On June 10, 2023 Arne Kristian Boiesen, a veteran paraglider from Norway stepped off one of his local sites outside of Oslo hoping to go pretty big. 9.5 hours later he’d flown his Niviuk Peak 6 343 km from launch, a remarkable 90 km farther than anyone ever had in Norway, flying nearly due north across epic terrain, landing just south of Trondheim. The record stands today. Kristian discusses the details of his flight, including the conditions, challenges, and the beautiful landscapes of Norway. He shares insights about the paragliding community in Norway, the seasonal patterns affecting flying conditions, and his aspirations for future record flights. The conversation highlights the unique aspects of flying in Norway, including navigating airspace, terrain challenges, future possible lines, and the camaraderie among pilots. We delve into the world of paragliding in Norway, discuss the rise of hike and fly adventures, the impact of weather patterns on flying conditions, and the best locations for flying. They also touch on competitive flying, record chasing, and the differences between flying communities in Norway and Sweden. The conversation highlights the challenges and excitement of long-distance flying and the importance of seizing good weather days for optimal flying experiences.
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Arne Kristian (00:02.174)
Yeah, or Christian. Christian is good. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (00:04.027)
Christian, Christian, okay. We've got a local, do you know him? Christian Hansen, he's also from Norway. Any ties, any, he spells it exactly like you do as well, but he's one of our tandem pilots here and from Norway, but he'll be excited to have you on. Miles talking to Christian and just gonna sync things up.
Arne Kristian (00:12.704)
I'm not sure, no.
Arne Kristian (00:19.347)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (00:30.353)
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. think when was, Frederick sent me the email about that. And I kind of tucked it into the back of my mind that we needed to do this. And look at this, all this time's gone by, but I understand the record still holds.
Arne Kristian (00:50.016)
Yeah, it does. It was on the 10th of June, 2023. yeah, cross fingers, no, it wasn't taken this summer, this season. So, yeah, but I'm trying myself as well to try to take it. Yeah, they are.
Gavin McClurg (01:11.157)
Of course, records are made to be broken, And you're just outside Oslo, is that what you were saying before we started recording there? That's where you live?
Arne Kristian (01:20.104)
Yeah, I live in a small place called Kolsås. So we have some local hills. So I can actually walk from home and it take me 20 minutes to get to the first takeoff. So we have some, yeah, some places you can do some soaring, some thermaling, but yeah, if I drive for 40 minutes, you can get to a real good place where you can do 200 Ks on a good day.
So, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:50.172)
Is that the launch that you used for the big flight?
Arne Kristian (01:55.2)
Now this one was a little bit further south, but it's in the same area. we talked about using the first one I talked about, yeah, Wittingfoss, it's about around an hour south of Oslo. So you start on a small hill, it's about 175 meters between takeoff and landing. so it's...
Possibility to put to bump out but if it works it's possible to quickly get in the air and do pretty fast kilometers in the beginning. Well you have some airspace problems there so but normally we have the opportunity to get higher altitudes to get some more working.
altitude to get away from that airspace area.
Gavin McClurg (02:55.632)
And I didn't study it so closely, but you're basically going north. Is that the typical flight pattern? Is that what you guys are normally doing? Are you typically doing out in backs or FAIs or what's a good day look like there at a typical day?
Arne Kristian (03:10.944)
In most of Scandinavia the meteor winds like you have in Idaho it's dominating. So that normally means that the most the XC flights are one way. But on good days you can do autumn returns in FIE.
Gavin McClurg (03:33.723)
Mmm.
Arne Kristian (03:33.952)
But mostly in the area I live in the southeastern parts of Norway it's mostly one way direction because of the wind. And then we...
Gavin McClurg (03:43.324)
Okay. And is that usually south? It's not west?
Arne Kristian (03:48.128)
It depends. You could actually be in this area, south of Oslo. Southeast is probably the best. Then you can do flights towards Hemsedal and you follow the valleys. That's especially in the early spring because of the snow it's hard to cross over the mountain plateaus.
But further out in the season when you can get closer to June for example, it's easier to fly over the plateaus and at that time it's easier to go crossing the valleys, crossing the plateaus and go more just straight. Because often because of the wind change a little bit normally when you go north it goes from southeast to south and then over to southwest.
So the most ideal route is often to fly to cross the valleys and cross the plateaus and fly towards Trondheim actually, that's from that area.
Gavin McClurg (04:51.992)
Is that the goal someday? saw you were short of that, but would that be, you think that's possible?
Arne Kristian (04:57.6)
You're flying into airspace in that direction as well. But on that route I took, I think it's possible to do 350 in that direction. You still have some kilometers to go without flying into a terminal area. But I also think that one of the main reasons,
Gavin McClurg (05:01.273)
Yeah.
Arne Kristian (05:26.506)
The main place, think, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (05:26.917)
Hold on one sec my dogs. think somebody's just pulled. I'll be right back, just a sec.
Arne Kristian (05:31.902)
Yeah, yeah, no problem.
Gavin McClurg (05:37.114)
Arne Kristian (05:37.616)
Ahem.
Gavin McClurg (06:41.432)
Okay, sorry bud.
Arne Kristian (06:43.146)
Yeah, no problem.
Gavin McClurg (06:57.338)
Okay, how do we, what's the best way to cut back into that?
Arne Kristian (07:05.056)
would like about some... because it's an area called Trysil that's closer to the Swedish border, north of Oslo. From there, in that area you can fly on south and southwest. That was actually the area I thought the record would be taken. A long time ago I flew my first 200 from that area on southeast.
Gavin McClurg (07:16.718)
Yeah.
Arne Kristian (07:33.352)
If you fly there on south and southwest you cross over to Sweden and you fly towards on the Swedish side almost all the way. I think you can do yeah you can do 400 on a good day especially if you are winching.
