remarkable. The conditions were not easy to master and many pilots lost a lot of points in duration and distance. Speed conditions were not super fast as one may expected the last two days when the weather was getting better.

Visitors

2007-05-27T10:39:00.000+02:00

When we host international contest I normally get a couple of visitors staying in my flat. And this year I had Ian Mason, Brano Legersky and Jan Tulak coming . Ian came by boat and I met him at the Stavanger Harbour and showed him the way back to my place. But before Ian came I also had to take care of Kjell as his friend Kaare was still in Poland. Kjell came early and was mostly out practicing. I was mostly sick with the flu..... On Thursday I picked up my good friends Brano and Jano from the Airport. Brano did not get to fly much, he was unlucky in the very difficult conditions on Friday and got only to fly one round before the earth came and claimed his Aris. But Brano was here mostly to relax and have some holidays and he took it very nicely. One should think that he could just get another Aris as he and Jano is running the Aerodesign company who makes the Aris. It is not so easy as the orderbooks is pretty packed and customers is waiting. Well I think Brano has one more Aris at home so he will be OK. Sunday Ian left and we went to Rennesoy to fly the contest. After the contest we did some sightseeing and had a small trip around Rennesoy and Mosteroy before a little detour via Stavanger before we visited my family. Next day I had to work and I sent Brano and Jano to the Pulpit Rock. I think they enjoyed it very much. In the evening I took them to the Bore Beach and the outlet of the Figgjo river where we took the pictures. What a nice evening, no wind, waves from the day before and I got to fly my Logostick.

Norway Open F3F

2007-05-21T15:02:00.000+02:00

This years Norway Open F3F which also was a part of the Eurotour is over. We had one day with one round and the next day we flew 11 rounds in rather difficult but interesting conditions. The 4 first rounds were flown on the south side of Obrestad. Round one was terrible with low clouds and high winds. Some pilots had problem with this and had some bad luck. Round 2-4 the next day it was even more wind but no rain. The wind was moving towards southwest and we had to change to the southwest slope over at the lighthouse. Here it was much better for a while until it started to shift back to south again! But it was flyable and we decided to stay.

This year we were lucky to have pilots from 6 nations and I think this is a record. The Norwegians were not many so this was very fortunately for us to have so many foreigners.
I think the 17th. of May(Our National day) is the cause of why we had so few Norwegians.
Next year we will avoid this problem I hope.

The contest was won by Rolf B. Rettedal flying an Aris for the first time in contest. Filip Kalensky was 2nd. flying Ascot and New Sting. I managed 3rd place with RaceM Ultimate and Opus. Both Filip and me got unlucky with our A models after round 4. Filip had a hard landing and I had my plane blown out of my hands and dropping it on the tail.....
Filip clearly had problems adjusting to the New Sting and I flew the 190cm Opus almost to perfection and snatched 3rd place 2,5 points ahead of JoJo. (hehe) JoJo flew well and would have taken second place if it was not for his 100 point penalty in round 1. Also Rolf had a 100 point penalty.

We flew 8 rounds on the south west slope in pretty even conditions. Rolf flew very well and we had no chance against him. Landing on this slope is very easy and the contest ran very smooth thanks to our Slovak, Czech and Norwegian helpers.

Results can be found here: www.f3x.no

Sunday we had the scheduled Cooldown (The race after the big one, still official but more relaxed) Rolf and Joergen decided to stay home so it was now down to 7 pilots. Anyway none of us wanted to fly at Obrestad anymore so we went to Rennesoy Island and checked out the South west slope there. SUPER-DUPER conditions! We set up the course and all agreed on flying 8 rounds running 2 and 2 so only 4 landings were needed. 2 pilots backed out because of slightly though landing area. Rolle Rolf had the fastest time of the day with 34,72 seconds and was in the lead all the way up to round 6. I flew very even all day and "stole" 1st. place from Rolle. Arild was struggling with his Aris having servo problems, still enough to take 3rd. spot in front of JoJo and Kjell. Kjell is BTW getting better and better and it want be long before he is on the same level than most pilots here. He won round both in the Norway Open and the Cooldown.
Thanks again to Brano, Jano, Kaare and Tor working the bases and the middle.
Landing was not as tough as we thought, it was very laminar and crow brakes was all you needed to get down safely.

