Archive for the ‘Videos’ Category

Sunday saw a good turn out of pilots launching from the Rex. Bob, Adam, Brett, Paul, Ron, Joe, Will and Matt. Everyone flew North landing at various locations along the way, some as far as Miallo.
A big thank you to Vanessa for being brave enough to drive a few smelly, sweaty hang glider pilots back to launch! She even bought beer and chips!
Here is the video…..

Check out this video of Jonny Durrand’s interview on the ABC’s 7.30 report…..

I know you have all been waiting for another trike video! So, here it is!

Morning Tablelands Flight from Tracey on Vimeo.

The Rock

First legal Flight in 10 Years!

“Sunday 31/5/09. Hmmm, look out the window, trees are still limp. . . it’s sunny though! Well should get up and prep the car and wing. Give my flying bud Ben a call, he’s still keen, give Evan and Muddy a message. . . yep they’re keen as well.

Righto glider packed; check. Flying buddy coming; check. Ground crew coming; check. “Now, um where’s that wind. . . .?”

‘The Rock’ is as the name suggests a large boulder on the side of Saddle Mountain, which can be found if you flip those VTC maps around to the Townsville side. Saddle Mt is 20mins south of Townsville in the Cape Bowling Green/ Mt Storth National Park over looking the Clevdon causeway mud/salt flatlands.

Launch is a case of getting your glider up onto the Rock then hooking your harness in, hang check and jumping off. It’s a little bit of a step to get up there, necessitating at least 2 wiremen most of the time. Despite the extra manning requirement it’s not a hard launch once you’re actually on the Rock. Landing is most of the year pretty easy, as there is kilometre after kilometre of dry mud flats the whole 180 degrees in front of you which can be flown to with a 1:4 glide.

The winds needed are from ESE around to N any where from 0Kts (for those of you who know Ethel, he reckons he preferred just waiting for a thermal) up to about 20kts, but the perfect wind is about 15kts NE (more my preferred launch conditions). These winds can be found ANY time of year but are most prevalent from midway through winter to start of summer before the wet.

A LOT of work was put into this site about 15yrs ago by the Townsville Hang-Gliding Association (THGA). There was originally a 2500ft limit before the THGA got it raised to 3500ft. It’s a recognized HG site on the VTC. They used to have a wooden ramp to get up onto the rock which they had to take down but they filled in a large area with rocks and soil. Now it’s not really feasible to bring machinery in and there’s a large amount of fill so I’m assuming they did this by hand!

Now back to flying. . . about 10 the wind started picking up to 5-10kts SE as is usual for this time of year, Usually the Sun would bring on a strong sea breeze in the afternoon which swings the wind to NE 10-20kts. But some high level cloud was already taking the heat out of it. Any ways we were already packed so about 11:30 we all headed off. The LZ wasn’t showing much promise either, still very southerly probably 10kts SE. Getting up to the top and standing on the rock renewed our hopes though as it was blowing about 15kts seemingly more easterly. . . The mutual nod was given between Ben and I and glider setup commenced.

Ben was the first off the Rock with a good launch, and just like a movie the sun came out in full force just on takeoff. He slowly climbed away from launch (680ft) to about a grand filling me with confidence, so now my turn. Got my wing up there, hooked in and did an alright launch I thought . . . you can all critique it on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk3N7Ynj0kc (see below).

I’m sure I’ll hear all about how dodgy it looks. It’s not as bad as it looks I don’t think, as I probably stuffed around a bit longer than I should have on the rock and went out a bit far and lost a little height. Having said that, I’d not flown the site since last year so I was playing it safe. After I came back in next to the hill I also climbed to about 800ft as it plateaued off for a while. Ben still at a bit over a grand decided to try for the skip back over the Telstra tower to the back ridge, about half way though he also decided to play it safe and came back just under my height. Well now about an hour into things the sun had left and we could feel the bumps and sink getting bigger as the wind tended more towards SE again, sure enough Ben was the first to touch down with me a couple of minutes later.

All in all we thought it was a good day especially for the first flight in 10+ years at the Rock, with a renewed permit from Queensland parks and wildlife. This renewed permit I must say wasn’t a walk in the park to get either. Bob and Trace must be given a lot of the credit for achieving! I would also like to thank anyone else who had a part in getting the Rock hang-gliding site opened again as like 15 years ago it took almost a year to get all the paper work through.

Thanks Guys!

And last but not least there’s one person that has been asked about a million times exactly how strong the wind needs to be and from what direction to safely get off the rock, Where the lift will be hiding and how to start heading south cross country, the wealth of experience that is Ethel. Cheers mate!

-Sean

I feel a roadtrip coming on….

Eungella Chalet

On the Ramp

Brod ready to go and Bob in the air

John with his shiny new toy!

Laurie and James

John, Trace and Bob logging some Hang Waiting hours!

Here is the video………

Hang Gliding at Eungella, near Mackay QLD from Tracey on Vimeo.

Recently Brod organised a weekend away for the Club to go to Cooktown and fly a site north of the town.

The weekend was well attended. Bob and Brett flew up in the trike from Atherton. Brod, John, Damien, Joe, Roger, Barney, Tracey, Wayne and Julie all drove to Cooktown. Everyone converged at the Cooktown airport on Saturday morning to pick up Brett and Bob.

From the airport it was a 3 hour drive via Hopevale township and out to the coast via a 4 wheel drive track.

Brett was the first to climb the steep hill above the wide sandy beach with his para-glider. He had a couple of short flights and then a longer flight of around an hour or so.

Everyone lugged their hang gliders up the hill looking for the best launch site.

Joe took off in his floater and managed a short zip down to the beach!

John decided to move further up the hill to take advantage of the steeper terrain funneling the wind better. He took off and managed to soar the ridge for about an hour or so.

Kev flew in from Port Douglas in to Cooktown his trike to say G’day. Tracey and Bob drove out to meet him at the airport that night. After a good feed at the RSL they stayed the night in town. Up early Sunday morning to catch the nice smooth air for the trip back to Atherton and Port Douglas. Both trikes did a pass over the boys camped on the beach to wake them up and then headed south for the 4 hour flight back!

Sunday saw Brett get in another good flight. The wind could have been a little stronger for the hang gliders with only 10-15KTS SE blowing in.

A good weekend had by all!

Below are a few photos from the weekend; Check out the video on vimeo.

The beach with Cooktown in the back ground.

Brett flies the ridge.

The beach and ridge from the air.

Joe sets up

Cooktown from the air and Tracey and Bob after the flight at Atherton.

Here is the video!

Cooktown Fly-in from Tracey on Vimeo.

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

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