Sailboat trip with Egil

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

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

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

F3F contest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.