Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Before we get into this show with Christian Boiesen, which I don't think I'm saying his last name correctly. I'm sorry if I'm not Christian. Talking about his record flight in Norway back in 23, which is pretty awesome. We'll get to that here in a little bit. I wanted to expand on thoughts about beer.
Got a lot of feedback after a couple of shows ago. I just briefly spoke about some of the carnage that was going down in beer. We had the show with Ben Lewis, of course, who got sucked up over 7,300 meters. You've seen more and more about that all over the interwebs. But after we put that show up and I talked a little bit about beer, it's a place I went and flew in 2009 and 2011. And back then, there was a lot of carnage. So that certainly hasn't backed off. It's just numbers game and big mountains game and an incredible place to fly. So it's attracting tons and tons of people. And everybody said this year was the biggest yet. So part of it's just numbers. But it's also just wanted to put out there a couple of things that I've learned in the last few weeks.
Just people sending emails as well as an insurance update. We had an incident in the last day of the ex-Red Rocks. From it. The safety rescue helicopter perspective couldn't have been any better in many ways because we had my safety director, Bill Beninati, up on launch. A couple other ER doctors that were right there. So they were able to get to the victim immediately. It was a crash on launch. But there was some frustration with the heli side of things and in speaking with Global Rescue. Because when you call an insurance company, Global Rescue is not really an insurance company. But when you call them, they're going to want to know all the details and the member number and those kind of things.
And that is going to slow down if you're trying to get a heli in. That's obviously going to slow things down. And so that's what we have been saying for years and years and years. If you have an incident, make sure you let your insurer, whether that's Global Rescue or somebody else, know. So you can get the claim covered. But what they are now saying, which makes a lot of sense, is the first thing you should do if you're a victim or if you are helping a victim is contact emergency services. So 911 here in the States. That's different in different parts of the world. But let them know first and then let your insurance know. So get the rescue going, which is often going to be our community first.
We know the most about rescues. We can get things moving faster than search and rescue or 911. Or call emergency services or calling search and rescue. So usually it's our community. I've talked a lot about this in the past. Won't go through that right now. But in a place like India, it's not the Alps, obviously. Very big mountains. But it's also very high. Helicopter rescues are tricky at higher elevations because of the thinness of the air. And they're going to want the money up front, which is not how it works in a lot of parts of the world. But it's understandable because they want to make sure they're going to get paid. And helicopters cost a lot of money. So locals who have been flying there for a long time, like the guys from Himalayan Sky Safaris, Eddie Colfox and the late John Sylvester and Debu and Antoine and Stefan, all those guys.
They have over the years tried to put together kind of funds. So when you fly there, you have club funds that can fund a helicopter rescue. That's never really come together. I was just talking to Eddie a few days ago about their ideas of maybe putting together tandem rescues rather than relying just solely on helicopters because it is expensive. It can often take days and they're going to want the money up front. And no insurance company that I know of certainly is going to do that. They're going to pay a claim after the fact. So they're not going to just front the money for a helicopter rescue that they're not involved in. The main thing. The main thing here to understand is that you're going to fly in the Himalayas in India and things are not going to operate like you're probably used to at home, whether that's Europe or North America or Australia or New Zealand.
Things are slower, things are higher, and they want the money up front. So whether we as a community create a fund and maybe when you go to beer, you put in $150 or $200 into this fund. And that adds up and that money can be used to go help somebody out. And then that somebody has to replenish that fund if it's not covered via their insurance, something like that. But as of right now, that doesn't exist. And if you are going to fly in beer, you need to have these things in mind that if you go over the back or fly in places that are beyond your limits, it's not going to work. And if something bad happens, it could be days before they can get to you.
And so you need to be flying with all of that in mind. And that means a lot more margin. What's happening in beer is, of course, preventable. People flying, you know, if they flew smarter and they had more stuff and they had more gear and they're creating better communication networks, apparently they're using a kind of a mesh-tastic network out there because. In reaches are not allowed. I can't comment on that so much, but of course, most people that I know are still bringing an in-reach into the country and using it as I certainly would if I was flying there. It's a pretty important piece of equipment. But some of the stories I got from folks in the last few weeks were, I was really appreciative that people are sharing these, but I was surprised how ill-prepared.
And maybe under-houred, under-currencied people are and going to fly in what is really a big place. It has a reputation for being pretty tame. It doesn't, you know, typically there's not a lot of wind. You can fly really big terrain and not have a ton of mountain experience and you can do it safely. But when I spoke to Eddie, he thought that maybe 50 % of the people taking off in beer, who are at times going over the back, that's to the back ridge that quickly goes up to 5,000 meters, maybe 50 % are not prepared as either pilots, you know, with the hours or with their approach.
So this isn't something that's really big in North America is to go skiing or go flying with a guide, but I would highly recommend using guide services. There are some great. Ones out there and it's growing. I see more and more people doing it who are very competent. I would definitely think about adding that expense to your itinerary. If you're going into places like beer or into the big mountains, and that can even be the case in the Alps where it's pretty complicated and it can be a little overwhelming to go there for your first time or first few times, even without some help. And so. Think about it.