Gavin McClurg (07:48.057)
So then you're getting into more kind of like Finland conditions, correct? I mean, isn't Sweden pretty flat and pretty watery like Finland is?
Arne Kristian (07:52.596)
Yeah.
Arne Kristian (07:56.864)
Yeah, but not as much as Finland. It's more in the western part of Sweden. It's more hilly. So it's forest and hilly. You can say it's flatland flying, but still you're looking for hills from where the thermals go off.
Gavin McClurg (08:04.567)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (08:18.529)
And that's a non event crossing that border in the air. I mean, you don't need to notify anybody. You can just do it, correct? Yeah. OK. Cool.
Arne Kristian (08:26.037)
Yeah, you can just do it. No problem. Yeah. It's harder if you're in Finland and you're flying eastwards. It's, yeah, it's no flying zone. yeah. Yeah. But.
Gavin McClurg (08:33.963)
Yeah, yeah, that gets old.
That gets much trickier, yeah, of course. So this was, you started basically southwest of Oslo, I'm looking at your fly right now, southwest of Oslo, your first leg was kind of, was northwest and then pretty much north. 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 was in Norway for the Olympics in 94. So I was up in Hamar and Lillehammer, but are you crossing through that zone?
Arne Kristian (08:44.192)
Hmm.
Arne Kristian (09:05.696)
Yeah, a little bit further north of Lillamur, across the Gubranstavn Valley. That's where Lillamur is. But you're right there in the start, you're mostly following the valley because of the... It's a little bit typical because the thermals are not that good yet on that day. I just had to try to stay up.
Gavin McClurg (09:09.131)
Okay?
Gavin McClurg (09:13.333)
Okay.
Arne Kristian (09:35.872)
But at point in it's a valley called Numenalen is south north of Kongsberg At that area it was possible 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 with higher cloud base and
Gavin McClurg (10:01.176)
Like convergence lines kind of stuff
Arne Kristian (10:03.636)
Yeah, both convergent lines and cloud streets. yeah.
Gavin McClurg (10:11.256)
Your speed is pretty good. It was a nine and a half hour flight, just over 38K an hour. Did you have some tailwind?
Arne Kristian (10:20.384)
Yeah, was some tailwind. It was pretty good actually. The whole day I was, before I went out, was a little bit afraid of it's going to be too strong. So as I saw it, it was a day that you had to try if you want to try to take the record because it looks so good with the thermal forecast and everything. But of course it's those days you can be hammered because of the wind and had to land after 15 minutes or it could be really good.
Gavin McClurg (10:22.134)
Okay. Yeah.
Arne Kristian (10:50.612)
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.
Gavin McClurg (10:57.922)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (11:02.356)
Christian went, so when I'm looking at the flight, I'm gonna butcher these names, but you get up into this valley, Fagerness, Fagerness and Ardahl, that looks like quite a river valley. There's a white, okay, that's a white line that X contest is drawn. So it looks to me like you're getting into some pretty deep terrain here. Is that, are retrieves possible or are you kind of on your own out there?
Arne Kristian (11:11.124)
Yeah. Yeah.
Arne Kristian (11:25.024)
Hmm.
Arne Kristian (11:30.324)
Yeah, after Fagernes you're flying into a national park area. 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. I would say you have to do it if you want to try to take the record.
Gavin McClurg (11:35.613)
OK.
Gavin McClurg (11:48.053)
Okay. So it's not that bad.
Gavin McClurg (11:57.184)
Yeah, sure.
Arne Kristian (11:58.228)
But that area around north of Faguna is just really beautiful. I flew over that twice this season as well. It's fantastic with all the meandering rivers and really nice area.
Gavin McClurg (12:08.534)
That area.
Gavin McClurg (12:18.355)
It quite dense forest or are there lots of places to lots of meadows and stuff to land?
Arne Kristian (12:24.192)
It's a lot of places to land. All these plateaus are normally above the tree line. They're mostly around between 800 to 1100 meters and that's above 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...
Gavin McClurg (12:30.63)
okay.
Arne Kristian (12:51.658)
could always find some places where it's possible to get down.
Gavin McClurg (12:55.989)
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?
Arne Kristian (13:05.3)
Yeah, I flew towards, landed just south of Optal. Yeah, and that was, before that I crossed over a new, I crossed over Voggo. 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,
Gavin McClurg (13:10.048)
Yeah, okay, I see that.
Arne Kristian (13:32.128)
Around south of Drivdalen valley, that's that short, small, narrow valley. The thermal started to break off and try to get the size possible. The clock was around 8.30 in the evening. But it still was possible to get to cloud base. And so when I got into that narrow valley, it was actually possible to read store.
because of the southwest wind that was up there. So I red-stored all that area all the way down and that gave me like almost 35 kilometers bonus without any thermals, just red-storing. And that was, yeah, so that was fantastic.
Gavin McClurg (14:18.518)
always nice at end of the day. Yeah, this beat the previous record by 90k. I mean, it was a big jump. Wow. So these kind of fjordlands just north and west of where you went down, is that what people think of when they think of the fjordlands in Norway, they do all the bass jumping, or is that way up farther north?
Arne Kristian (14:26.292)
Yeah, yeah, I around that.
Arne Kristian (14:44.628)
Yeah, you're right. Just northwest of Vogård you can fly down there. You can fly down to Åndalsnæs, down in Rumstånd Valley. That's a lot of base jumping that goes from there.
Gavin McClurg (15:02.557)
right there. So just west, northwest of where you landed. Okay.
Arne Kristian (15:06.526)
Yeah, yeah, no, actually more, more west of where I landed, but more northwest of Wogow and Gunnarsson Valley. That's then you get down to Åndalsnes and yeah. So.
Gavin McClurg (15:11.281)
okay.
gotcha. Okay.
