My new RaceM F3B

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

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!

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!

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!

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

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

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

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.