1. Espen Torp, RaceM Ultimate
2. Rolf Inge Waaga, RaceM F3F
3. Arild Moellerhaug, Aris
4. Jo Grini, Crossfire
5. Kjell Gai, Brio

No pics.

Easter F3F Hanstholm, Denmark 2007

2007-04-11T20:44:00.000+02:00

This year I decided to enter the Easter F3F in Hanstholm mostly because it was part of the F3F Eurotour for the first time. Over 40 pilots entered and that is close to a record I think. I had to take a quick trip to Hamburg and pick up Tom Copp which decided to go to Denmark instead of La Muela, Spain. The wind direction was west and that meant the Cafeteria slope which is not the best. Building the harbour bigger and bigger has more and more destroyed the slope and makes it very turbulent. But turbulence is one thing, change of wind direction during rounds was another problem that many pilots had problems with.
It would have been very interesting having the weather logger going all day and actually could have seen what was going on. I hope my friend Kaare Aareskjold will have this device ready in not so long time.
Helge Borchert had the new Freestyler 3 and impressed us all with good flying. 3 Czech guys had also taken the long trip and Filip Kalensky (Fastest time of the day) flew his Ascot to 5th place. Kai Henning Nielsen won one round and got 6th place. Tom Copp flew his Caldera and Aris to 7th. place. Good old Klaus Untrieser showed us all that he still is a top contender and ended up in 3rd. I flew my prototype RaceM Ultimate to 2nd place and was quite happy with that. This model is not yet in production and we will test it properly before we decide to produce it. It was quite promising but to early to tell if it is any better or worse than the RaceM F3F.
Top ten list:
Helge Borchert, Freestyler 3
Espen Torp, RaceM Ultimate
Klaus Untrieser, Aris
Knud Hebsgaard, Ellipse 2
Filip Kalensky, Ascot
Kai Henning Nielsen, Elita V
Tom Copp, Aris and Caldera
Jörgen Larsen, Aris
Jan Wichmann,
Frank Wiedemann,

Going outdoors

2007-04-01T11:40:00.000+02:00

Last Sunday we had our first F3F competition this year. As can seen on the sea it was not much wind so it was cancelled. Anyway we had a good day out and it was good to meet the guys again. Some of us went to Ole Vidar and had a look at his 1:2,5 Wilga positive. If you ask me this is a crazy project. The size and the amount of details is breathtaking. Ole Vidar has several big projects behind him and one of them can be seen in a big article in the latest Auwind magazine. It is a ca 8meter wingspan Antares.

Arild Moellerhaug giving the Aris of Rolf B. a good launch

Arild with one of his 3 Arises (they all used to be mine)

Wilga positive, Ole Vidar on the left.

The positive is pretty heavy

Karl Petter had a little show with his Schock flyer.

In Slovakia week 9 and 10

2007-03-01T09:17:00.000+01:00

A picture of me and the positive for the new RaceM elevator made in aluminium by Jan Hansen.
The progress is a little bit slower than expected due to heavy work load but we hope to start production soon.
I am in Slovakia to help my partner in ET-Air Slovakia with the UAV project. All molds will be ready this week and we can start to make tests.
The weather here has not been so good but that is fine for us as we have to work indoors anyway :-)

Finally we got some better weather and we went to the Airport for some flying.

Very nice Wizard Compact II with Ferrari paint scheme

Miro Polonec with his electric and DLG Logostick

Miro Majercik launching the Logostick

www.et-air.com

New model for Video filming

2007-02-04T10:14:00.000+01:00

I have finally made ready the new Videoplane which I intend to use for landscape filming.

Check this link: http://www.et-air.com/index.cfm?id=120883

Apart from this the weather here is not normal with + 6 degrees and rain (well rain is pretty normal). The fields are green and if you did not know better it could be April.