Gavin McClurg (15:20.521)
And so there's lots of good skiing in there too.
Arne Kristian (15:23.358)
Yeah, there are.
Gavin McClurg (15:24.628)
Yeah.
Arne Kristian (15:27.904)
And actually, if you want to go FIE triangle in Norway, actually the best areas are in that mountain area just south of there towards Stryn and Voss. In that area it's possible on good days to get to do 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
with not that much wind. It's almost like the small Alps where the wind systems are generated by the mountains and not by the meteor wind. But the area I fly, it's more meteor wind. So that makes it trying to do one way and trying to get back afterwards.
Gavin McClurg (16:21.973)
Is kind of sea breeze a preeminent, I don't know, not enemy, but is that just something you guys have to deal with on all flights? Because you just got so much ocean around you.
Arne Kristian (16:33.152)
No, not on all flights, but if you're flying towards those valleys, of course, it's going to be a problem in the end, especially like Rumstalln Valley. 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. So.
Gavin McClurg (16:51.817)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (17:02.034)
I see you, I don't know if you took off with them, but you flew with a couple other guys that day, and Gunnar's one of them. know Gunnar really well. What happened to those guys? Why didn't they keep going?
Arne Kristian (17:09.598)
Yeah, I always said, yeah, it was sad actually that Gunnar didn't make it because he is a really good pilot. I think he probably flew a little bit too fast because 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...
Gavin McClurg (17:22.302)
Mm.
Arne Kristian (17:36.648)
make it to Gull for example, where it's easy to get back with the train. But they just kept on getting better and better and better. yeah, no time to learn.
Gavin McClurg (17:47.231)
mean, in your track log, it doesn't look like you really got low until right at the end of the day. Then obviously that's where you were doing the rich soaring and stuff, but it didn't look, not too many kind of, I don't see too many low saves. It must have been, it was a good day,
Arne Kristian (18:04.064)
Yeah, it was good. I had one low part north of Fagernes where you can see the... it's almost in the middle where you can see the track lag goes to the left. Yeah, and I 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 yeah, I was flying towards a big cloud and yeah.
Gavin McClurg (18:11.794)
Yeah. Jog around. Yep.
Arne Kristian (18:32.594)
It wasn't working, it was dying off. So I had to push out headwind and try to get to some spots with sun. Yeah, I found some lift. Then it's because it's so flat terrain, you have to just try to stay in the thermal as long as you can and just drift with it. So you keep drifting.
Gavin McClurg (18:36.371)
Mm-hmm.
Gavin McClurg (18:58.164)
Mmm.
Arne Kristian (19:01.184)
towards further into the mountains and further to walk. you just have to, yeah, yeah, you have to do it. You have to try. But of course it's not dangerous because it's only, it's no trees and stuff like that. It's just have to walk out. So get some.
Gavin McClurg (19:05.779)
Just gotta commit.
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (19:15.859)
You just gotta walk.
Is this kind of like peat? You know, there's no trees there. Is it kind of like peat moss? Maybe, you know, think of Northern Scotland kind of terrain. It's like bogs. Okay.
Arne Kristian (19:29.108)
Yeah, can compare. Yeah. It's like, the mountains in this area is normally, it's not that peaky. It's, it's round. And, so, and, and so when you get the wind and on these small mountains, it's, it's really easy to just fly over it and drift with the wind. And you just have to try to, to stay in the, in the thermal and.
Gavin McClurg (19:39.965)
Mm-hmm.
Arne Kristian (19:58.58)
keep in it. So that's actually one of things I think that makes a lot of Norwegian pilots good to fly in weak conditions because we're yeah we often have to fly in these crappy thermals drifting away just trying to stay up. So yeah.
Gavin McClurg (20:16.071)
Did you go into this day thinking it was a record day? mean, was this what you set out to do or was it just kind of fell into your lap as you were cruising along realizing, wow, this is really good?
Arne Kristian (20:28.16)
I thought it was a 200 plus day. We don't get that many of those. It was actually a Saturday so it was easy to get out. But the day before looked just as good as well. But it was something with my job and so I couldn't take the day off. I was a little bit bummed about that but when Saturday was that good it didn't matter.
Gavin McClurg (20:30.822)
Yeah, okay, okay.
Gavin McClurg (20:43.526)
Really?
Arne Kristian (20:57.888)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (20:58.195)
And so seasons there, I imagine it's kind of similar to Finland. Is it kind of May, June are your best months? Yeah, okay. And then does it start getting stable in July? Is it like Alaska? It just starts getting more rainy, more stable, more buggy.
Arne Kristian (21:06.942)
Yeah, definitely. April.
Arne Kristian (21:16.232)
Yeah, yeah, the rain part is overdevelopment. It's the biggest problem. Yeah, especially the last seasons, I would say. Last two to three seasons, July has not been that good. And August, you can get some good in the mountains, not to go really far. yeah, like especially May and June when the snow.
Gavin McClurg (21:23.354)
Arne Kristian (21:45.972)
When the snow starts to get away from the plateaus it's possible to cross over. Combined with the... In June you have long days. It's possible to fly for 11 hours here on a good day.
Gavin McClurg (22:00.315)
Mmm.
Would you say this day, it was nine and a half hours, that was a pretty solid day, but was there, did it just shut down on you or did you leave time on the table?
Arne Kristian (22:12.532)
Yeah, it shut down on me, but I probably could have maybe started half an hour earlier. And of course, if we're been towing and winching, could probably, no, we don't. So I'm trying to, we do some towing from behind boats, but mostly for SIV. Yeah, but I've been thinking about, because there have been some towing south of Lillehammer.
Gavin McClurg (22:14.215)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (22:19.27)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (22:25.458)
Do you do a lot of towing there?
Gavin McClurg (22:35.822)
Right.
