WC F3B 2007

First day of the WC is over, lots of rain and lots of mud... We almost completed one round. The speed task was devided into 4 groups because of the weather.
The norwegian team was quite beaten in duration. The distance task was better, and the speed task was OK, exept for Knut Vidar, he missed the A-base.
The weather is improving slightly today. No rain at the moment, hopefully the sun will hit us. We need to warm up, and dry up.
The event is quite well organised, some discussion at the team meetings, but things have been handled well, I think.
Friday the 13th og july the WC is almost over. Only two tasks remains for saturday, distance and speed of round 7. The norwegian team has done some nice rounds, and some not so nice rounds... We have got beaten a lot in all speed rounds. The Herrig brothers are in a leage of them selfes... Nobody get any way near those two guys in the speed. They have also flown nice distance and duration tasks.
I could say a lot about the arrangement, but wil not... But this wil probably not go into the history as the best arranged WC. Event if we got some improvement with new CD.
But today the sky is clear, the sun is shining and we are happy!

World Cup Emmen

Ok, this event i over. I flew 2 good tasks (duration and one distance) and 2 bad tasks... (distance and speed). Dont know how long it has been since my last 26 speed, but that what was i managed.
Conditions was no good for speed, fastes time was 17.60.
The 20 best pilots flew a "speed final", almost total german dominance at the top of the list. Those guys do something we dont... Maybe they do a little more training? And of course they have nice planes.
Today its monday, first day of the WC. We have flown duration, in poor conditions. Rainy. We have a delay because of the rain, before we start distance.

Nordic F3J 2007

was a "disaster" for me... My back hurt so much, I decided not to fly. But my team did very vell. Jostein Myre was No. 2 and Erik Morgan No 3. Arnfinn Lie (also norwegian) was at the top of the podium. All norwegian!! The team-contest was won by my team, we found out a couple of days later... First we was anounced 5th. But they had counted all rounds (no discard) and all 4 pilots... Maybe we get our trofee by mail?? Hopefully not email...
Heavy rain and wind up to 20 m/s made it a hard weekend. Lot or broken models... Both in starts and landings.

Jo Grini and my self are now in the "middle of Germany", on our way to Wasserckuppe. Some slope-flying, we hope, before we head for the WC F3B.

Last F3B competiton

before leaving for the WC. The arena was Spydeberg airfield, in the eastern part of Norway. 11 pilots attended. As often in our country, difficult conditions all day. We thought there would be fast times during speed, but that was wrong. Even with good headwind in the starts, the launches was rather average... Between 230 and 260 meters. Fastes time was 17 something.
I managed to be at the podium! Third place at the end. Not any exeptional rounds, but good, stable flying all day got me this place. Winner was again Arnfinn Lie, Jo Grini at second.
We start our "international F3X-tour" thursday 28th of June. First event then is Nordic Champ. F3J in Denmark. Then we leave for WC, the plan is to spend a few days in Germany on our way.

F3B and F3J-competiton

in one weekend, is a lot. And when you are participating as well as organising... Well... But what a thrill. We had a verry sucessful F3B event at saturday. We flew duration and speed, and managed 4 rounds. And... Am I happy... New personal best at speed, 16.71. And I got a 21.59 with missed B-base. That would have been in the 17-something I guess.
Over all ended up 5th, which is OK. Was beaten by Jo Grini and Knut Vidar Moløkken, both in the WC-team. Arnfinn Lie took it all the way home. Widar Holmedahl was speedmaster with 17.49 as average.
Condition was, as they could be in Norway, hard. Some durations was won with full time, others with 3.30... 13 pilots attended. In the evening, I invited to a barbeque in my garden, and we enjoyed a rainy evening. And found the bed quite early, since there was F3J on the agenda next morning.

And Sunday 14 pilots flew F3J. We like to experiment a little in Norway, and at this event we tryed only 100 meters between vinch and turnaround. Most of the pilots was verry happy with this. With lower starts you have to be more careful picking the thermals. No room for mistakes... And your helper has to more avake also, of course. I think this was sucessful, at least for Norwegian conditions. We may try this another time also.
I was stupid in the first round, and hit a pole with my plane... Not smart. But, the damage was reperable with some hotstuf and tape. And I finished at 6th. And the conditions considered, with damaged plane, I am happy with that.
Jo Grini was again at the top of the podium, with Arnfinn Lie as second and Alf Erik Ross at third.

Lot of work both to fly and organise to events in just one weekend. But lot of fun. And with new personal best in speed... Well. Don't have to say no more.

Next weekend it is F3B at Spydeberg, with Cirrus RCFK as organizer.