I think that's a pretty good idea. And that's all I've got to say about that. And I was, I've appreciated for everybody sending me these emails and I kept trying to remind myself that, Hey, you were there too. I was there in 2009. I was there in 2011. I, both those trips I did with Himalayan sky safaris is where I got my first bivy with John Sylvester and really thankful to those guys was where I got my first a hundred K. So we've all get our, get our experience. Somewhere first, and we all go through a long period of intermediate syndrome, which I've spoken about a lot on the show, but think about margin, think about altitude, think about oxygen for sure.
How are you going to stay warm and think about hiring a guide. If this is your first trip, they can help you a lot. There have been a lot. There was an email I got from a pilot who flew on that same day that Ben got Hoovered. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He got Hoovered, but he was luckily pointed it South out into the flats a little bit earlier, landed in a ton of rain, you know, went, did the whole parachutal thing a bunch of times from the rain. And, you know, luckily he was okay. But I also got a ton of other emails from people who said they couldn't believe those guys were flying that day. There is much better forecasting. I understand now. And, you know, the signs were there, both in the forecast and the Cape. Yeah.
Yeah. So, and just looking around, looking at the skies, but there was a lot of lemming flying goes going on. It sounded like, which I've seen all over the world, not just in beer, but well, Hey, that pilot's still in the air. It must be okay. So don't be that pilot. Don't be doing that. Well, Gad just put out a really good post about what happened down in Manila in Australia back in the day when Eva got sucked up over 30,000 and a Korean pilot was killed in the, in the storm. And I think, you know, out of 145 pilots at that world's meet 140 landed before it got big and five others didn't kept going for it. And, and we all know what happened with that one.
And she says, don't be those five pilots be the 140 who get to the ground early and we're sipping some coffee and, and, uh, feeling good about flying another day. All right. Uh, got it. A great show for you today with, uh, Christian Buisson. And again, I know I'm saying that last name incorrectly, but he had a really remarkable flight back in June of 23, three 60 something K via X contest points, but three 43 from launch, which is how we measure things in terms of distance. It beat Beat the previous record in Norway by, I think, 90K. I think I have that right. It might be 70K, but by a considerable distance.
Started kind of southeast of Oslo. near where he lives and up through really remarkable terrain, uh, just up towards the fjord lands of, I've got to pull it back up here of Trondheim. And so we just, it's been a place I really wanted to fly. I was up there for the Olympics in 94 and between Hamar and Lillehammer, uh, beautiful country, beautiful place, beautiful people. And obviously a big flying. Contingent. We run into all those folks and by every year at the Monarca, which I'll be down at next month, but he, uh, he saw this day coming and was pretty psyched and got in the air. Things started feeling pretty good and threw the hammer down.
So it talks about just this incredible day and also the flying in Norway, which I'm very inspired to go take part in, uh, with the friends up there. And so, yeah, if you've had some interest in flying, if you've had some interest in flying in Norway, he talks about the bivvy potential and, uh, kind of the tricky stuff about airspace and just, uh, what's, what's on the menu up there for flying. Please enjoy this fun discussion with Christian Buisson. Cheers.
All right, Christian, thanks for coming on the show at such short notice. And I was made aware quite a while ago of your flight. I think when it was, uh, who Frederick sent me. Email about that. And, and I kind of tucked it into the back of my mind that we needed to do this and look at this, all, all this time's gone by, but I understand the record still holds.
Yeah, it does. It's, uh, it was in, uh, 10th of June, uh, 20, 23. So, but, uh, yeah, so crossed fingers. No, it wasn't taken this, uh, this summer, this season. So, uh, yeah, but I'm, I'm trying myself. Yeah, of course. And we all, records are made.
They'd be
broken, right? Yeah, they are.
And you, you're just outside Oslo. Is that what you were saying before we started recording there? That's where you live? Yeah, I
live in a small place called, uh, Colsos. So, uh, we have some, some local hills, uh, so I can, I can actually walk from home and take me 20 minutes to get to, uh, to the first takeoff. So we have some, yeah, some places you can do some soaring, some thermaling, but, uh, yeah, if I, if I drive for 40 minutes, you can get to. A really good place for when you, where you can do, uh, 200 Ks on a good day. So, um, yeah.
Is that, is that the launch that you used for the big flight?
Oh, this one, uh, was a little bit further south, but it's in the same area. So, uh, uh, we talked about using, uh, uh, the, the first one I talked about, but, uh, yeah, we think FOSS, it's, uh, it's about, uh, around an hour south of Oslo. So you start, you start on a small hill. It's about, uh, 175 meters between takeoff and landing. And, uh, so it's, uh, so it's a possibility to, uh, to bump out, but, uh, if it works, it's possible to, uh, quickly get in the air and, uh, and do, uh, pretty fast kilometers in the, in the beginning. Uh, but you have some airspace problems there. So, uh, but normally we, we have.
The opportunity to get, uh, higher altitudes to, uh, yeah, to get some more, uh, uh, some, some more working, uh, working, uh, uh, altitude to, to get away from that airspace area.
And I didn't study it so closely, but you're, you're basically going north. Is that the typical flight pattern? Is that what you guys are normally doing? Are, are you typically doing out and backs or FAIs or what's the, what's a good day look like there at a typical day?