So there has been no chance to test the videoplane with camera yet, but the first flight without equipment went very well.

Logostick, new DLG from ET-Air

2006-12-25T19:07:00.000+01:00

I will soon post more pictures of this little beautiful model on www.et-air.com

The quality is very high and it fits ET-Air standard very well.

Happy Holidays

2006-12-25T18:44:00.000+01:00

Happy Holidays to all people reading this blog!

I am enjoying some days off and I try to do some web work to catch up a little bit. Today I was out doing some photos in the local river. This picture is taken in the middle of the river system near by my flat and is barely moving forward here. This place is well known for its birds and in fact I was using one of the birdspotter towers when I shoot this picture. This and many other pictures will be used in a DVD compilation I am making together with a friend. It will be ready next Christmas. We will use still photos, ground video, aerial stills and aerial video to cover the complete river system.

The next picture is taken where the river starts.

Trip to Slovakia

2006-12-16T20:51:00.000+01:00

Check out ET-Air news section to find a little story from the trip and some pictures.

I had with me Alex McMeekin and we had a good trip and met some interesting people.

Jano, Brano and Espen at Aerodesign workshop.

Some news

2006-10-30T12:21:00.000+01:00

Check out www.et-air.com for some news about the new fuselage for RaceM.
The picture shows a CAD drawing made by Jan Hansen, Denmark.
The positives will be milled in aluminium and will hopefully be ready early next year.

Trip to Hanstholm, Denmark

2006-10-18T20:35:00.000+02:00

I knew already 3 days before leaving for Denmark that it would be a relaxed weekend and no F3F flying. The reason was a high pressure building up over southern Scandinavia and this normally does not give much wind. And unfortunately I was right. Very little wind but a very nice trip. The first picture show Jesper Jensen, Keld Jensen and Jan Hansen doing free flying while we waited for more wind. Next picture show their models. Last picture we can see Joergen, Regnar, Knud and Kai. In the background you can spot Rolf with his new camera. Maybe they were discussing the wind that never came.....

Finally some practice....

2006-10-08T19:48:00.000+02:00

I can't remember the last time I got some good F3F practice in. (maybe I have to read my blog)
Well conditions was nice with around 7-8ms almost straight into my home slope Hodne only 8 minutes away from my home. I had two good 10 minutes practice runs with my RaceM F3F http://www.et-air.com/index.cfm?id=85380 and it felt pretty good. I tested several different turning styles and now I have no idea of what to do....
Then came Paal and flew his paraglider and I got some pics of him before I grabbed my video camera. This guy is amazing with his paraglider. I hope to edit the video and post it so you can see for yourself. He does with his body the same things we do with models. I am as ever very impressed with his flying. Paal is besides a paraglider also a model enthusiast of course, he flies helis, power and sailplanes.

Airbus training at Sola Airport

2006-10-02T23:55:00.000+02:00

I just would like to share this picture of SAS Airbus 340 doing test flights at Sola Airport Stavanger, Norway. Picture was taken in 2002.

Test flying a new field

2006-10-01T21:22:00.000+02:00

Today I drove half an hour to test a new flying field made by Jonny Ueland on his farm. The airstrip can be used for microlight aircraft and model airplanes. I had my winch with me but I decided to use the rubber as it was quite windy. As normal I could not get any friends to join me so I did not fly so much, but the air was quite good and I had some good flights.
I then took a couple of flights with the heli to take some pictures.