NATS F3J...

is over. A perfect event, at Klanten airport in Norway. Jo Grini was CD, pilot, in charge of food and much more. Thank you, Jo, for a great event.
The results for me was rather poor... 3 big mistakes and long way down the result list. 10th to be exact. But my team mate, Erik Morgan, took it all the way to the top of the podium. Congratulations to him. Great flying all weekend. Arnfinn Lie was second and Inge Balswick third.
Next up is F3B at the 16th of june, at my local field. And F3J 17th og june at the same field.
And F3B at Spydeberg 24th and 25th, nordic championship F3J las weekend in june, and of course WC in Switzerland... Rather busyin other words... Lot of fun!

The day before the nats

F3J. Spent the evening yestrday with Jo, we had a nice evening. To day the rain is rather heavy. The plan was to get a little practise at the field. So far it has been a lot of coffe at Jo's place.
The weather forcast is good for the rest of the weekend, so hopefully we wil get some nice flights.

Not to much

updates here lately, but there is activity. Done some F3J practise in may, the nationals is next weekend. Jo Grinis club, Valdres, is organiser, and I look forward to participate there.
19 pilots have anounced that they will come, so I am shure it will be a nice event.
Maybe some mobile-updates here during the weekend.

New F3J-event

Sunday 28th of april, it was another F3J-event at Cirrus airfild, Spydeberg, Norway. 17 pilots attended, my club with 5 pilots. Nice weather, with lots of small thermals most of the day. And lot of sink of course... We flew 5 prelims and 2 finals.
I did quite well, and ended third in the prelims. Only one mistake. Droped of the line in one start, and had to restart. But got 914 in that round, and ended up with an average of 985. And got a personal best with flighttime 9:52,5 in round one. Nice! Of course nothing compared to the 9:57 something that we have seen, but in a norwegian competition, this is a nice time.
The other in the finals where my team-mate Erik Morgan, Arnfinn Lie, Jo Grini and Øivind Ellevog. Erik got the lead after the first final, but missed a bit in the second. Jo Grini was again at the top of the podium, with Erik as second and Arnfinn at third. I got forth and Øivind fifth.
A little drawback for me was a "midair" with Tor Midtlund. He's Perfects senter sections was a lot harder than mine Perfects wing tip... I lost.
But Jo offered to repair the tip for me, and now as I write this, I got a SMS from Jo, telling me that the tip is already repaired, and shipped back to me! In just a few hours... I owe you a big one, Jo. Thanx!
Next F3J competition in Norway is the nationals, first weekend in june. At "Klanten airfild", with Jo as the organizer. It will for shure be a nice event, and I look forward to it! Would probably leave a day or to early to get familiar with the high altitude of the field (around 900 meters I think.)

The seasons first cup-event F3J in Norway

found place sunday 22th of april, at the club field of my club, MFK Vingen. Pour weather... Rain all day. 14 pilots attended in the morning, but 8 of them decided not to fly because of the weather. 6 pilots startet, 3 teams consisting of 2 pilots. This is only possible with winch-starts of course... We have used winches in F3J for some years now, in Norway.
We flew only 3 rounds with 2 finals. That is what it takes to get official results in Norway.
I got quite beaten in round 2, and no finals for me... Ended 4th. Not good flying at all. Inge Balswick was the man of the day. 3000 points after prelims, and 2000 points in finals. Second was Thorbjørn Jespersen and third Arnfinn Lie.
To say that we had a nice day is to push it a little... Rain all day, heavy crossvind and only 3 degress C is not nice at all... But if you really want to fly you just do it!
Next F3J event is next sunday, and we hope for a little better weather.


Arnfinn (to the right) waiting to start in the finals, assisted by Rune and Vidar

Danish Championship 2007

is over, and Michael Munk is on the top of the podium. Jan Hansen no. 2 (to the right) and Søren Krogh nr. 3.
We had a very nice weekend in Denmark, as always. Sunny weather, and little wind to be in Denmark. 16 pilots from Denmark, Norway, Germany and Estland (!), so it was quite an international national championship...
I ended up as 9th. A dreadful last duration with only 578 points was the reason. Dropped to from 7th because of that.
On the upside; new personal best at speed, with 17,7 sec. (The winner of that round get 17,3 something, so I have never been closer to a 1000 point at the speed task.
My team mate Erik ended 6th. Many got quite beaten in one or several tasks.
A big tribute to the danish guys Jesper, Søren and Jan, who splitted them selfs in three different teams. The reason for this was that there was a lot of new pilots to F3B at this event, and they wanted to give them as much help as possible.
A big thank you to Louise and Jan, who made their home available to us, for the nights. Thank You.
I realy enjoy these trips to Denmark, and look forward to the next one.
And thank you to my team-mate Erik for a nice trip and good help in the contest.

Finally!

