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Andy from NSW had submitted a logo design to the CHGC design competition!

Hello CHGC!
With a love for flight of any kind,and finding your site,found it compelling to submit a design.
I live on the upper NSW coast,but not close enough to what I call God’s country.
Part of my family are lucky enough to be living in Cairns,but I need to make that step.
My submission is based on a “lighter than a feather”concept. As you seem to glide and fly like Birds,I thought it symbolised all that you resemble.
And always hoping to join a group like yours!
To fly like a bird-everyones dream.-or my dream.
Keep up that great spirit,and best wishes.

Wow! Great design, thanks Andy, we will keep you posted on the results.

You may have heard about a paraglider pilot landing in a tree behind the Rex on Sunday. Despite releasing from his harness about 5 metres above the ground he was quite OK!

The rescue team dispatched on Monday morning to retrieve the paraglider from the top of the tree.

Brett, Bob and John struggled their way through the thick forest about a km or so back from the look out. It took most of the day but they were successful in returning with at least three quarters of the paraglider!

Site of the landing

Success! and team leader Brett!

Brod has proposed a hang gliding weekend away at a location North of Cooktown. He is in the process of obtaining permission to access the area and camp.

If you would like to go along please contact Brod for more details.

At last Thursday nights club meeting it was decided that we should have a competition to design a new logo for the Cairns Hang Gliding Club T-shirt.

If you would like to enter the competition please email your entries to the club at flying@cairnshangglidingclub.org

The competition closes on the 1st June. Entries will be shown and voted on at the June club meeting. We can then get on with having T-shirts, caps and hats printed for the club.

Good luck!

Far North Crank Lizard

Some of Brod’s photos from Manilla have been added to the Gallery.

A couple of weeks ago Dave Keough from Adventure Microlights organised for Bill Gronbeck to come and give a cross country flying talk.

The talk was kindly hosted by Mark and Linda in their brand new hanger at their Figtree Creek airstrip.

Bill gave an excellent presentation and after a delicious BBQ lunch, Dave finished up with practical demonstrations and experience with charts, GPS and the dizzy wheel.

Pilots came from all around with about 15 people attending.

Thanks to Dave for arranging it, Bill for presenting it and Mark and Linda for allowing it to be held on their beautiful property.

Below is a group photo of some of the participants on the day.

As there is not much hang gliding going on at the moment, thought I might put some trike stuff up. Although, I did hear on the grapevine that Joe and Ron got a fly in at The Rex this week? Can anyone confirm or deny this rumour?

We had quite a bit of rain on the Tablelands in the early hours of Sunday morning. We had arranged to meet up with Kev over Lake Mitchell and fly to Port with him and Steve. Driving to Atherton at 5am it didn’t look very likely to happen!

Arriving at Atherton though it started to clear up quite quickly. So we pulled the trusty Tundra out of the hangar for re-fuel and pre-flight checks.

We taxied out onto a very wet and slippery runway. I have done quite a few take-offs from Atherton and I have never felt the wheels spin and the trike skid from side to side whilst taking off. It was very sticky with a long roll out. Needless to say I wanted to unstick from the water ASAP!

Once up and away, the air was clean and smooth. We decided to land at Mareeba, on the bitumen to avoid the wet grass. There was a great big puddle in the middle of the airstrip, so I landed past that! We swapped seats for Bob to fly to Port. Even the bitumen was slippery with the trike doing the same little dance on take-off. You can actually see it moving from side to side on the video!

We made contact with Kev around Lake Mitchell. He was about 500FT below and 2NM ahead of us. We continued on down to the Coast. An orbit over the Mowbray Falls showed quite a spectacular water flow! It was high tide along 4 mile beach, with not many landing options there we tracked north over the cane fields to land at Kev’s strip. The view north along the Coast to Cape Tribulation was full of clear blue ocean with not a ripple.

A quick hello to Kev and Steve and then back in the air for the trip home. We over stayed last time and had quite an horrendous flight back. Not so this time with a 15KT tail wind and more silky smooth air!

A careful landing back at Atherton with no brakes, taxiing back to the hangar and tuck the Tundra back into bed. She is now almost due for her 25 hour service!

Here are some pics of Port Douglas as we came over the Range from the West. You can check out the video  on vimeo.

Safe Flying

Tracey

Port Douglas

North to Cape Tribulation

Our new UK correspondent will keep us posted on flying news in the UK!

And from Mark shortly before Christmas

“It was every bit as cold as it looked at ground level, never mind at 5 grand!”

Now that the silly season is over we can all get back into some flying! Not much hang gliding happening up here at the moment with mostly northerlies and lots of rain.

Some of us have managed to get in some trike flying on the Tablelands though. Check out this video from last weekends flight around the Tablelands.

Check out Terry’s video at Terry Takes the Canoe for a Fly