Arne Kristian (22:42.826)
I think that that would be maybe a possibility to do a record flight, maybe over 400. Then if you can start early on a strong southwest day and yeah, fly towards Sweden. Yeah, and like a northeast direction.
Gavin McClurg (22:53.401)
And... and go out of Sweden. Wha-wha-what?
Gavin McClurg (23:02.351)
The Norwegian contingent down in Mexico has been huge for as long as I've been flying, a long, long time. How big is your community in the country? How many pilots?
Arne Kristian (23:09.896)
Yeah. Yeah.
Arne Kristian (23:15.872)
I think we're around 2,500 registered pilots, both hang glider and speed glider and paragliders. But it's not that many that's active though. But still we're...
Gavin McClurg (23:24.685)
Wow.
Right. Yeah. That's pretty good. What's your total population of the country?
Arne Kristian (23:33.896)
It's around 5 million, leave it under that.
Gavin McClurg (23:35.793)
Wow, that's amazing. I think we're about 6,000 and we're 350 million. That's pretty incredible. So yeah, a lot of people doing it.
Arne Kristian (23:46.208)
Like my dad started flying in 1990, so yeah, I grew up with it. So when I was 16 and had the possibility to take that license, it was just, yeah, natural. I've been ground handling for several years.
Gavin McClurg (24:04.529)
And would you say most Norwegian pilots that 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 country? Okay.
Arne Kristian (24:15.552)
Yeah, many travel outside to Tenerife or to the Alps in the summer. But I try to fly mostly in Norway when the season is on because I like to fly here. of course, I like to go to the Southern France as well to fly there when it's possible.
Gavin McClurg (24:20.913)
Hmm.
Gavin McClurg (24:29.976)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (24:35.928)
Is it the kind of place where Gavin could rock up in middle of May and stay there for a month and be pretty guaranteed you're gonna get some good days? Or is it really more of a strike kind of place? And what I mean by that is to go down and chase big distance in Texas, it's...
pretty rough to just go for weeks, because you get very few days. 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, look, there's a window coming, go strike it, go back.
Arne Kristian (25:00.48)
Hmm.
Arne Kristian (25:12.138)
Yeah, I think you would get some good flights, I would say, because normally May is a pretty dry period. the one problem is the wind and the other problem is the snow. But because of the snow, it's not always that easy to cross the plateaus. You have to follow the valleys. But especially in the late May, it could be really good.
If you're here for a month, course, would say you could, if you're real lucky, you can do several hundred case. and yeah.
Gavin McClurg (25:50.82)
Do the, is the snow line, does it work 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 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. We don't find that that works very well.
Arne Kristian (26:08.586)
Hmm. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (26:12.56)
we live that it still works over. In some places in the Alps, you can fly over glaciers and stuff. You're flying up in fiche and that kind of thing. You're going over the Grimsel. It'll totally work, even though it's all snow. But it's got to be connected by some kind land bridges type stuff. Does yours work like that? Or is it more when there's lots of snow, it just doesn't go? You can't go in there.
Arne Kristian (26:35.744)
As long as, for example, in Gudbrandstalen Valley north of Lillehammer in that area from Easter, I would say, it works really good in the valleys because of this. It's when the valleys is free of snow and you have the snow line. But the problem is that the valleys are, especially in the south-eastern part of Norway, they're not that deep. It's not like on the west side where you have
Gavin McClurg (26:48.567)
Okay
Arne Kristian (27:02.184)
You can almost have thousand meters between the valley floor and the top. But in the southeast it's lower, maybe two to three, 400 meters. And because of that, yeah, but it's not often easy 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.
Gavin McClurg (27:12.175)
so you don't have as much room to work. Yeah.
Arne Kristian (27:32.146)
Because of that, when you have snow on all those areas, you need some altitude to try to cross it if it's full of snow because there's no thermals there. But when you get out in June, it starts to melt a little bit. Then it normally works better. So I would say June is definitely the best part of the season in Norway.
Gavin McClurg (27:49.455)
Hmm.
That's kind of the primo month. That's what I found up in Alaska as well. You start getting the really long days in April, but there's just too much snow. with that Alaska project, if we had started that a couple weeks later, I think we started May 12th, if we had started just a couple weeks later, we would have been twice the speed. then by July, it's really done. It's really cooked. It just gets way too stable.
Arne Kristian (28:03.423)
Hmm.
Arne Kristian (28:19.104)
Hmm.
Gavin McClurg (28:22.285)
then the air stops moving around. What about north of, and those of you listening, encourage you to pull up a map unless you're really familiar with Norway, but what about north of Trondheim and going up right along the border of Sweden? Do people fly up there?
Arne Kristian (28:39.658)
Yeah, we actually had one, we have around Bodø. We have one trip, it's a long time ago, but it was almost 200 Ks flying into Sweden from Bodø. yeah.
Gavin McClurg (28:53.006)
Really? Really? Boda, that's out, okay, that's out kind of in the fjord land. B-O-D, what the weirdo, okay.
Arne Kristian (29:01.46)
Yeah, it was closer to the Swedish border. So you're actually flying on the mountains. But it works, but it's mostly coastal soaring in that area from the, yeah, around Trondheim and further north. I've been doing some flying in Finnmark because my wife, she's from there, but it's mostly hiking,
Gavin McClurg (29:07.127)
Wow.
Gavin McClurg (29:22.605)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (29:27.95)
Mm-hmm.
Okay? God must be beautiful.
Arne Kristian (29:32.352)
We've been thinking about maybe doing a towing project from the flatlands in Finnmark and flying south or southeast towards Sweden or Finland. That could be really cool, I think. Because I've been watching all those street clouds up there in that area. Just when you get a little bit in from the coast, it seems to work.
pretty well but then you need to have some towing to get up to those clouds.
Gavin McClurg (30:05.518)
and you do a little full bit of towing trip. That'd be cool.
