Post by thevon on Aug 18, 2009 18:51:54 GMT 10
Today Nick and I made a pilgrimage to DS Mt Ngungun. Here’s a link to the report from time Sean and I went there before 18 months ago:
windsock.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=archived&action=display&thread=782
Ngungun is one of the smallest Glasshouse Mountains in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, SouthEast Queensland. It’s to the east of and directly in line with Mts Beerwah and Coonowrin (Crookneck). It’s about a 20 minute hard walk to the top, which has a stunning view of the mountains jutting up from the surrounding farmland, with Maleny and the coast in view. A classic spot everyone should visit.
The peak has a rocky razorback ridge running roughly east to west, in a curve with the tips of the curve bending to the north, if you know what I mean. The walking track comes up to the middle of the ridge. At the western end, it’s a 50m sheer cliff to the south. On the north side of the ridge is a bowl with very still air in a southerly wind. But there’s no landing zone. It’s all rocks and small trees.
The last time Sean and I were there it was definitely DSing OK, but the wind was very light. So with today being forecast a decent SSE, and needing to go up to Glasshouse to get a part for our tractor, I wanted to have another go at DSing Ngungun.
Nick didn’t take much convincing to come for the adventure, but had to use up lots of brownie points to get a few hours away from the strawberry farm. My mate Chris (who views RC gliders as quite boring and inferior in comparison to his helicopter passion) came along for a look too. We picked up the tractor part and Mark the tractor guy was so interested in the planes he wanted to see the action too! After picking up the bits we met Nick in Glasshouse, drove to the Ngungun car park, loaded up our backpacks and headed off with arms full of planes. I took the JW60, Reaper and the glass Ditza. Nick took the Skua and Duck. We even had some long aluminium tent poles and a big net, so we could experiment with landing in a net – but we didn’t get to try it today.
I think Chris and Nick were a bit fazed by the steep walk, but we got to the top in 22mins and the wind was great! Perfect direction too. But there were lots of people around! Abseiling, rockclimbing and several tour groups clambering along the ridge added to the anxiety of DSing this rather extreme spot! After a quick look, Nick launched the Skua.
He got lift, and dived in. The speed wasn’t high (max 68mph) but it was smooth. The spectators were very impressed! German tourists videoing the action. I took some pics and video but just missed capturing Nick expertly hand catching the Skua after his first flight!
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members.optusnet.com.au/vonberkykids/Ngungun/Nick%20DS%20Skua%202%20sf.jpg [/img]
Here's a video of the DSing:
vimeo.com/6158403
And here's an amusing video of Nick's landing:
vimeo.com/6158240
I soon launched the lumbering 1.7kg JW and it soared out but I was fighting the elevator constantly, so I twice landed to rectify a too-forward CG. “Landed” isn’t really the right term for crashing into small trees on the backside.
Great scenery hey!
Mark the tractor man arrived on top with his 5 year old son and was captivated by the gliders! I think he wants one. I flew some mild acro frontside, showing off, and tip stalled it doing a tight downwind turn below the lip. The retrieval below the cliff looked scary, but I found that 1) there was a good track going down the front, and 2) the JW was unharmed and back in the air shortly!
Meanwhile the lift got more and more patchy, and the backside air got more and more frothy. We each started finding it hard to get the groove at all and had some scary moments cruising downwards in big sink way out the front. We suspected that the wind was shifting to the east – and Seabreeze’s graphs show clearly that’s what happened just at that time today. There’s a cliffline lower on the SE foothills of the mountain, so when the wind moves to the east, it hits the lower cliffline first, messing up the lift on the top. The radar readings got lower - and so did the JW when I bombed out on the front. I ranged way out searching for lift and only got lower. We all had our hearts in our mouth for a while but things looked grim and I finally bailed. It was a choice between landing in paddocks way off, or coming back towards us and taking a chance in the trees where at least it would be closer. I chose the latter and the plane came in well below the cliffs under us, and disappeared into trees. We thought we could occasionally hear the sound of the beeping lost model alarm in the wind on the cliff edge.
We packed up and headed down, planning to follow the track to below the plane, hoping we’d be able to hear the LMA beeping. But we soon realized that the track descended so much that we would too far below. Hmm. We started to think this might turn into a major retrieval search, when my phone rang. “Is that Andrew” some stranger asked … “Are you still on top of the mountain?” “No … who is this??” I asked, still confused. “My name’s John – are you still up on the mountain”? At this point I had no clue who he was or why he was ringing me. He tried again: “Did you crash a plane in the bush?” “Yes …” I replied, still clueless, to which he replied “Well I FOUND it and I’m carrying it back down the mountain!”
I was stunned, and then remembered that I have stickers on my planes, with my name, address and mobile number! We worked out how to meet up on the track, and within 5 minutes these 2 guys came crashing down the hill out of the bush carrying my undamaged JW! Their names were Chris and John. They’d been at the bottom of the abseiling cliff and went in search of a strange beeping noise, only to find the JW! They found the sticker, and as they’d seen us flying on the top they knew we weren’t far away, so they phoned immediately and hey presto, plane and owner were painlessly re-united! I was ecstatic, and couldn’t thank them enough. We photographed each other and I gave them my contact details and told them to look for this report on Windsock!
I don’t know whether they or I were more excited about it. Truly, you’d think we’d rescued a missing child on Everest. My bad flying leads to all sorts of amazing adventures!