Test report

2006-09-28T11:05:00.000+02:00

Just testing blogging from my cell phone

Viking Race 2006, Scotland

2006-09-17T10:51:00.000+02:00

This years Viking Race was the all time biggest with almost 90 competitors. The debate is already on if this is too much or not. I will get back with more on this and other F3F topics later.
We only managed to get 5 rounds in and with typical inland conditions this was not enough to have an even race. So many "good" pilots ended up way down the list and even the winners were very familiar there were lots of surprises in the top 20 list.
The event was organized by a few Scottish enthusiast and a handful of English/international helpers. The step-in CD made a couple of wrong decisions in my point of view but the weather was the main problem with no wind and cross wind. We also flew all the days at East Lomond hill which certainly was quite demanding for the pilots.
If we had managed 7-8 rounds I think the competition would have been pretty good.
More to follow.....
Links: www.knewt.com
Well a few days after the event I am still a little disappointed but we must not forget that this is an outdoor event and many things can go wrong. It does not mean we have to keep F3F to the same format and the same rules in the future. We have to decide if we want a big social event or a real F3F competition. In Scotland most of the pilots seemed to go for a three man team option if they could choose. The Viking Race has always been a limited open event. It means that the organizer can invite as many or as few pilots they wanted. I think the people who invented F3F never thought that there would be as many as 90 pilots in one event. As this class is so dependent on the weather it is not practical to have contest with large numbers if you want to give relatively equal conditions to all pilots.
This is not new of course, we have always had problems with rising and falling wind and thermals, crosswind and other factors. The best way to deal with uneven conditions has always been to run as many rounds as possible. Until last year 10 rounds was the maximum number of rounds, now there is no limit.
In F3B there is a possibility of flying the speed in groups, but most pilots do not like this and most want to fly the speed in one group. This is also my meaning in F3F. We should try to fly the rounds in F3F in one group. But we could make some rules that would allow the organizer to use this option but the rules for this must be very clear and should only be used if absolutely necessary.
Our biggest problem today is the poor measurement of the weather conditions. We must be able to make a weather station which by itself can measure the wind conditions and determine re flights by itself. This would help the CD a lot. I also think we should reconsider the rules concerning the lowest wind speed and the most crosswind (45 degrees). It would be better that the CD could decide which wind speed and direction would be the lowest for a certain hill/slope.
The weather station should have the option for 2,3,4,5,6ms and some different crosswind possibilities that could be preset for the day. Lets face it, not all slopes gives enough lift at 3ms and 45 degrees of crosswind. So if this could be changed we would in my point of view have a much better system and a contest would be easier to handle.
I also think we should make more precise method of measuring the wind and direction. Instead of the current rule we should have an average of the flight and a green or red light if the conditions was OK or not. The pilot should also be given the right to keep the score if he wanted to.
In Scotland they shifted the start order by 10 pilots each day, not each round. Since we did not fly more than 3 days this rotation only made 3 shifts. Well this is also a way of doing it. I think we must look into another way. I can see 2 ways right now and I think both of them could be used. Organizers has to tell in advance which method.
1) Draw all the rounds. It means nobody can tamper with the start list. All rounds are drawn and handed out to each team or all the competitors in advance. This is the easiest way of doing it and probably the most justified method.
2) Draw the first round. Then fly all the following rounds after the ranking principle. Fly the last pilots first (or last in the round). With this system there will always be changes in the start order. This method requires a PC/printer at the slope (or near by) to keep the flow of the contest running. The Germans tried this in the German Open last year and it works!

et 22.9.2006

Norwegian Championship, F3B

2006-09-04T14:13:00.000+02:00

Finally home after a long drive from the east to the west of Norway. As I am the only F3B pilot in the west at the moment I had to take the trip alone. Thanks to Egil R. for letting me stay one night in his house on my way to the Championship. And also thanks to Espen G. and Lars N. for taking care of me during the Championship. This is rather important for me as I can concentrate more on the flying.
This year we started to fly Friday evening and got to fly 3 tasks.
Next day the weather was fine and we managed to fly 4 full rounds. In the beginning I did not do so well but after some flights I was back in business and to my surprise I was leading after four rounds. Not by much so the lead was fragile.
The organiser, Cirrus RCK did a good job but they had few helpers. But what a good job they did, even Lars's 12 year old daughter stayed in the B-base chair for all rounds of distance! Thanks to all the helpers, they certainly did a super job.
The forecast for Sunday was not good and indeed it started with heavy rain and low clouds. After a while the rain stopped and we all started rigging our equipment and we were more or less ready when the rain started again. They set the start to 11.30 but the rain kept coming down and then finally at 13.00 they called the Championship off for the day.
So in my 20th. F3B Championship in a row I was declared the winner. Also this meant I was qualified for the next years World Championship which will be my 11th WC in a row.
2nd. place went to Erik Morgan and third to Widar Holmedal which actually could not attend on Sunday as he got ill. I guess he was happy that the weather did not cooperate.