Yeah, in the south, in, in most of Scandinavia, the, the meteor winds like you have in Idaho, it's, uh, it's dominating. So, so that normally means that, uh, the most, uh, the XC flights are, uh, one way, uh, but on good days you can do, uh, autumn returns and FAI, uh, but mostly in the area I live in the southeastern parts of Norway, it's mostly, uh, one way direction because of the wind. Okay. Uh, yeah. And is that usually
south? It's not west?
Uh, it depends. It could actually be, uh, uh, we, um, in this area or south of Oslo, southeast is probably the best. Then you can do flights towards, um, Hemsedal and, uh, and you follow the valleys. That's, uh, especially in the early spring, uh, because of the snow, it's hard to, to cross over the mountain plateaus. Uh. But, uh, further out in the season, when you can get closer to, uh, June, for example, it's, it's easier to, to fly over the plateaus. And at that time it's easier to, to go, uh, crossing the valleys, uh, crossing the plateaus and go, uh, more, uh, just straight because often because of the, the winds, uh, change a little bit normally when you go north, it goes from southeast to south and then over to southwest.
Mm. Mm.
So
it is, it's, it's very important
to, to fly to, to cross the valleys and cross the plateaus and, uh, fly towards, uh, Trondheim actually. That's, uh, from that area. Is that the, is that the goal
someday? I saw, uh, you were, you were short of that, but would that be, you think that's possible?
Uh, you, you flying into airspace in that direction as well. Uh. Um, but, uh, it's, uh, on that route I took, it's, I think it's possible to do, uh, 350 in that direction. You still have some, uh, some kilometers to go without flying into a terminal terminal area
Because it's an area called Trysil that's closer to the Swedish border, yeah, north of Oslo. From there, it's in that area you can fly on south and southwest, and that was actually the area I thought the record would be taken a long time ago. The I flew my first 200 from that area on southeast, but if you fly there on south and southwest, you cross over to Sweden and you fly towards, um, on the Swedish side almost all the way, I think you can do. Yeah, you can do 400 on a good day. So then you're getting into more kind of like Finland
conditions correct. I mean, isn't isn't Sweden pretty flat and pretty watery like Finland is? Uh, yeah.
but not as much as Finland is. It's more in in the western part of Sweden. It's more hilly, okay? So it's forest and hilly, so it's it's you can, yeah, you can say it's a flatline flying, but still, um, it's uh, you're looking for uh, for hills from where the thermals go off and, yeah, and
That's a non-non-event crossing that border in the air, right? I mean, you don't need to notify anybody, you can just do it, correct? Yeah.
You can just do it, yeah, no problem.
okay yeah cool
It's harder if you're in Finland and you're flying eastwards. It's, uh, yeah, yeah, it's no flying, so that gets much
trickier, yeah. Of course, yeah. So, this was, you started basically southwest of Oslo. I'm looking at your flight right now. Southwest of Oslo, your first leg was kind of was northwest and then pretty much north, uh, and then as you go farther north, you get more and more into terrain. And forgive me for my lack of geography knowledge here, because I, I was in Norway for the Olympics in '94. So I was up in Hamar and Lillehammer, but crossing through that zone, yeah.
A little bit, a little bit further north of Lillehammer. Okay, I crossed the Gibraltar Valley. That's, uh, that's where the llama is. Okay, so yeah, so um, yeah. But, but you're right there in the start, you're mostly following the valley because of, um, it's a little bit typical because the, the thermals are not that good yet on that day. And, um, yeah, I just had to, uh, just had to try to stay up. But at point, in it's a valley called Numedal in south north of Kong Spire at that area. It's, it was possible to, to get up on the plateaus where the thermals are better. So you're flying away from civilization and, but you're flying into much better thermals.
And in that area, I started to get some, some really good lines with, uh, with, um, like conversions.
Yeah, both conversant lights and, uh, and um, cloud streets. Oh, so your
Your speed is pretty good. It was nine and a half hour flight, just over 38k an hour. Did you have some tailwind?
Yeah, it wasn't tailwind, okay? It was pretty good, actually, the whole day. I was... I was, before I went out, I was a little bit afraid of it. It's going to be too strong. So, um, as I saw, it was a day that you had to try, if you want to try to do take the record, because it looks so good with the thermal forecast and everything. But of course, those days you could be hammered because of the wind and had to land after 15 minutes or it could be really good. It's almost kind of like flying in Brazil with the strong winds. But you have to try. And if it works, it often works very well.
Christian, so when I'm looking at the flight, I'm going to butcher these names, but you get up into this valley, Fagernes and Ardal, that looks like quite a river valley. There's a white, okay, that's a white line that X-Contest has drawn. So it looks to me like you're getting into some pretty deep terrain here. Is that, you know, are retrieves possible? Are you kind of on your own out there?
Yeah, after Fagernes, you're flying into a national park area. Ah, okay. Yeah, so it's, yeah, you can say it's a little bit lost, but still, as long as you're comfortable walking three to four hours, it's no problem. Okay. So, yeah. So it's not that bad. Yeah, it's, I would say you have to do it if you want to try to take the record. Yeah, sure. But that area around north of Fagernes is just really beautiful. I flew over that twice. This season as well. That area? Yeah. It's fantastic with all the meandering rivers and, yeah, really, yeah, really nice area.
