Kebnekaise wave soaring camp 1969

For over 50 years glider pilots from all over Europe have gathered in northern Sweden on the ice runway of Paittasjärvi lake, close to Kiruna city and the highest mountain in Sweden, Kebnekaise. Kiruna soaring club (http://www.sfk-kiruna.se/) have organized this event since 1961.
This movie is digitized from old 8mm films from 1967. It is a silent movie and I have tried to follow the spirit of the era with some "cue cards" in between and appropriate music (if google lets me keep it).
The next camp starts on the 31.03.2012 and ends at 15.04.2012, you are most welcome.
If you wonder where it is located have a look here: http://g.co/maps/rdxjz

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Sports

Tags:

• Glider
• flying
• soaring
• wave
• aviation
• Flight
• Air
• Airplane
• Fly
• Aircraft
• Plane
• Planes
• kebnekaise
• Pilot
• Aviator
• Camp

[chrysalis72]

Incredible piece of history, lovely to read your comments and find you are the little cutie in it. wonderful film. thanks for posting x

[tomarppe]

@chrysalis72

Thank you for the kind words. All the credit for the film goes to Pelle Lönnberg who is behind the camera, I just transferred it to a format for the digital generation and added a few comments. I believe we have to preserve a bit of the good old times for the coming generations. Nevertheless i'm sure that after a while someone will see year 2012 as the good old times as well ;-)

[kovakeli]

Thank you for sharing this beautiful piece of history. Any clue who's the little boy on the video?

Sami

[tomarppe]

@kovakeli

If you mean the one sitting on the oxygen tube and removing very disturbing pocket lint from his candies, well that's me, at 5 years of age. Been infected with flying from the very beginning. First time in a glider at age 2 and as you can see from my other videos, never got rid of the disease :D

Cheers

-Tom

[tomarppe]

Hi Robin,

Nice to hear from you, it truly was a trip down memory lane to digitize this piece of history. I have never flown a Vasama but there is a distinct possibility to remedy that as a friend of mine owns one and have promised me a flight in it.

Last year I was the whole two weeks at the camp and it was a true pleasure after such a long time. I have already reserved time off to attend this year as well. Hope to see you there...

Cheers - Tom

[phreykin]

Hi Tom! Nice to be reminded of the old days, and especially to see Victor Alpha Juliet in the air. I joined Cumulus in summer 1968, and first flew VAJ on 9.6.1968 after your father and Rainer had first kept a strict eye on me flying PAR, Cumulus' PIK-5. After moving to Rovaniemi, I first flew at Paittasjärvi in 1971, mainly in RIK's K6CR but also - once - in VAJ in wave. I see that you are also a star in the film! Picked out Stig and I think Nisse too.

Greetings - Robin