Sunday, August 29, 2010
Mountains of Norway - click pics for large versions
With a forecast over the next few days for deteriorating weather, we climbed slowly away from the high altitude runway of Klanten to see if it would be possible to fly over the high central Norweigen mountain range. The weather is so localised and variable over the mountains that all we could tell from the current day's forecast was that success was not certain – cloud covered much of the area at a level just below the top of the granite range.
Photographs of landscapes never really capture the breathtaking magnitude of distance and height scales. All I can say is that the hour airborne over the top was the single most amazing and terrifying that I have lived yet. It alone was easily worth 6 month of plane construction. Flying on the updraft side of the valleys in the flukey mountain winds, we had rock 50 feet away out one widow and a sheer canyon drop of 4000 feet out the other. Snow patches dotted the martian landscape at the top of the mountains even in this, the last month of spring. The easterly side of the mountain range (the land side, from which we approached) is serisouly wild and cracked up. About 5 times on the way up, I was ready to turn around and retreat due to low clouds and rain but cold always see a brightspot ahead in a direction that combined suitably with the terrain (suitable, as in, allowing us not to fly into it) to head for.
My backup plan of climbing on instruments into the clouds to descend over the water near Bergen turned out not to be required. The digital instruments in the Jabiru were excellent. By comparing air speed and heading with GPS derived ground speed and track, the machine gave us an instantaneous wind speed and direction indication which we used to keep out of sink which would easily exceed the plane's ability to climb in the thin air at that altitude. The terrain database on the GPS allowed me to 'see ahead' and have the confidence to continue. The western side of the range drops into cavernous fjords with towering green ridges between them. As we proceeded west into the Sognal fjord, alpine villages on the valley floor thousands of feet directly below us became apparent. As we proceeded down into the Sognal fjord, the valley opened out to allow a view of better weather ahead.
We were both somewhat speechless for about 20 minutes over the top, though I do remeber a few classics from Helen; "They say that NZ is like Norway, well, I think that Norway is even MORE like Norway" and while photographing, "I just can't zoom out any further!"
Near the top of the Sogndal fjord is Sogndal airport, ususally approached as a destination highlight from the west by flying up the fjord. Although incredible in itself, the precarious tarmac runway cut into the steep side of the fjord, a few thousand feet high above the water seemed like a comfortable and safe haven to us as we positioned way too high for final approach. The visual perspective made the runway approach unlike any other that I've ever made before and I was too conservative with height and decided to go around for a look at the village and a second attempt. Once down and shutdown we ate some congratulatory muesli bars in the cockpit then headed for the control tower building to say hello. The fire and control buidlings are proper Norweigen alpine construction and fit out. The super friendly operations man was watching biathalon sytle shooting on TV and told us "the controlled in the tower want to talk to you". Oh no, I thought back over our approach and landing wondering what I was about to get in trouble for. It turned out that all he wanted to know was whether we would mind him putting a photo of the Jabiru up on his facebook page. The fire guys ran out and snapped Oscar Lima while we chatted to the controller about the position of the power cables that span the valley in several places in the lower section of the Fjord. We thought a Norweigean alpine airport was interesting. He thought our Jabiru was interesting. Everyone was happy. On to Bergen.
How AMAZING is this landscape!?
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