Quite dense forest or are there lots of places to, lots of meadows and stuff to land?
Yeah, it's a lot of places to land. All these plateaus are normally, they are above the tree line. Ah. So it's, yeah. Okay. They're mostly around between 800 to 1,100. And that's about the tree line. So normally, no problem. A little bit further south, it's more dense forest. So when you're flying across the plateaus, it could be a problem. But normally, you could always find some places where it's possible to get down.
And then as you get further north, near where you landed and you're kind of approaching Trondheim, am I saying that right? Trondheim area?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Towards, I landed just south of Optal.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I see that.
And that was, before that, I crossed over a new, I crossed over Vågå. That's a pretty nice paragliding spot and hang gliding spot. It's been with some European championship a long time ago in that area. But in around south of Drivdalen Valley, that's that short, short, small, narrow valley, the thermal started to, yeah, break off and try to get as high as possible. The clock was around 8.30 in the evening, but it was still was possible to get to cloud base. And so when I got into that narrow valley, it was actually possible to read soar because of the southwest wind that was up there.
So I, I read stored all that area all the way down and that gave me like almost, yeah, like 35 kilometers bonus without any thermals, just read soaring. And that was, yeah, that was fantastic.
And this beat the previous record by 90 K. I mean, it was a big job. Wow.
Yeah. Around that.
And so these, these kind of fjord lands, just north of where north and west of where you, you went down, is that, is, is that what people think of when they think of the fjord lands in Norway, they do all the base jumping or is that way up for the farther north?
Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Just, just northwest of Vågå, you fly to, you can fly down there. You can fly down to Åndalsnest on Romstoln Valley. And that's, yeah, that's a lot of base jumping that goes from there.
Oh, right there. So just, just west northwest. Just west of where you landed.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, actually more, more west of where I landed, but more northwest of Vågå and Grunasvall. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Then you get down to Åndalsnest and yeah. And
so there's lots of good skiing in there too.
Yeah, there are. Yeah.
And actually, if you want to go FIE triangle in Norway, actually the, the best areas are in, in that. It's a mountain area just south of there towards Strøen and, and, and Vås. In that area, it's possible on good days to get, to do, yeah, FIE triangles for 135 kilometers on a really good day. It's a little bit harder to do that in the southeast of Norway, but in that area on days with a little, with not that much wind, like the, it's almost like a small, the small Alps where, where you can get a little bit of wind. Yeah. The, the wind systems are generated by the mountains and not by the meteo wind. So, but, but the area I fly, it's more meteo wind that's, so that makes it trying to do one ways and yeah, trying to get back afterwards.
Is, is kind of sea breeze a preeminent, I don't know, not enemy, but is that, is that just something you guys have to deal with on all flights? Yeah. Cause you just got so much ocean around you.
No, not on all flights. But if you're. If you're flying towards those valleys, of course, it's going to be a problem in the end, especially, yeah, like Romsdalen Valley. It normally it's, I've flown down there a couple of times. Yeah. And then you normally get sea breeze in the evening. So it's, then you have to try to stay up a little bit higher above the valley line and try to avoid getting down into the sea breeze.
I see you, you, I don't know if you took off with them, but you've, you flew with a couple of other guys. That day and Gunnar is one of them. I don't know Gunnar really well. What happened to those guys? Why didn't they keep going? I was,
yeah, it was sad actually that Gunnar didn't make it cause he, yeah, he's a really good pilot. He, I think he, he probably flew a little bit too fast cause he went down north of Kongsberg. Yeah. Maybe he didn't have that much faith in the day as well. So, but I was like, yeah, now I'm on my way. I want to try to just.
Make it to, uh, to Gull for example, where it's easy to get back with the train and, but they just kept on getting better and better and better. So, uh, yeah. I
mean, in your, in your track log, it doesn't look like you really got low, uh, until very, you know, right at the end of the day. And then obviously that's where you were doing the ridge soaring and stuff, but it didn't look, you know, not too many kind of, I don't see too many like low saves. It was, it must've been, it was a good day, huh?
Yeah, it was good. I had, um, had one. Um, low part, uh, north of Fagernes where you can see the, it's almost in the middle where you can see the track log, uh, goes to the left and had to work. And that was a little bit critical. I was around 170 kilometers out, still a decent, decent extra trip in Norway, but, uh, yeah, I was flying towards a big cloud and, uh, yeah, uh, it was, uh, it wasn't working. It was, uh, it was dying off. So I had to like, uh, push out, uh, headwind and, uh, try to get to some, uh, spots with sun and try, uh, and yeah, I found some lift and then it's because it's so flat terrain, it, you have to just try to stay, stay in the thermal as long as you can and just drift with it.