Norwegian Championship F3F

2006-08-14T08:06:00.000+02:00

The Norwegian Championship category F3F 2006 was held by the club Haugaland MFK north of Stavanger. The organizer had done a lot of work prior to the Championship and I felt sorry for them as the wind did not cooperate at all. Saturday looked promising but the conditions was very variable mostly because of the wrong wind direction. At least some pilots thought it was OK as they got reasonable conditions and flew well. The main problem was the fact that we only managed 4 rounds in two full days.
But worthy podium winners was Jo Grini (Crossfire), Rolf Rettedal (RaceM F3F), and Jack Farstad (RaceM F3F) all of them flew very well and took advantage of the conditions they got.
Fastest time went to Geir Njaa (RaceM F3F) with 47,52 in 4th. round.

Thanks to all the helpers who did a very solid job during the race.

This competition again showed us that we could make good use of a better weather station that could monitor the contest a little better than the manual measurement we are doing now.

Check www.f3x.no for full results

Visitors

2006-08-11T22:59:00.000+02:00

Some pictures from Hodne Friday 11.8.06
I have visitors from Skien and Tromso. They are here for the upcoming Norwegian Championship F3F this weekend. Egil got to test fly his Crossfire and Kjell Sture flew his Viking. I just took pictures....

Orebro Open F3B

2006-08-03T21:31:00.000+02:00

Wow! What a weekend for me. Second place and Speedmaster was perhaps a little more than I expected going over to Sweden and the Eurotour event (http://www.contest-modellsport.de/)
Our small team did a great job and we got good help from friends during the most difficult tasks. Erik Morgan was pretty happy with 9th. spot and I think Egil Roland was satisfied with his international debut and 22nd. place. Our team placed 5th overall and that also was quite good I think. My Speedmaster title was won win speeds of 18, 17 and 2 times 16 seconds run. We flew the last speed in reverse order and I was 4th. last to go. My first launch was bad and Erik told me so (thanks), the next launch was super and all I had to do was fly safely and I did so with a low 16 seconds speed. This put some pressure on Pasi Vaisanen, Martin Weberschock and Tobias Knoblauch. I won the last speed but Tobias beat me with the nessecary points. Anyway he deserved to win after a good contest.
I would like to thank the Swedish organisers for a well done job. I have attended this comp. for many, many years and for us living up north it is a must for us to find out where we stand
compared to the Germans, Swedes, Danes, Dutch and the Finnish guys.
And BTW, I flew my brand new RaceM F3B which I have specced for F3F this year, it means it is rather heavy but with my luck this year it did not matter. Tobias and Martin flew their new Radical's.

Heikki Astikainen, veteran F3B pilot!
Two good friends of mine, Søren Helsted launching Jan Hansen's X21 on practice day.
The A-base, at least one guy looks relaxed here!
Joakim Staal surprised me with his new model, a Crossfire. I guess there is not so much time building the Racemachine anymore.
Gjermund Westad launching Kunt Vidar's Europhia 2
Tobias Knoblauch, the winner of this years Orebro Open
The Norwegians minus Erik and me.

My new RaceM F3B

2006-07-27T14:56:00.000+02:00

Miro brought my RaceM F3B with him from Slovakia. Finally I have two models for this season and that is good since it is now it all begins....
This one is made with balsa as sandwich and C-93 carbon. This model is mostly made for F3F as this is the main event for me this year (Viking Race in Scotland)

Roundtrip, Lysebotn

2006-07-27T10:55:00.001+02:00

I planned a little trip to Lysebotn so Miro could get to see some of the scenery in my area. My father gave me the idea to take the ferry from Stavanger to Lysebotn and drive home. What a success! The day started with rather overcast weather but as we entered the famous Lysefjord. The ferry was more like a cruise with the captain acting as the guide. So instead of going straight to Lysebotn we took small detours all the way. Pictures will follow soon......

