Wavecamp 2011 - News

Friday and Saturday

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 19:26:20 +0200

We had two very good days, 24 flights on Friday and 20 flights on Saturday. The weather was nice, windy and good visibility. A little bit cold on the ice surface, but that is within what we could expect. On Friday we had our own observation of an unidentified flying object, not a green tarpaulin located further south, but a grey creature. We named it "linerla lenticularis"...

This week we had some very good flights and a few days with no flying condition, but Vågå is always interesting. What is certain; we never know how the weather and the flying condition will be in advance. And it changes quite fast. The saying in the movie "Forest Gump"; "You never now what is in a box of chocolate", is definitely true for Vågå :-)

Photo contest

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 19:08:52 +0200

The winner of the 2011 Vågå Wavecamp Photo Contest was Kjetil Nordheim with the picture "Soloppgang på isen" (Sunrise on the ice). The picture was captured on the ice 0600 in the morning, Tuesday. We garded the condition all night from Monday to Tuesday due to heavy wind and uncertain moorings of the aircrafts. This was the morning check and even if the present conditions were cold, wet and windy, the jury was convinced this was the best picture. And the picture was captured from a mobile telephone (iPhone).

Wednesday report

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:39:02 +0100

Huge amount of water poured onto the ice surface from the hills so we had ponds of water to empty by drilling a large number of holes in the ice. We succeeded in emptying most of these ponds and the ice floated a little bit higher. We still have rain and heavy wind today (Wednesday). The forecast for tomorrow looks much more promising. So we still hope for some nice flying days by the end of this week.

Monday report

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:09:25 +0100

Most gliders arrived on Saturday. Ferryflight from Hokksund with one ASK21 and the tug Robin was in excellent weather on Saturday. CAVOK all the way, a little head-wind in the northern part.

Sanday opened with excellent weather at the best Vågå can show. Moderate wind from west gave us premium mountain flying condition. We have 11 gliders operating and two tugs. 20 flights were logged this day.

Monday started with rain and heavy westerly wind. The rotor scratched the ice surface, so we decided to just secure the gliders and trailers and spend the day relaxing at the hotel.

Sunday 20 - a fantastic day

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:13:13 +0100

20 launches and almost all ended up in FL135 even though there was a lot of humidity in the air. One of our swedish friends reported 8m/s average climb in the wave!! Some of our student pilots found the landing a bit challenging: heavy tail wind at 100 meters altitude on short final and strong headwind at 50 meters altitude...

FLARM mandatory 2011

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:48:32 +0100

Our focus on safety and the fact FLARM is increasingly widespread, we have decided to make FLARM installation mandatory for all gliders. Conditions at Vågå makes it necessary to emphasize specially on avoiding mid-air collisions. FLARM is extending the available information for the pilots. However, we must also remind all pilots that FLARM is no substitute for "look out". As this is the first year with this requirement, this may be a problem for some gliders. Please contact staff2011@wavecamp.no if any problem. The operation requirements will be updated later.