So you, you keep drifting, uh, towards, uh, yeah, further into the mountains and further to walk, but you just have to. Yeah, you have to do it. You have to try, but of course it's, it's no, it's not dangerous cause it's, uh, it's only, uh, it's, it's no trees and stuff like that. It's just have to walk out. Is, is this kind
of like a peat and, you know, when there's no trees there, is it kind of like peat moss, you know, think of Northern Scotland kind of terrain. Yeah. It's like bogs.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's like, uh, um, the mountains in this area is, is normally. It's not that peaky it's, uh, it's round and, uh, so, uh, and, and so when you get the wind and on these, uh, small mountains, it's, uh, it's really easy to just fly over it and, and drift with the wind and you just have to try to, to stay in the, in the thermal and keep in it. So that's actually one of the things that I think that makes a lot of Norwegian pilots good to fly in weak conditions. Cause we're. We're, yeah, we're often have to fly in this, uh, crappy thermals, uh, drifting away, just trying to stay up. So, uh, yeah.
Did you go into this day thinking it was a record day? I mean, was this what, was this what you set out to do or was it, it just kind of fell into your lap as you were cruising along realizing, oh, wow, this is really good.
Oh, I thought it was a 200 plus day. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And we don't get that many of those. So, but this, it was actually a. Saturday, so it was easy to get out, uh, but the day before I looked just as good as well, but it was something, um, uh, with my job and so I couldn't, I couldn't take the day off and I was a little bit, uh, uh, bummed about that, but, but when the Saturday was that good, it didn't matter.
And so seasons there, I imagine it's kind of similar to, to Finland. Is it kind of May, June or your best months? Yeah. Yeah.
Definitely. Okay. Yeah.
And then does it start getting stable in July? Is it like Alaska? It just starts getting more rainy, more stable, more buggy.
Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the rain part is an overdevelopment. It's the biggest problem. Oh. Uh, well, yeah, especially the last seasons, I would say, uh, last two to three seasons, July is, it's not been that good. Uh, and August, you can get some, some good in the mountains, but not far, not, you know, to go really far. So yeah, like, um, especially May and June, uh, when, uh, when the snows, uh, when the snow starts to get away from the plateaus, it's possible to cross over. Uh, so then, and combined with the, yeah, in June you have long days you can fly for, uh, yeah, it's possible to fly for 11 hours there on a good day.
And yeah.
Would you say this day, it was nine and a half hours, a pretty solid day, but was there, uh, did it just shut down on you or did you leave time on the table?
Yeah, it, it shut down on me, but I probably could have maybe started a half an hour earlier. Okay. Um, of course, if we're been, uh, towing and winching, uh, Do you do a lot of towing there? No, we don't. Oh. So, um, I'm trying to, we do some towing from, uh, from behind boats, but mostly from, for SIV. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh. I've, I've been thinking about, because, uh, there have been some towing, uh, south of Lillehammer. I think that that would be a, maybe a possibility to, to, to, uh, record flight, maybe over 400. Then if you can start early on the strong Southwest day and yeah, fly towards, uh, Sweden. And going to Sweden. Yeah.
Like a north, uh, northeast direction.
The Norwegian contingent down in Mexico, uh, has been huge for. For as long as I've been flying a long, long time. Yeah. Uh, how big is your community in, in the country? How many pilots?
Uh, we're, I think we're around, uh, 2,500 registered pilots, both hang glider and speed glider and paragliders, but it's not that many of that's active though. Right. But, uh, but still we're, we're, uh, That's pretty good.
What, what's your total population in the country?
No, it's around 5 million, a little bit under that. Wow. That's amazing.
Cause we've got, I think we're about 6,000 and we're, you know, 350 million. That's pretty incredible. So yeah, a lot of, a lot of people doing it.
Hmm. Like my, my, my dad started flying in 1990. So, uh, yeah, um, I grew up with it. So, uh, when I was 16 and I had the possible to take that license, it was just, uh, yeah, natural. I've been, uh, ground handling for, uh, several years.
And
would you say more? Most Norwegian pilots that are, you know, are you, are you spending a good amount of time every year outside of the country flying or are you getting most of your hours in the country? Okay.
Yeah. Many travel outside to Tenerife or to the Alps in the summer, but I tried to, I tried to fly mostly in Norway when the seasons is on because I like to fly here, but of course I, uh, I like to go to the Southern France as well to fly there when it's possible. Is
it the kind of place? It's where, you know, Gavin could rock up in middle of May and stay there for a month and be pretty guaranteed. You're going to get some good days or is it, is it really more of a strike kind of place? What I mean by that is, you know, to go down and chase big distance in Texas, it's pretty rough to just go for weeks. Cause you're, you're, you get very few days, you know, it's, it's, it's better. It's so far for us that we kind of have to do it that way, but it'd be better if we could just jump on a flight and, Oh, there we go. There's look, there's a window come and go strike it, go back.
Yeah. Yeah. I think you, you would get some good flights. I would think I would say, cause normally may is a pretty dry, uh, dry period. So the, um, the one problem is the wind and the other problem is the snow. But if it's, uh, um, because, because of the snow is not, not always that easy to, to cross the, yeah, to cross the plateaus, you have to follow the valleys, but, uh, especially in the late may, it could be really good. So if you, if you're here for a month, of course, I would say you could, if you're real lucky, you can do several hundred case. Um, and yeah.