Arne Kristian (30:08.416)
Yeah, maybe get a fly with Andy or something to drive a towing car. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (30:16.332)
Yeah, I love it. That sounds amazing. That'd be that'd be pretty neat. Be kind of a cool little something even. 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 stuff areas must be quite top landable and you've got plenty of water. Is there lot of volbiv going on there?
Arne Kristian (30:23.604)
Yeah, something totally different.
Arne Kristian (30:41.384)
Yeah, it's, it's the last year. It's been more and more that people are doing hike and fly and Volbiv and we're getting some really good athletes as well from Norway. But I've been doing Volbiv now for maybe 10 years. But the problem is often that you don't get more than maybe two or if you're lucky three days. Yeah.
Arne Kristian (31:10.816)
So, but I've been doing some like traveling out and sleeping out and flying the other day. And then maybe if we're lucky, you can do a new flight the next day or yeah. I did one from a place called Copang and I flew just westwards and ended up in Gjajlo. That was around 180 kilometers. That was a lot of fun.
Gavin McClurg (31:17.419)
Yeah.
Arne Kristian (31:39.284)
crossing a lot of valleys and a lot of plateaus and getting close up to where the yeah we flying up to Hardanger with the mountain plateau so that was that was really fun
Gavin McClurg (31:53.581)
Do you fly much in the winter there? you get high pressure systems that give up some days?
Arne Kristian (31:59.776)
You can do some soaring, but the thermals are normally not working. I had some thermals, but mostly it's only soaring.
Gavin McClurg (32:02.443)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (32:06.294)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (32:11.093)
And are you in the season, know, so you, it's called late April through June, is it mostly prefrontal that's really good, postfrontal 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. Okay.
Arne Kristian (32:29.47)
Yeah, often. it's like norm of the day flew that 340. That was actually a high pressure system that's been laying. It was coming from actually pushing from Finland towards a little bit closer to Norway. And so it's often we see that because of that you get stable weather for a long stretch so you can you can get.
Gavin McClurg (32:48.714)
Gavin McClurg (32:56.972)
So you're on kind of the western edge of a big high pressure system? Yeah, okay.
Arne Kristian (33:00.968)
Yeah, but often you can get really good as well just post frontal and after that, yeah, and then you get the clear skies. 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 why it's often the high pressure systems that's been laying there for a while that normally makes the good days because you can...
Gavin McClurg (33:06.952)
Okay? Okay.
Arne Kristian (33:29.898)
you have good weather all the way. So often if it's bad weather in the Alps, 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 central Europe and Alps.
Gavin McClurg (33:38.177)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (33:43.36)
The Alps. What would be the place to kind of stick yourself for a few weeks? it be Oslo? What would be the area that would make the most sense for just riding it out so you can strike on the good days and then have fun doing other stuff on the bad days?
Arne Kristian (34:01.652)
Hmm. depends a little bit what you want because if you stay in the south it could be maybe a little bit boring because you're flying on low hills. that's often what you have to do if you want to try to fly really far. So I would say it's much more fun.
Gavin McClurg (34:19.083)
Hmm.
Arne Kristian (34:30.314)
to be in for example in Voss or maybe Voggo. Especially Voggo, it's the fly, yeah. That's in Gumrødstål valley. It's northwest of Lillehammer. And that area is really good for, the flying is really good. it used to be a pretty big community that.
Gavin McClurg (34:32.797)
Gavin McClurg (34:38.507)
Where's Vogo? I'm trying to look, I'm looking on the map here. Where's that?
Gavin McClurg (34:45.703)
okay, okay, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (34:50.462)
Okay.
Arne Kristian (34:57.856)
went there. So in the summer it's still a lot of people that go there for flying. So then you can have 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 south, maybe Taylormark or especially in the early parts of the season if you want to fly in May, June I would say that area it's normally the best. But still...
Gavin McClurg (35:15.188)
So.
Gavin McClurg (35:23.987)
Okay.
Arne Kristian (35:25.92)
We also have some good days when it's northwesterly winds and then we have some takeoffs just south of Voggaard that's really good. It's called Heidal. And then you can fly maybe down to Lillehammer and I've flown to Elvryum once and that's around a little bit under 200 in that direction. yeah, so that's a really good place.
really strong thermals in the early season from that area. So really a washing machine getting up because you're starting on the lee side from south face takeoff and you have some mountains to the northwest that protects you from the northwest winds. But after you take off, you start getting into it. Yeah, it could be a really dishwasher.
Gavin McClurg (36:17.961)
Hahaha
Arne Kristian (36:20.552)
It was just stressing trying to get up and get away from it. yeah, a lot of fun.
Gavin McClurg (36:27.019)
I've been to a couple of your Nordic comps, maybe only, I know if I do it, was in Macedonia one year, a bunch of years ago, this was before COVID, but do you guys ever have comps where you are?
Arne Kristian (36:35.699)
yeah.
Arne Kristian (36:42.144)
How are to it?
Gavin McClurg (36:43.338)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (36:50.783)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (37:01.523)
Yeah.
Arne Kristian (37:07.52)
take it out of the country because I know when Norway is good, especially in June, for example, it could be really good. and I remember in 2013, we did, for example, an out and return 110 kilometers from Voggo. I was flying an Advanced Epsilon actually that time. But yeah, that was a lot of fun.
Gavin McClurg (37:17.94)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (37:28.158)
Nice.
Gavin McClurg (37:34.866)
You
Arne Kristian (37:36.512)
like people flying in six to seven hours and yeah, really happy when they got to go. So we'll see maybe one time if somebody wants to take up that and try to get it to Norway again.
Gavin McClurg (37:39.754)
wicked. That's the kind of comps I like. That's awesome.