Lift Ticket, the Directors cut!

2006-07-27T10:22:00.000+02:00

Check out Dave Reese's newly updated webpage and look for the new DVD Lift Ticket, the Directors cut. There is also a updated trailer of the Lift Ticket to Norway which now has a release date in December 2006. http://www.reeseproductions.com/

Quiet for a while!

2006-07-27T09:59:00.000+02:00

Last 4 weeks have been very busy. After my two F3B trips I went to Trondheim to help Peregrine Dynamics with the Maia UAV. This is a twin electric small UAV than can be used for many purposes. There is pictures of this on www.et-air.com under the UAV section. I got to demonstrate the UAV in rather windy and turbulent conditions. Peregrine Dynamics will use this UAV for a testbed for their avionics. The Maia have an estimated endurance of 2 hours.
(I will fill in some pictures later)

Just home from Trondheim I headed to Tromsoe together with Miro for a meeting with Norut IT regarding the bigger UAV, CryoWing. http://projects.itek.norut.no/UAV/index.htm
They want to continue our cooperation and we discussed the next generation CryoWing.
Finally I got to see some of Tromsoe also. We took the gondola lift to the nearby mountain and this of course gave us a perfect view over the city. Next day our meetings continued but there was time for some more fun. Kjell Sture (AKA Speedmaster) had a new small little flying machine that needed to be tested. Maybe he will post some pictures on his blog : http://ksjohansen.blogspot.com/ Why he calls himself Speedmaster is a mystery to me :-)
Pictures will come......

Roger Waters concert!

2006-07-01T23:29:00.000+02:00

The picture above is taken by me from a microlight aircraft and show the Hinna Park area. Viking Stadion and the training field for Viking football club can be seen on the left. Finally the club has a state of the art stadium! And they have also used the facilities to arrange concerts with some big names. Bryan Adams, REM and others have been there so far. This year they brought in Roger Waters and his band. The sound was incredible and so was the concert. I hope there will be made a DVD from this tour some day. The concert was held on Monday the 26th of June.

Fullsize airliners

2006-07-01T14:15:00.000+02:00

They are doing an upgrade on the landing system at Sola Airport in Stavanger. This means all planes must land and takeoff on the east-west runway. This gave me good opportunity to take some nice photos from a different angle than normal. The pictures was one thing but the Vortex sound and the fact that they hit just close to where I stood was simply amazing!

Well here are the pics:

F3B again, Spydeberg Norway

2006-07-01T13:39:00.000+02:00

After the last contest I decided to go to the F3B contest in Spydeberg at the east side of South Norway. The event is held by Cirrus RCK, Norways biggest RC-sailplane club. They have a nice field which they share with a Microlight club. They have their own little clubhouse with most facilities.
I could not bear the thought of driving again so I decided to take the train. What a boring trip! I hoped I would be able to see Norway from the rails but no! Tunnels, threes and mostly cutaway rock is what you get. At least the trip itself was pretty cheap. Luckily I had a deal with my father to travel with him back from Spydeberg in his car as he was returning from holiday.
Erik picked me up in Kongsberg and next day we went to Spydeberg to fly the Speed contest.
6 rounds with speed was excellent for me as practice. I did not do any major mistakes and won the contest with an average of 17.16. Not so good because the weather was pretty good so I guess the HotShots would have blasted through here. Well I am getting more and more happy with my RaceM F3F and in a couple of weeks I will get my F3B version.
Next day we had the normal F3B contest with all tasks. 2 rounds was all we did but that was enough for use in the National league. There are now several who are fighting for the next years World Championship. That is good! We need competition to get better here up North.
Erik won the comp. With me in second place and JoJo (The F3J guy) in third. Best distance, Erik with 25 laps and best speed, me with 16.56 seconds. Thanks to Cirrus RCK for hosting this and especially a great thanks to the Nordskogen family for being there as helpers for 2 days in a row! Without you there would not be a contest!
Check out www.f3x.no for more about the comp. Check out http://www.seaxx.net/index.html for info about Gjermund Westad's Seax.