Do the, is the snow line kind of, does it work similarly, similarly to the Alps? And what I mean by that is, you know, often in the Alps, you get some really good spring flying, you know, the, the, the valleys have been cooked off, but there's still quite a bit of snow up high and you can kind of fly. That snow line, uh, we don't find that that works very well where, where we live that, you know, the, uh, it still works over in some places in the Alps, you know, you can fly over glaciers and stuff, you know, you're flying up and fish and that kind of thing. And you're going over the Grimsel, it'll totally work, even though it's all snow, but it's gotta be connected by some kind of land bridges type stuff. And, you know, does yours work like that? Or is it more when there's lots of snow, it just doesn't go. It just is. You can't go in there.
Yeah. As long as, uh, for example, in Gubbrandstallen Valley, uh, north of Lillehammer and that area, uh, in the, from, from Easter, I would say it's, uh, it works really good in the valleys because of this. It's when the, when the valleys, uh, it's free of snow and, and you have the snow line. But the problem is that the valleys are in, especially in the Southeast and part of Norway, they're not that deep. It's not like on the West side where you have, you can have almost a thousand meters between the valley floor and the, and the top. But. But in the Southeast, it's, it's lower, maybe two to three, 400 meters. Ah, so you don't have as much room to work. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not often easy to, yeah, to cross because it's not like you have the valley and then you have another valley on the other side, but you have a valley and then you have a huge plateau, for example, five to 10 to 15 kilometers of just flats.
And then you have a new valley. And because of that, when you have snow on all those areas, you need some, yeah, you need some altitude. You need to try to cross it if it's full of snow, because there's no thermals there, but yeah, when, but when you get out in June, it starts to melt a little bit. Yeah. Then it normally works better. So I would say June is definitely the best, best part, part of the season in Norway.
That's what I found up in Alaska as well. You know, that it, you know, you start getting the really long days in April, but there's just too much snow and, you know, with that Alaska. Yeah. If we had started that a couple of weeks later, I think we started May 12th. If we had started just a couple of weeks later, we would have been twice the speed. It was just the thing. But then by July, it's really done. It's really cooked. You know, it's just gets way, way too stable. Then the air starts, stops moving around. What about north of, in those of you listening, I encourage you to pull up a map unless you're really familiar with Norway. But what about north of Trondheim, you know, going up, you know, right along, along the border of Sweden? Do people fly up there?
Yeah. Uh, we're actually had, uh, one, we have, uh, round the border. We have one, uh, trip, uh, extra trip. It's a, it's a long time ago, but it was almost 200 case flying into Sweden. Really? From Boda. Boda.
Okay. Oh, that's out. Okay. That's out kind of in the, in the fjord land, but B O D weirdo. Okay.
Yeah. It was closer to the, to the Swedish border. So you're actually flying. Flying on the mountains and, uh, yeah, but it's, uh, it works. It's, but it's mostly coastal soaring in, in that area from, uh, the, from the, uh, yeah, around, uh, Trondheim and, uh, further north. I've been doing some flying in, in Finnmark because my, my wife's, uh, she's from there, but it's, it's mostly hiking flying. So, uh, yeah.
God must be beautiful. We've been
thinking about maybe doing, uh, uh, maybe, uh, doing a, uh,
a,
going project from the, from the flatlands in, in Finnmark and flying south or, uh, south, uh, east towards Sweden or Finland. That could be really cool. I think because I've been watching all those, uh, street clouds up there in that area. Just when you get a little bit in from the, in from the coast, it seems to work pretty well, but then you need to have some towing to get up to those clouds.
You do a little vol-bev towing. trip yeah
That'd be cool. Maybe get, uh, maybe get a fly with Andy or something to drive, uh, to drive a towing car. And oh, I love it.
That sounds amazing, yeah. That'd be—that'd be pretty neat, be kind of a cool little some even, yeah.
something totally different, yeah, but uh, yeah
Looking at, I mean, I only see a couple of your pictures here, but it looks very volbivable. I mean, it looks pretty. Some of the areas must be quite top landable, and you've got plenty of water. Is there a lot of vol biv going on there? Yeah,
It's, it's last year's. The, the um, it's been more and more that people are doing hike and fly and vol biv, and we're getting some real good athletes as well from Norway. Yeah, but I'm, I've been doing vol biv now for maybe 10 years, but the problem is often that you don't get more than maybe two, yeah, if you're lucky, three days. Yeah, yeah. So um, but I've been doing some like traveling out and slipping out and flying the other day, yeah. And uh, and then maybe if you're lucky you can do a new flight next day, or yeah, I did one from uh, a place uh, called Kopang and I flew just uh, westwards and then ended up in Jailo.
That was around 180 kilometers. Uh, that was, uh, that was a lot of fun. You're crossing a lot of valleys and a lot of plateaus and getting close up to where the, yeah, we were flying up to hard on him with the mountain plateau. So that was, that was really fun. Do
You, you fly much in the winter there? Do you get high pressure systems that give up some days? Yeah,
You can do some soaring, uh, but the thermals are normally not working. I had some thermals, but yeah, mostly it's, uh, only soaring and
Are, are you in the, in the season, you know? So, you let's call it late April through June. Is it, is it mostly prefrontal? That's really good. Post-frontal, that's really good. I mean, when you say you've only got the, you know, the two or maybe three day window, is that basically between fronts? Is that what's hitting you guys, same as it is here? Yeah.