Gavin McClurg (37:51.317)
Pick up the reins. Yeah. Yeah, that would be neat. I think a lot of people would come into it's cool to see you. You said in your write up here that it was paid once in a lifetime flight in Norway. Is that where the conditions that unusually good?
Arne Kristian (38:11.52)
Yeah, I've been chasing that record for 15 years. yeah, it was really good. The last time I flew 200 before that in Norway was in 2008. I've been really close some other times flying 195 and yeah, but it's not often. Normally I would say you may get one or two.
Gavin McClurg (38:14.967)
okay, so you can't just show up and knock that off. That's okay.
Arne Kristian (38:38.208)
days of that quality in the air. Sometimes you get no one. None of those days. So you just have to be ready on that day. So luckily I have a flexible job and a flexible wife. So it's possible to figure it out.
Gavin McClurg (38:42.852)
Really? Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (38:53.994)
Two very important things. But when the good days come, really, it sounds like you really got to strike. It's not like, we'll get another one. Yeah, you got to go for it. You to got to make a.
Arne Kristian (39:02.558)
Yeah, you have to do that. You just have to leave everything and reschedule meetings and yeah, get out.
Gavin McClurg (39:11.07)
And is there, I mean, on that day, looked like, at least on X-Contest, there was just Gunnar and the other guy that was with you, but 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 a good day?
Arne Kristian (39:25.6)
Yeah, I would say it would be a dozen. We have a pretty good community here for exif flying. So we talk to each other trying to get out. Yeah. Yeah. And I have some friends around from the Western parts of Norway that sometimes also take the train over to try to fly back.
Gavin McClurg (39:28.264)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (39:35.913)
You guys got a telegram group or something and chat it up? Okay. Yeah.
Arne Kristian (39:52.284)
especially from Drammen or Vittinfoss you can follow the valley and fly up to Gjelå and over the mountains again towards Voss and Bergen. So that's one of my dreams to try to fly over that big plateau that separates the western and eastern parts of Norway. It's called Hardagenvide.
So it's hard to do it because of it's a little bit higher, so much more snow. And it's also hard to do because of the weather changes when you're flying over the, what do you call it, when 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.
Gavin McClurg (40:34.121)
Mm. Mm.
Gavin McClurg (40:40.663)
okay, so you're talking about doing a west to east or an east to west? Up and over the spine? East to west, wow, okay, okay. And my brain doesn't think like that. We're always going the other way.
Arne Kristian (40:44.352)
East to West. East to West. Yeah, so you start around... Yeah, so yeah, I think it's possible. yeah, just have to wait for the right day and go for it.
Gavin McClurg (41:03.836)
That would be, I would imagine, spectacular when you're ending in the fjordlands, right?
Arne Kristian (41:08.17)
Yeah, it's been done sometimes, but like locally. You can start up there and fly over. And same from the west side, you can fly over to the east. That's been done sometimes from Voss as well. But it's never been done from like further south towards Drammen or south of Oslo. And yeah.
Gavin McClurg (41:18.824)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (41:25.17)
Mm-hmm.
Gavin McClurg (41:36.154)
Is airspace a big deal in Norway in general? You mentioned it was kind of a, you had to string it together down by Oslo, but is it, are there a lot of places you gotta worry about it or is that pretty much it? It's just down near the capital.
Arne Kristian (41:43.572)
Hmm.
Arne Kristian (41:48.68)
Yeah, have... It can be a problem. It's been a problem this season around Oslo because of the TMA. It's too big, if you ask me. But of course, when you get outside at TMA, I would say we're pretty lucky. We don't have that many restrictions. But yeah, so we had some problems.
Gavin McClurg (41:54.76)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (41:59.728)
Mmm, mmm.
Gavin McClurg (42:07.944)
It's not too bad.
Arne Kristian (42:14.654)
because of some regulations that's been changed the last year. So we haven't had the possibility to fly that much from these small local hills, but does have a huge potential. So I haven't, I've only done maybe two flights from Wittingfoss from where I took the record this season because of this. It's hard to get enough altitude to fly legally. So.
Gavin McClurg (42:35.131)
Hmm. Not really.
Gavin McClurg (42:41.159)
Is there much glider flying going on there?
Arne Kristian (42:44.864)
It's a small community, it's not that many, it's a pretty good community in north of Oslo, towards a place called Hamar, and Elvrum.
Gavin McClurg (42:47.342)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (42:59.153)
Do you have wave conditions set up there? Are they flying wave? Okay.
Arne Kristian (43:02.429)
Yeah, especially around Easter you can get 5,000 meters with sailplanes. So that's one of the things you have to think about when flying parallel here is the waves. And about that, that's one of reasons it's often good to fly here on Southeast to start pretty close to the fjord and close to the
Gavin McClurg (43:10.683)
Wow, cool.
Arne Kristian (43:32.192)
to the ocean you get less waves of 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. yeah.
Gavin McClurg (43:50.248)
How does your flying and flying community compare to neighboring Sweden? I mean, I run into a lot more Norwegians flying than Swedish, but is it a pretty big deal there too?
Arne Kristian (44:04.704)
Yeah, it's a it's it's pretty good. I would say it's a little bit more towing and coastal flying, but it's a it's a pretty good community around Gothenburg. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (44:10.285)
Mmm. Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (44:17.455)
Yeah, I did a talk there quite a few years ago and I didn't get to fly. The weather was quite bad but they showed me a picture. It looked amazing. It's a really cool dune flying and stuff there. It's cool.
Arne Kristian (44:27.358)
Hmm and I'm trying to convince them because they have one towing place just outside the Gothenburg, but it's it's stuck really close to airspace So I'm I really want to have maybe start towing a little bit further north Towards the border of Norway they have a small hill called Dingle. It's 70 meters and once I did the 50 kilometers from that site
Gavin McClurg (44:49.745)
Okay.