The seasons first F3B competition. Not in Norway, but in Denmark. My team-mate Erik Morgan and my self are going to Denmark next weekend, to partisipate in the Danish championship F3B 2007. My Crossfire are ready, and I look realy forward to another perfect weekend in Denmark.

While waiting for

my new Race-M's I took my brand new Pike Perfect out for it's first flight today. And what a plane. Easy to get good starts, cirkeling is amazing, and landing also quite easy, with those huge flaps.
Got 8-10 starts, all with good altitude. The modell also handles ballast verry good. First impression is that this is a F3J killer! But if the pilot are up to this? Well... We will se, the season is about to start.

Local Winter F3J

Today we arranged a small F3J Winter contest. Nice weather, calm wind around 0 Celcius, a perfect day! 9 pilots attended, and we had a day with lot of fun. Been a while since last time many of the contestants had flown, that showed for shure... I ended at the 5th place. Missed one landing, and had several starts where the line broke off.
But at the end, I am happy with the day. Congratulations to Vidar Bech. He won with 5000 points. (We flew 5 rounds).
And... I have got my self a brand new plane for the 2007 F3J season. A Pike Perfect has landed in my hangar, and is now waiting for servos. Actually I had no plans of bying a F3J plane, but anyhow, here it is. Hope to get it ready in a week or two.

26th of desember

we have a tradition in our local club, "Vingen". We get together and fly airplanes! And often a lot of new airplanes... This year was no exeption. A lot of people showed up, and many started the day with brekfast in the club hose. I am kind of a "late night person", so I started the day a little later...
My good friend Vidar Bech had his "virgin trip" on a new made tug. He has taken the good old Sig Kadet, and enlarged it by 1,5 times... A huge Kadet in other words. It flew quite well, and after the first trip into air, we towed my old Bird of Time several times.
And even in the winter, the thermals are there! So I got some nice, long flights with my Bird...
Not to much flying for me now, so the day was great!
Photo by Rune Svendsen

Reports

from Espen Torp are telling me that the brand new RaceM X-tail is on track... And I look forward to get my hands on the new planes!
Not much activity these days, my job takes most of the time.
But... I have startet building a tug! A Super Cub from Adrian Page. Electro version of course. Nice to build with balsa wood again. Some years since last time.
With a Axi 4120/18 and a 5s LiPo pack, it would hopefully be capable of towing sailplanes at least up to 3 meters.
A Merry Christmas to all of you, and a Happy New Year also.

Yesterday

Cirrus RCFK invited to "Winter F3J" at their field in eastern part of Norway. Bad weather forecast resulted in just 5 people showed up... And one of them decided to not fly. Because of the wind... Which was rather heavy. I think we had up to about 20 m/s in periods... and not below 10 m/s. But 3 of us sat up the winches with 1,45 lines on. And they snapped right of... Several times. I had no logger in my Crossfire today, but wow! Those starts... As we was down to 3 pilots after a short moment, (Alf Erik was not happy, crashing two planes in just a couple of minutes) there was no contest. But a lot of nice training of both thermal flights in very extreme conditions, and also a lot of fun speed flying in the heavy wind. Lost some parachutes during the day, when a line broke the parachute was drifting up to several kilometers in to the dark forest of eastern Norway...
But what a day! Even if it was no contest.

While waiting for

a long winter to end, some news maybe? ET-air has just released some news for next year, a cross-tail version of the well known Race-M.
And... I have ordered two of them! For the next season. Several years ago, I told Espen that if he got a crosstail for he's Race-M, I would order models from him... And as a man of my words, of course I had to make an order... Hopefully my new planes arrives in good time before next season. I plan to use them in both F3B and F3J. And I would also keep my Crossfire.

Not to much

activity these days. Getting dark realy early, and also getting cold... First snow has fallen down. But, yesterday we gathered 5 pilots and made a little LSF competition... 3 rounds and a total of 21 minutes flying time.
This is a very "laid back" form of competition, but it was really nice to get hands on the radio againg... I flew my old Pike Plus, and got 5th place... Gambled a lot in round 3 on poor conditions, and landed out. Shit happens...
Geir Strømstad was the winner, a few points before Erik, with Rune at third and Jostein at forth.
A nice late autumn sunday it was, and we plan to do a few more of this competitions during the winter. At least if it's not to much snow...

This thursday

was the last one this season, with training. I think... Getting dark very early in Norway this days. And it keeps on going worse during the winter... Just a couple of hours with daylight. But what a nice day it was today! Huge thermals all over the place. Climb to 600 meters, a lot of fun, and then climb to 600 meters again. And it was just going on and on and on... Unbelivable! Not to many guys today, but a lot of fun for those who found the way down to the field.
BUT: We plan to do a couple of winter contests this winter. And I think we would be able to to some F3B, perhaps without distance, but hopefully nice training for next season.