Yeah, often, okay. And it's, uh, like norm, um, yeah, yeah, I flew that 340. That was, uh, actually a high-pressure system that's been laying. It was coming from, uh, actually pushing from, uh, Finland towards, uh, a little bit closer to Norway. Oh, so it's often we see that because of that, you get stable weather for a long stretch. So you can, you're on kind of the western
edge of a big high pressure system, yeah.
Yeah, okay. But often we, you, well, just post-frontal after that. Yeah, okay. And then you get the clear skies, and but often the problem is that you have different weather systems in the different valleys after you're crossing all these plateaus. So that's, that's why it's often the, the high pressure systems that's been laying there for a while that normally makes the good days, because you can, you have good weather all the way. So often, if it's bad weather in the Alps, you can, yeah, you can go to Scandinavia and it's often much better. And the same way around, if it's bad weather up here, it's often much better in the Alps, Central Europe, and Alps.
What would be the place to kind of, uh, stick yourself for a few weeks? Would it be Oslo or what? What would be the area that would make the most sense for, uh, just riding it out, so you can—you can strike on the good days and then have fun doing other stuff on the bad days? It
Depends a little bit what you want, because it's, uh, if you, if you stay stay in the south, it, it could be, uh, maybe a little bit boring because you don't get all the—you're flying on low hills, but that's, um, but it's often the what you have to do if you want to try to fly really far. So I would say is actually, it would, it's much more fun to be in Vos Oh, or, uh, maybe Vogo, and especially Vogo. It's where's Vogo? I'm trying
To look on the map, here, where's that?
That's, uh, that's in Gubernatorial Valley. It's, uh, okay, yeah, I got it. It's northwest of of, um, okay, and that area is is really good for the the flying is really good, and it used to be a pretty big community that went there. So in the summer, it's, uh, it's still a lot of people that goes there for go flying. So then you can have a maybe a little bit better combination, but of course, if you want to do the really long flights, normally you have to start in the, yeah, in the south, maybe a tail mark, or especially in the early parts of the season, if you want to fly in, I made you, and I would say that area, it's normally the best, okay? But still, we also have some good days when it's, uh, northwesterly winds.
So you have some takeoffs just south of Vogo. That's really good, that's called Heidel, and then you can fly, yeah, maybe down to Lil Armor, and I've flown to Elverum once, and that's around, yeah, a little bit under 200 in that direction. And yeah, so that's a really good place, really strong thermals in the in the early season from that area. So really washing machine getting up for it, because you're starting on the east side from south south face takeoff, and you have some mountains to the northwest, uh, protects you from the northwest winds, but after you take off, you start getting into it. Yeah, it could be really dishwasher, it's just stressing trying to get up and get it get away from it, but yeah, yeah.
I've been to a couple of your Nordic comps, uh, well, maybe you only do it in Macedonia one year, a bunch of years ago. This is before coded, uh, but do you, do you guys ever have comps where you are, are
We used to, I was actually arranging the the last one in 2013 together with some other friends. Yeah, we had the Nordic Championship player and that was in Vogo, and we also had it in 2010 and I was also arranging that, but it's a lot of work, so yeah, I cannot do it every time. But for me, it's, I feel it's, uh, maybe a little bit sad to take it out of the country because I know when Norway is good, especially in the, in, uh, yeah, in June, for example, it's really, it could be really good. Yeah, yeah. And I remember in 2013 we did, uh, we did, for example, on out and return 110 kilometers from, uh, Vogo.
I was flying, uh, um, advanced epsilon actually, that, that time, but yeah, that was a lot of fun, like people flying six to seven hours, and yeah, really happy when they have to go
That's the kind of cops I like, so
We'll see, maybe, maybe one time if, uh, somebody wants to take up that, uh, that, uh, take
up the range
to get, yeah, yeah, try to get it to Norway again, yeah.
That would be neat. I think a lot of people would come. It's—it's cool to see you. You said in your write-up here that, you know, "once in a lifetime flight in Norway." Is that, uh, were the conditions that unusually good? Yeah.
I've been, I've been chasing that record for 15 years, so okay, so yeah, it was really good. You can't
Just show up and knock that off. That's okay.
The last time I flew 200 before that in Norway was in 2008. I've been, I've been really close, uh, some other times flying 195, and yeah, but it's, it's, uh, it's not often. You normally, I would say, you may get one or two days of that quality in the air; some sometimes you get no, one really, none of those days. Yeah, so you, you have to have, you just have to be ready on that day. So luckily, I have a flexible job and a flexible wife, so it's very important things.
Yeah, yeah, but when the good days come, you really—it sounds like you really got a strike. It's not, "Oh, we'll get another one." Yeah, yeah, you have to do that. You just
have to, yeah, leave everything and reschedule meetings and, yeah, get out and
Is there, I mean, on that day it looked like, at least on X contest, there was just Gunnar and the other guy that was with you. But were there, will there be a dozen people chasing it on a really good day, or how many people would you expect to see at launch on, on a good day? Yeah,
I would say it would be a dozen, okay? It's, uh, we have a pretty good, uh, community here for, for XF line, so we're, we're talking to each other trying to get you guys got a Telegram.
group or something and chat it up. Yeah, okay, yeah.