Arne Kristian (44:55.72)
It's really bingo if you get up or you don't get up. But that area, if you could tow up and start on strong winds, it's the same as flying in Finland. Then you have almost no airspace problems. I would say on a really good day, then 400 is possible. yeah, nobody's done that yet. yeah, I'm trying to convince some people to maybe start doing.
Gavin McClurg (45:17.019)
Wow, amazing. Well, now it's out there, man. Now you're have people going for it. Fantastic. Well, hey bud, it sounds like my painters have just showed up, so it's gonna get loud in here, but whoa.
Arne Kristian (45:27.412)
Yeah, hopefully I will be there. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (45:38.31)
That was great. 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 get to come fly with you guys. thanks for sharing all this. I appreciate it.
Arne Kristian (45:55.08)
Yeah, it would be really cool if you came here in, yeah, let's say May and June or something like that. Yeah, we can show you around.
Gavin McClurg (46:03.098)
be great maybe I'm doing the X Ops thing again this year so maybe I'll come over before that and just come up there for a week and at say hi but it's not too far away.
Arne Kristian (46:10.112)
If you know Erlen Ukvittne, he's one of the rookies here. He will probably join if the weather is good.
Gavin McClurg (46:15.589)
Yeah?
Gavin McClurg (46:23.622)
Excellent. Yeah, no, I will be cheering him on. I've been I need to get him on the show, but yeah, very cool. It's nice to see you guys represented Thanks, Christian. Thanks a lot, Appreciate it. Talk soon. Cheers, bud
Arne Kristian (46:29.044)
Yeah, you should.
Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (46:38.896)
Cool, that was great. I would have liked to go a little longer, but these guys are making noise next door. It's gonna get, gonna start banging around quite a bit. thanks for sharing all that. What an amazing flight, man. Looks awesome.
Arne Kristian (46:43.392)
Yeah.
Arne Kristian (46:49.76)
Yeah it was, it was really great. Especially after when I took the last cloud base above Tovre, Tovre mountain area, that was incredible. I started to see that could do 300 in Norway. I didn't think that was possible. 300 kilometers.
Gavin McClurg (46:53.83)
I
Gavin McClurg (47:10.827)
Yeah, 300 miles. Know I mean? OK. And then, yeah, then you went what? What'd you get point to point? 340? It was 356 on next contest. But was it 340 from launch? 343. That's a big flight, man. That's a big flight. That's big here.
Arne Kristian (47:20.626)
Yeah, 343.
Yeah, it was cool. I've been doing some flying in Brazil. it feels just as long as like doing 300 up here. Compared to doing 400 there, it feels almost longer doing it in Norway because everything takes much longer time.
Gavin McClurg (47:38.638)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (47:48.143)
Now imagine, you're working harder for every move. Yeah, totally. There's that mid-day lull in Brazil that's always a bitch, but there's, you when everything goes blue, you're, God. But yeah, other than that, it's pretty straightforward, isn't it? But yeah, imagine in Norway, you're working harder.
Arne Kristian (48:08.862)
Yeah, but I find the mornings in Kaiko, for example, it's really hard. yeah.
Gavin McClurg (48:16.653)
yeah, same in Texas. Those first two hours are brutal. It's just, it's like a job. It's not much fun and it's desperate. It's always just,
Arne Kristian (48:24.448)
Yeah.
Arne Kristian (48:29.205)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (48:29.477)
hanging on hanging on by your teeth. I haven't done cake I haven't done any of the towing I did the Tosima you know foot launch thing back in 2016 and I mean it was it was brutal man you go out seven days out of ten you go out there and just turn right back around and go back to the hotel there was no internet sit there all day the food was shit it was just was torture and
Arne Kristian (48:32.01)
Yep.
Arne Kristian (48:36.992)
Hmm.
Arne Kristian (48:50.952)
Yeah, it's really just a place. have some Polish friends that goes there almost every year and I don't understand why they do it because it's... yeah.
Gavin McClurg (48:55.876)
Yeah. it's brutal. mean, Rafa and those guys were there that year. had, the year before was when they set the first big one in 2016. And so I was there the year after that and they showed up. They only made it three days. The year before they were, sat there for 39 days to get that done. And the next day they came, one of them got hurt one day, you know, cause you've got to clear this kind of 40 K.
Arne Kristian (49:14.176)
Hmm.
Arne Kristian (49:20.488)
Yeah, forest area.
Gavin McClurg (49:20.514)
Plateau right right off the bat and it's windy and tons of power lines It's just it's sketchy and one of them got kind of hurt He got towed into a fence and hurt himself a little bit and then and they just peaced out They just went back on this
do this again, but it was, I mean most of the days you'd just be back at the hotel by 7.30, eight in the morning and just sit there all day, just wait for the next day. It was torture, I hated it.
Arne Kristian (49:42.4)
Yeah, what to do now? Yeah, that's what I like about Kaikowitz. Almost every day it's workable. Like one day we had rain in the morning and it was still possible to do over 300. Yeah, so yeah.
Gavin McClurg (49:57.442)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (50:03.68)
Wow. Yeah, that was the thing with Tosima. You're too close to the ocean. so was in the weather forecasting. Maybe it's gotten better, but at the time it was useless. It didn't mean anything. So you just, you had to go every day. So you're out there, you know, 445, five o'clock in the morning and every launch was sketchy. You know, it was just so windy. You're always just kind of gripped, just getting set up. And then, yeah, man.
Arne Kristian (50:22.846)
Yeah. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (50:29.15)
It was hard. It was hard to go home. And it's pretty close to the ocean, which is what Texas is, until the new guy came in and showed us that you could start much further inland. But until then, we were always starting down by Corpus Christi. And so your cloud base is right over the runway. So your first move is just, it's desperately.
Arne Kristian (50:29.332)
Hmm.