I think Ngungun’s worth another look when the wind’s S to SSW. I don’t think it’s going to break records, but definitely a good hit of the extreme sloping drug.
windsock.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=archived&action=display&thread=782
Ngungun is one of the smallest Glasshouse Mountains in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, SouthEast Queensland. It’s to the east of and directly in line with Mts Beerwah and Coonowrin (Crookneck). It’s about a 20 minute hard walk to the top, which has a stunning view of the mountains jutting up from the surrounding farmland, with Maleny and the coast in view. A classic spot everyone should visit.
The peak has a rocky razorback ridge running roughly east to west, in a curve with the tips of the curve bending to the north, if you know what I mean. The walking track comes up to the middle of the ridge. At the western end, it’s a 50m sheer cliff to the south. On the north side of the ridge is a bowl with very still air in a southerly wind. But there’s no landing zone. It’s all rocks and small trees.
The last time Sean and I were there it was definitely DSing OK, but the wind was very light. So with today being forecast a decent SSE, and needing to go up to Glasshouse to get a part for our tractor, I wanted to have another go at DSing Ngungun.
Nick didn’t take much convincing to come for the adventure, but had to use up lots of brownie points to get a few hours away from the strawberry farm. My mate Chris (who views RC gliders as quite boring and inferior in comparison to his helicopter passion) came along for a look too. We picked up the tractor part and Mark the tractor guy was so interested in the planes he wanted to see the action too! After picking up the bits we met Nick in Glasshouse, drove to the Ngungun car park, loaded up our backpacks and headed off with arms full of planes. I took the JW60, Reaper and the glass Ditza. Nick took the Skua and Duck. We even had some long aluminium tent poles and a big net, so we could experiment with landing in a net – but we didn’t get to try it today.
I think Chris and Nick were a bit fazed by the steep walk, but we got to the top in 22mins and the wind was great! Perfect direction too. But there were lots of people around! Abseiling, rockclimbing and several tour groups clambering along the ridge added to the anxiety of DSing this rather extreme spot! After a quick look, Nick launched the Skua.
He got lift, and dived in. The speed wasn’t high (max 68mph) but it was smooth. The spectators were very impressed! German tourists videoing the action. I took some pics and video but just missed capturing Nick expertly hand catching the Skua after his first flight!
Here's a video of the DSing:
vimeo.com/6158403
And here's an amusing video of Nick's landing:
vimeo.com/6158240
I soon launched the lumbering 1.7kg JW and it soared out but I was fighting the elevator constantly, so I twice landed to rectify a too-forward CG. “Landed” isn’t really the right term for crashing into small trees on the backside.
Great scenery hey!
Mark the tractor man arrived on top with his 5 year old son and was captivated by the gliders! I think he wants one. I flew some mild acro frontside, showing off, and tip stalled it doing a tight downwind turn below the lip. The retrieval below the cliff looked scary, but I found that 1) there was a good track going down the front, and 2) the JW was unharmed and back in the air shortly!
Meanwhile the lift got more and more patchy, and the backside air got more and more frothy. We each started finding it hard to get the groove at all and had some scary moments cruising downwards in big sink way out the front. We suspected that the wind was shifting to the east – and Seabreeze’s graphs show clearly that’s what happened just at that time today. There’s a cliffline lower on the SE foothills of the mountain, so when the wind moves to the east, it hits the lower cliffline first, messing up the lift on the top. The radar readings got lower - and so did the JW when I bombed out on the front. I ranged way out searching for lift and only got lower. We all had our hearts in our mouth for a while but things looked grim and I finally bailed. It was a choice between landing in paddocks way off, or coming back towards us and taking a chance in the trees where at least it would be closer. I chose the latter and the plane came in well below the cliffs under us, and disappeared into trees. We thought we could occasionally hear the sound of the beeping lost model alarm in the wind on the cliff edge.
We packed up and headed down, planning to follow the track to below the plane, hoping we’d be able to hear the LMA beeping. But we soon realized that the track descended so much that we would too far below. Hmm. We started to think this might turn into a major retrieval search, when my phone rang. “Is that Andrew” some stranger asked … “Are you still on top of the mountain?” “No … who is this??” I asked, still confused. “My name’s John – are you still up on the mountain”? At this point I had no clue who he was or why he was ringing me. He tried again: “Did you crash a plane in the bush?” “Yes …” I replied, still clueless, to which he replied “Well I FOUND it and I’m carrying it back down the mountain!”
I was stunned, and then remembered that I have stickers on my planes, with my name, address and mobile number! We worked out how to meet up on the track, and within 5 minutes these 2 guys came crashing down the hill out of the bush carrying my undamaged JW! Their names were Chris and John. They’d been at the bottom of the abseiling cliff and went in search of a strange beeping noise, only to find the JW! They found the sticker, and as they’d seen us flying on the top they knew we weren’t far away, so they phoned immediately and hey presto, plane and owner were painlessly re-united! I was ecstatic, and couldn’t thank them enough. We photographed each other and I gave them my contact details and told them to look for this report on Windsock!
I don’t know whether they or I were more excited about it. Truly, you’d think we’d rescued a missing child on Everest. My bad flying leads to all sorts of amazing adventures!
I think Ngungun’s worth another look when the wind’s S to SSW. I don’t think it’s going to break records, but definitely a good hit of the extreme sloping drug.