Yeah, and I have some, I have some, uh, some friends around from the, the western parts of Norway, sometimes also take the train over to try to fly back, and especially from, uh, Drummond, or you can follow the valley and fly, fly up to Jailo and over the mountains again towards, and Bergen. That's, uh, so that's, that's one of my dreams to try to fly over that big plateau that separates the western and eastern parts of Norway, and, um, it's called the Hard on your video. It's, uh, so it's, it's hard to do it because of, uh, it's a little bit higher, so much more snow, uh, and it's also hard to do because of the, the weather changes when you're, when you're flying over the, the, what do you call it, when the, the water line, when it starts to go the other way?
Yeah, it's often more moist if you have easterly winds on the west side.
Ah, okay. So you're, you're talking about doing a west to east or an east to west up and over the east to west, east to west? Yeah, wow. East to west? Okay, my brain doesn't think like that. We're always going the other way.
Yeah, so um, yeah, it's—I think it's possible, uh, so um, yeah, but just, just have to wait for the right day and go for it. That
would be, I would imagine, wicked spectacular. I mean, you're ending in the fjordlands, right? Yeah, it's uh
It's, it's been done sometimes, uh, but like locally you can start up there and fly over, and same from, uh, from, uh, the west side you can fly over to the east. That's been done sometimes, uh, from Voss as well, but it's never been done from like further south towards Drummond or south of Oslo and, uh, yeah, is
airspace, a big deal in Norway in general. You mentioned it, it was kind of a... you had to string it together down by Oslo, but is it... are there a lot of places you got to worry about it, or is that pretty much it's just down near the capital? Yeah,
You have, um, it's, yeah, it can be a problem. It's been a problem this season around, uh, around Oslo because of the TMA. Is it's too big, if you ask me, but of course, when you get outside that TMA, it's, I would say we're pretty lucky. We, we don't have that many restrictions, but, uh, yeah. So, uh, we had some problems, uh, because of some regulations that's been changed to last year, so we haven't had the possibility to, to fly that much from these small local hills. But, but does have a huge potential, so I haven't, I've only done maybe two flights from Vittingfoss, from where I took the, this, this season because of this.
So, it's hard to, really hard to get enough altitude to fly legally. Oh, is there much glider?
flying going on there and
It's, uh, it's a small community. It's not that many, but, uh, but it's, uh, it's a pretty good community in north of Oslo towards a place called Hamar and Elverum and, uh, yeah, do you have
Do you have wave conditions set up there? Are they flying wave? Okay, yeah.
Especially around the Easter, you can get 5,000 meters with sailplanes. Wow, yeah, cool. So, uh, so that's that's one of the things you have to think about when flying paraglider here is, uh, is the waves. And yeah, and about that, it's it's that's that's one of the reasons it's often, uh, good to fly here on southeast to start pretty close to the fjord and close to the to the, uh, to the ocean. You get less waves so that direction, so it's easier to fly on days with a little bit stronger winds compared to if the wind are coming from west or northwest, it's normally a little bit more wave conditions going on.
So, yeah, how
Does your flying and flying community compared to neighboring Sweden is it is it, I mean, I run into a lot more Norwegians flying than Swedish, but is that is it is it a pretty big deal there too? Yeah,
It's, uh, it's, it's pretty good. I would say it's a little bit more, uh, towing and coastal flying, but it's a, it's a pretty good, um, community around, uh, Gottenberg, yeah.
I did a talk there quite a few years ago, and I didn't get to fly with the weather was quite bad, but they showed me a picture. It looked amazing. It's a really cool dune flying and stuff there. Looks cool and
I'm trying to convince them because they have one towing place just outside the gottenberg where it's, it stuck to airspace, so I'm, I really want to have maybe start towing a little bit further north, uh, towards the border of Norway, uh, they have a small hill called Dingla, okay? It's 70 meters, and once I did the 50 kilometers from that site, it's really bingo if you get up or you don't get up, but, but that area, if you could tow up and start on strong winds, it's, yeah, it could be. Yeah, it's, it's, it's the same as flying in Finland, then you have almost no airspace problem. See, I would say on a really good day, then 400 is possible.
Wow, but, uh, yeah, nobody's done that yet, so, uh, yeah, I'm trying to convince some people to maybe start doing now
It's out there, man. Now you're gonna have people going for it, yeah? Hopefully,
there yeah fantastic
Well, uh, hey bud, I really appreciate knowing more about your wonderful area to fly. I've been very keen to get up there and join you guys for a long time, so now I'm feeling a lot more inspired, especially as winter starts setting in here. So, hopefully I get to come fly with you guys, but thanks for sharing all this. I appreciate it, yeah.
It would be really cool if you came here and, uh, yeah, and let's say May and June or something like that. Yeah, we can show you around. That'd
Be great, maybe I'm doing the xops thing again this year, so maybe I'll come over before that and, uh, just come up there for a week and at least say hi, but it's not too far away. We
have, uh, if you know, um, yeah, he's, uh, yeah, he's one of the his rookie this year and, uh, yeah, so he will probably join if, uh, if the weather is good
Excellent, yeah. No, I will be cheering him on. I've been, uh, I need to get him on the show, but yeah, very cool. It's nice to see you guys represented, uh, thanks Christian, thanks a lot, man. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Talk soon. Cheers, bud, if
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