Gavin McClurg (50:51.491)
It's windy, but the cloud base is really low. And then there's huge windmills and cactus everywhere. so you're just frisbeeing if you're lucky and a zero. So you're just barely staying alive. And if you blow it, there you go. That's end of your day. It's 8 AM. I'm around all day. So I'm to stop.
Arne Kristian (51:08.096)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I find it for me like, like last time I like the goal was try to maybe do top 10 in the Exo contest in the Serial class. And yeah, then it's much more, much more efficient to be on a place where you can do 400 points and
Gavin McClurg (51:25.077)
Next contest. Yep.
Arne Kristian (51:38.656)
Yeah, and Kaiko and Asu are easier to do that. So, but hopefully, yeah, we're planning a new trip next year. and then I'm probably going to be there for three weeks. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. I find all the organization around with Andy, I think they're doing a really good job. And also the...
Gavin McClurg (51:42.455)
Get that, yeah, yeah, for sure. They're proving it every day, or every season.
Gavin McClurg (51:53.293)
Down and cake up. Cool.
Gavin McClurg (52:04.333)
Yeah.
Arne Kristian (52:06.368)
The local pilots they use to get good deals and get a decent salary. And especially it's mostly driving at night. I'm not that happy driving all the nights home. I would rather stay in a hotel and take the day off.
Gavin McClurg (52:11.553)
Yeah, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (52:17.612)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I didn't like that either. That was kind of nice about Texas is the roads are really good. I didn't really, you so the getting back was way easier than in Brazil. And I often found that, you know, Brazil would just be, it could be nine hours in the car and I was always worried about the driver being awake and then you get back and you kind of got to reload, go again. know, it was tough.
Arne Kristian (52:29.536)
Hmm.
Arne Kristian (52:46.784)
That's torture because I'm there on vacation as well because like I really want to fly but still it's important to have or it would be actually less safe getting back and then actually flying.
Gavin McClurg (52:53.513)
Yeah.
Enjoy it.
Gavin McClurg (53:04.576)
Yeah, yeah. so you're flying then staying somewhere and then coming back the next day. You're not worrying about it the next day. that's nice. Yeah, that'd be a nice room. Yeah, that's a nice approach.
Arne Kristian (53:10.816)
Hmm. Yeah. Then the next day is off. Yeah. So it makes that you don't get that many days, but I would say that you're more fit. You're more ready when you're on the tarmac and ready to. Yeah. So sometimes, yeah, we try to choose a little bit, maybe drop one day if the next day looks good, but normally I just go for it because you don't know how it goes. Like if you bomb out or if not, it's.
Gavin McClurg (53:21.654)
Yeah, when it's a good day you can strike. Yeah, that makes sense. I like that.
Gavin McClurg (53:35.02)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (53:39.842)
Yeah, yeah, I was, you know, the first, when we went down to Texas, Don Agete was with us, you know, and there were, early on, there were two or three days where, you know, we weren't on the pace that he liked and we'd land, you know, at 160K out or 180K out and,
Arne Kristian (53:40.896)
So hopeless.
Gavin McClurg (53:59.906)
And I especially regretted that two weeks later because we got less and less days. And I think we could have easily done 400 on those days. just, weren't 600. He was there to break the record. He wanted to go 600K. it was, but I think.
what we've learned is often the pace can get really wicked those last few hours. So maybe you're not on pace for four hours, but then it starts, then you're okay for four hours and then you're ripping. I can't even think of the guy's name, the guy that broke it, the 500 and then the 600 in Texas, he's flying by himself and he's not.
Arne Kristian (54:42.432)
Is that Frank Braun?
Gavin McClurg (54:44.711)
No, not the Brazilian guy. He's from Eastern Europe, but he's living down in Texas.
can't think of the guy's name now, he just showed, nobody knew who he was. He just showed up one day and went big and then two years later went even bigger.
Arne Kristian (54:59.848)
Yeah, Yeah. Hmm.
Gavin McClurg (55:05.373)
And so he's launching way further north. So was a totally different approach that totally worked. But what we saw from his is the last three hours, he's not turning. He's just flying 60K an hour, just flying lines, just going straight. And so I think in retrospect, that approach was wrong. We learned that we should have stayed in the air those days, because it's also way less reliable than Brazil.
Arne Kristian (55:15.892)
Yeah, just flag lines.
Arne Kristian (55:30.709)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (55:33.535)
You know, it's not like Texas is, you get way less days. And so you have to kind of take them when you get them and see how you go.
Arne Kristian (55:40.828)
Yeah, especially if the risk for bombing out is so high. That's what I found out.
Gavin McClurg (55:46.611)
Yeah, just a lot of time sitting around. Well, cool, Well, it was great chatting with you. Are you going down to Valle? Are you going to be in Valle next month? Are going to be in Valle next month? Going to the Monarcha?
Arne Kristian (55:54.516)
Yeah, nice setting to you too.
Now, I'm traveling north, going up to Finnmark. So I'm doing my other hobby, and that's snow kiting. So I normally don't fly that much in the winter. I take out the kites instead and go skiing and kiting. Yeah. But some friends of mine are going. But I have to save up some vacation time for next fall.
Arne Kristian (56:28.992)
for October next year as well. yeah. But nice chatting to you. yeah, it'd be cool to see you if you come here next spring. That would be cool. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (56:29.275)
Gotcha. Right? For Brazil. Cool. Well, I enjoyed it. Nice chatting to you. Appreciate it. That was a lot of fun.
Gavin McClurg (56:44.54)
Yeah, if I get out there, I'll reach out for sure. It'd be fun. I've got lot of friends out in your part of the world. I love the country. It's amazing. I had an incredible time there for the Olympics. was awesome. Cool, bud. Thanks, man. Talk soon. Cheers. Bye. wait, no, wait, wait.