Sailboat trip with Egil

2006-06-19T22:56:00.000+02:00

On my way back from the F3B comp I stopped by Egil Myr (as I often do on these trips) Egil has invested in a Sweden Yachts 37. I am afraid that this is the last nail in his sailplane career.
Sunday morning he took me out and my task was to steer as he operated the sails. It was a nice feeling when we shut down the motor and went just on sails. I think it is very similar to flying model sailplanes. I could easily feel the power of the sail and adjust the rudder to get more speed. I can understand why many people like sailing! We sailed out into the main inlet to Kristiansand and got very close to the new Catamaran ferry that goes between Hanstholm and Kristiansand. Very impressive and it made big waves too!

F3B contest, Norway

2006-06-18T22:27:00.000+02:00

This Saturday I drove 6 hours (one way) to participate in the F3B cup held by www.vingen.no near Skien in the east part of Norway. Vingen has a nice field for F3B. They do have an issue with crosswind on this field but that just make more interesting. The weather was very nice and we had more than 90 degree crosswind for most of the day. Duration was not easy but most groups were won with 10 minutes flying time. The conditions for speed was pretty even all day and best time was 17 seconds. We did not fly distance as we are not enough pilots or helpers to do this task. Thanks to Egil Roland for putting this F3B contest together. Top 3 pilots was: Espen, Widar and Erik in third place. Results can be found at http://www.f3x.no/

Sunset June 2006

2006-06-14T07:21:00.000+02:00

Went down to the beach the other day and took these pictures. No photoshop here :-)

F3F contest

2006-06-12T00:02:00.000+02:00

Norway's southwest coast does not often have 25 degrees and sun. Today it happened and we even had some wind! This F3F contest was a test for a new slope in Aksdal close to Haugesund. A typical inland slope approx. 60-70 meter high. Unfortunately we had yet again some cross wind and this made it pretty difficult to land. But somehow we managed ten rounds flying 2 and 2. Clearly we had some thermal influence but this just added some fun to it. Only 4 pilots this time but we had some help on A-base so it was no problem to run it. Aerotorp won, then came Moellis, Rolf B and Rolle Rolf. Pictures by me and showing Rolf flying his RaceM, but I used his SuperDuper Canon camera with a big lens. Check www.f3x.no for results.

Wonderful weekend

2006-06-10T10:50:00.000+02:00

Last weekend Erik Morgan came for a visit. We did not have too many plans but for sure we wanted to do some flying. Saturday we went to the other side of the Fjord to visit Rolle Rolf and Moellis and fly on their local "Austre Bokn" slope. This hill is not so big but it produces super lift and even when the wind is cornering we timed sub 40 runs again and again with only 10-12 m/s. But the main thing with this slope is the surroundings with the sea and all the islands near by. It is just beautiful! This feeling when you get there is worth the trip alone and I feel privileged to get out in the nature like this. The picture on the left is taken in 2003 and as you may have spotted, it was windstill :-) Erik flew his Crossfire and for sure impressed both me, Rolle and Moellis with his smooth style which he quickly adapted into the Nordic turns just by watching us prior to his flying.
Next day we went to my local Hodne slope and Erik did the same, he watched me work the slope and went out to copy my style and did so in an impressively way. And he have even this year changed his flying mode from 4 to 2 because of a radio change.
I am looking forward to see him fly in the Norwegian Championship in a couple of months. I think he might do well there.
Next day I finally got to test my new RaceM F3F on the winch. Ooops, I forgot my transmitter home but Erik quickly dialed in my model on his MX22 radio. So I got startflap and crowbrakes in a setting I think he would have liked. This was OK for me and up on the line it went. I must say it started pretty good and now I almost feel prepared for the first F3B contest this year.

