as I can not do orienteering as often as in the last years, this one was a must; running the swiss relay championship and the 10. national event both in the Engadin valley.

The Engadin valley in the alps offers a similar terrain like the nordic countries. Orienteering requires o-skills and can be very tricky.
Marianne, Nadine an me knew this area since we have been here a couple of times not only for vacations but also for orienteering. On this picture you see one of the difficult parts of my course. Since I wear a GPS receiver during most of races I can easily analyse my performance afterwards.

btw: unfortunately my tracks don’t look that good all the time, but I only show you the better ones.

Marianne and me spent another week in Rabland with biking and relaxing. Biking most of the time means also climbing because only the cycleway along the river Etsch is flat. It is usual that on each tour you will have to climb from 600 to 1300 meters.

But at the end of each trip we could relax in the wellness pool and enjoyed again a wonderful time at the hotel Rössl. With better maps we did a tour again where we get lost last year. This time without any problems. (photos).

together with Esther, Franziska and Mario Alain and me toke part at a 3-day orienteering event in Laesø . Laesø is a small island far north in Denmark.

I have chosen this event because the area there is rather flat which is good for my knee. But as it turned out doing orienteering can be really tricky in such a terrain. Of course we enjoyed the time on the island and visited all three villages (see photos).

We are living just 900 meters away from the hospital and therefore it is common to see the REGA helis landing and starting. When REGA introduced the Eurocopter EC-145 it doesn’t take a long time and Revell sells a kit of this heli in 1:72.

I have built this model which is quite small in 1:72 (only 14cm long) to complete my collection of REGA helis: EC-145, Agusta A-109 and BO-105.

The experimental aircraft Short S.C.1 that I have now finished as a model in 1:72 isn’t just an ordinary plastic kit as most of my models. It also has a special meaning to me.

First the Short S.C.1 was at the beginning of the Harrier story. The famous VTOL aircraft developed by Hawker Siddeley.
Second this kit is a resin kit from Pro Resin Models. Resin as a material is difficult to handle, it easily breaks and you have first to cut and sand every piece of the kit before you can start assembling it. I’ve built other kits with resin parts but this one is an all resin kit so it took a lot of time and patience to finish it (photos of the model).
And finally it remembers me of my childhood. I saw this aircraft in a magazine and from that moment I always insist to get one if my mother went to Winterthur for shopping. This was in the 60ies and of course there was no such kit around at that time. But as you see - time is changing.

from 10. to 14. February we travelled to Spain. As a christmas gift Marianne invited Nadine and me to a two day orienteering event near Alicante.

We toke place at the COMOF Cup. On Saturday there was middle distance competition and on Sunday one over the classic distance (real orienteering).

Since Nadine and Marianne were starting in de Elite class that means they will have running times of around 90 minutes.

After this o-event we travelled back to Valencia where we spent two more days shopping and sightseeing.
Photos of this weekend are on my Flickr account and the results are posted by the organizer.

again, another one
For a long time I was having this kit of a Lockheed Orion from Special Hobby in my stash. But one thing was missing: the decals. I knew of this aircraft as an early Swissair type. During xmas time I found that it was time to draw the decals as I had the sketches already. So I started my Adobe Illustrator program. Then I sent the file to Joseph Osborne from Fireball Modelworks to get them printed.

I already ordered many decals from Fireball Modelworks and I know that his decals are always first class. This one, a custom made decal-set, was no exception.