The sudden urge to buy power company shares

Flying over a major city at night always gives me the urge to invest in the local power company. Last night I attended an AOPA Norway board meeting at Sundt Air, Gardermoen, and I took the opportunity to get current night while visiting a 24/7 airport. CAVOK and smooth air over Oslo made this chore pretty pleasant.

Slow flight over Nittedal

Tor needed a few pictures of Nittedal, and I needed to get back in the air after a month without flying (busy preparing my Ph.D. Thesis defense).

The pictures will be published by the local newspaper Varingen. I used to be Editor-in-Chief of the regional newspaper Romerikes Blad, but my knowledge of local sites in Nittedal did not match the journalist from the local paper. Our model of collaboration ended up being me flying where Tor was pointing

Night flight from Sandefjord

Anita joined me on a flight to ENTO for the MAF Norway annual meeting, where I was re-elected to the board of directors. Mission Aviation Fellowship is providing air transport in places of deepest human need – remote places where flying is not a luxury, but a lifeline.

For nearly 60 years MAF has flown over jungles, mountains, swamps and deserts to bring hope. It was an inspiring meeting, and we had a great night flight back to ENGM. Anita on Facebook: "Wow...the world is beautiful at 1500' at night :)".

Abroad for night training

Oslo by night. Photo: Lars Frers.

I needed five landings at night to be current before a planned flight with passenger Friday, and was surprised to realize the impossibilities of accomplishing this in Eastern Norway. ENKJ have lights disconnected. ENGM do not allow touch-and-go. ENTO, by NOTAM, only allowed this for aircrafts based on the airport. ENRY does not allow T&G after 9 p.m. That's 40 minutes before darkness at this time of year. And ENHA needs at least three days notice in order to inform the neighbors about night training in progress.

I had to leave the country. ESKV is H24, however prefere no T&G after 10 p.m., hence ESOK became the next natural choice (open until 10:30 p.m. local time).  In two hours of flying, I got four night landings in Karlstad, Sweden, and the fifth and last compulsory landing back at Gardermoen. 

First day of summer

Vice President of MAF International, Arne Nordahl, was my co-pilot on a promotional flight, with passengers Målfrid and John Ole. On the first day of wonderful summer weather, we left Gardermoen (ENGM) in LN-AGM for sight seeing over Oslo and Bærum, and made at stop at Kjeller (ENKJ) for ice cream on our way back.

I am the proud owner of a MM-card!

Tuesday I was the very first pilot to get my AOPA-N MM-card, being able to exercise the rights of airside access given by my pilot's licence with a piece of plastic and a pin code. I found my self wearing it a long time after I parked LN-AGM and had left ENGM...

Mind the GAP

(ELVERUM, Norway) Last week-end I visited the GAP Starmoen fly-in. This used to be Norway's largest gathering of active private pilots, but the attendance and level of activities offered was not at the level of the golden years of this flight safety project. I left for Gardermoen in LN-AGM before sunset without any time in conventional gear, the object of my visit.