T-Shirt winners

2006-06-02T07:49:00.000+02:00

Finally the carbon wing Eurotour Throphy and the the 3 T-shirts arrived after being held up in Norwegian customs for a week or so. Thanks to the F3F Eurotour manager, Peter Neugenbauer for sending this to us. The carbon wing goes to the winner of the contest and the T-shirts will go to start nr. 9, nr. 3 and nr.11. The Lucky winners are: Alex McMeekin, Geir Njaa and me. The draw was done by EC Morgan and myself.

Norway Open 2006 and the Warmup

2006-05-29T21:08:00.000+02:00

The Warmup did not work out this year. We got unlucky with little wind and wrong wind direction. We had a relativly good turnout with 15 eager pilots looking forward to this years first F3F contest. Despite some people have believed that the Warmup is a training for the Norway Open I can only tell that we have run this comp on this day (which is a public Holyday) for more than 20 years. So we will set it up again soon.

Norway Open 2006 started with lots of rain on Saturday. We drove to Obrestad and waited. Then someone had the idea to drive to Egersund and visit Oegrey Hobby. When we came back after 3 hours it was still raining but not so much and it seemed like it would stop. So we rigged everything and started the contest. After 2 pilots the rain started and we again had to wait.
Well F3F is an outdoor sport and what can we do? There are many factors that have to be right.
The day before most of the contestants had a super day with lots of training in good wind and clear sky. Come race day and it has all turned the opposite, wind from south and rain.
Luckily the following day the wind turned to west-northwest and we could start the comp again. We managed 1 round before the first and only shower of the day. In total we did 5 rounds before we had to call it a day. The wind turned to much to the west and was getting even weaker.
The conditons were by no means even this year and luck was needed to win and to place well.
We had 3 English and 2 Danish competitors and it is always more interesting for us when we can compete against others. Thank you very much for showing up and I hope you will come back next year. Off course when I write this Monday evening the wind has been strong all day long....
Take a look here for results: http://www.f3x.no/f3f/2006/eurotour.pdf

More practice before Norway Open F3F

2006-05-23T21:36:00.000+02:00

Approx 13m/s today but a bit westerly at Hodne. I got to fly 15 minutes before Rolf came and we did 3 and 3 rounds testflying/practice. Rolf got some super air and I clocked him to 41 seconds. Not bad! The first picture show Rolf from Sunday. Picture by me with Rolf's new camera, pretty good I think. The two next pics is me launching Geir over the stone fence. Must be careful doing this or it will go wrong. Pics by Rolf.

Out flying today

2006-05-21T18:54:00.000+02:00

The weather man does not get it! Well I am not complaining when they get it wrong the right way. Today they predicted 10m/s wind from northwest and rainshowers. They got the direction right! Apart from that, it was sunny and only 4m/s wind. So this was a good day for bringing out my ASW 28 3meter scale model and just cruise up and down the slope. I also had a quick go with the RaceM and flew it empty today as there was not much lift. Even my old buddies Geir and Rolf came and we sat down in the grass and talked about the upcoming Norway Open.

Picture I took Friday

2006-05-21T12:24:00.000+02:00

This is a picture of the main entry of the Hinna Park. www.hinna-park.no The new Viking Stadion (local football club) is now being surrounded by apartments, shops and other buildings.
25 years ago this place was used for making the big concrete oilrigs like the Troll, Sleipner and many others. The leaning tower was made to prove the concept of gliding the concrete from smaller to bigger and then smaller diameter, all in one go. So this actual tower is a copy of what they made for some of the legs. Check here for a better picture http://www.flickr.com/photos/hufse/131495695/

Aerotorp goes blogging!

2006-05-21T12:12:00.000+02:00

The reason for this blog is simply to part my "blog" from my ET-Air pages. So ET-Air can be my commercial channel and not a blog. I will create links to this blog from ET-Air.