Post by atmosteve on Jan 16, 2008 18:17:27 GMT 10
The motorbike, a somewhat modified Bee and me put in 1981 Kilometres over 9 days on my recent SE Qld road to nowhere tour.
The highlights were meeting fellow aeromodellers, talking foamies, and flying them over some of the most spectacular landscapes that the east coast of Australia has to offer.
Come to think of it, visiting friends and relatives was the perfect excuse to go trecking and RC gliding
Next year i plan to do the same sort of thing if possible. Attending the next windsock new years party, then wandering off to investigate other slope soaring sites potential up or down the east coast for a few days.
Brissy/Redcliffe area Windsock New Years Party Weekend
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Woody Pt Redcliffe wasnt a goer Due to SE winds over the windsock get together weekend, but SC gave us some fair fun on Saturday arvo, less so on Sunday. Still the weather could have been much worse and we did make the most of the sea breeze while it lasted. When it failed Steve, Callun and Adrian took up the challenge to create some flying.
Toowoomba area
Approaching Gowrie Mt from Twmba. Heading due west.
The last bit must be tackled on foot, you can get most of the way up by bitumen road. Just ask a local for details if unsure.
Looking due west over what was on that day the middle backside.
Looking to the north end backside from the southern point of the ridge, the north end in view was were i tossed a loaded bee.
View recipricated, south end as viewed from the northern end of ridge.
Very clean, fat lift was what i found on the Gowrie Mt ridge. The cleanest i found anywhere on the trip. It was on the larger slopes like this I was happy my pull apart bee is a fairly rigid build suitable for lead loads, it got up and went . Though the flexy combat style elevons werent really up to it, we did ok.
Convenient foamy retardants to the left of the launch point. Landing on the top of the hill comes a distant second to the trees. Its pretty rocky up top.
The upper Twmba range suburb of Prince Henry Heights is serviced by Prince Henry Drive. This fly site is one is the first you will come across on the Drive, just before Katoomba Lookout. Twmba rarely gets a northerely, but this could just be the place to head when they happen. Heaps of soft LZ greenery just below too.
This is a bit more serious, Prince Henry Park facing SE. Heaps! of potential lift, you are up in an 1800 foot valley. I didnt fly here as i was getting a bit tired and pressed for daylight time. - i.e I piked out.
The same small park viewed from the next lookout point on Prince Henry Drive. It is a steeper frontside and more unstable than it looks in these pics, a shot of adrenalin please.
A much saner option could be Webb Park just up and around the corner from Prince Henry Heights at Fairhome. Its an interesting place to hurl your light foamy, thats all i can really say. When you get your glider around 20 metres or so above the park, try not to be to surprised when it abruptly takes an elevator lift towards valhalla.
This is having a hurl at Bill Gould lookout at Picnic Point, Twmba.
Callun mentioned elswhere that flying the Picnic Point area is not for the feint of heart. I pretty much agree, I dont recommend it either, unless you get off on this kind of thing... Its an insane place to try fly anything. Lets just leave it at that.
13Km out of Twmba on the New England hwy is the very new suburb of Preston, it has a hill, the reason for Preston real estate is the hill..
At the top of it is a very new park called, fittingly, Panoramic park. It's a decked out little parK. It faces WSW. When those famous Twmba Westerely's kick in this might be the place to be. The winds on the trip were SE, i couldnt fly here, but i think it would offer sensational lift.
Your panoramic launch point, sir.
Most all the places in this post are on public/state land, so as usual care and consideration to residents and spectators comes first.
This was a private slope i used to fly a 2m glider as a twelve year old kid. Back then, going over the back meant you had stuffed up.
Nature has claimed it today.
Sunshine Coast Hinterland, Bald knob
Sean was kind enough to meet and introduce me to the Maleny RC glider club site at Bald Knob, what a totally gorgeous place to lob a glider into the yonder!!
The weather was not kind on Thursday, but we had a go and made the most of the blustery south wind.
Sunshine coast
Friday at Clowntown was a bummer. The weather was a fizzer for all but a wave of young grommets.
We had much better luck after taking the short drive up the road to Alexandra Headlands. A leadless bee and 5-6 knots of eastish breeze had the ultra light bee wafting around in a very non-threatining manner.
Waiting around for nothing to happen at Pt Cartwright between 2-3pm Friday.
On the way home to Caloundra I had to call into Moffat's beach point and Kings beach again. No joy due to SE winds. I didnt get to fly Moffats, but i believe you guys when you say it can go off when the wind swings from east through to northerely.
Saturday the weather redeemed itself and the bee and i were rewarded with a 10-15 knot south easterely. We had a quick fly at Kings beach, but then high tailed it to Pt Cartwright, good move.
Absolutely love this site, a sheer joy to fly and land in the hand.
You can even buzz the tower. ;D
Sometimes you just have to kick back, relax, and enjoy the view.
Coolum area
From Pt Cartwright and Moloolaba, I choofed off up the road a bit Saturday arfternoon to Coolum. Point Arkwright down Andrews street has a nice little SE facing coastal slope, with an excellent LZ. I didnt fly here though, a hill behind me was calling.
The park LZ at Point Arkwright, pretty sweet.
Yep you cant ignore it, cruising along the Sunshine Motorway.
Flying Mt Coolum... the grin is still etched on my face. You are more than rewarded for your steep climb to the very top.
This is serious front siding, on an average afternoon with a sea breeze happening, your model is really going to travel fast, even a combat wing thats rigid enough to keep inflight flex down.
This place is very much the business, your glider is soaring higher than the jets that bank and turn into the Marcoola jet airport!
If you want to see your foamy do lazy inverted loops, more consecutive rolls than you can count or any other manouvre or circuit you can dream up then this is the place for it.
The wind on Saturday afternoon wasnt smooth
but there sure was a lot of it. 
Noosa/Koroy area
Noosa resembled a crazed ant nest Sunday morning. I didnt stop for my $7 machiatto. Nice scenery there but.. ;D
This was taken from the lookout not far from Koroy. The Noosa and beach area didnt yield any clear fly zones. You could fly fronside here from the lookout, but best on a quieter weekday.
The Noosa hill lookout in the bakground faces NW and is shrouded now by greenery, a gliding no-go.
Show us your backside... Pretty rude hey. Lookout.
Rainbow Beach area
Sunday afternoon we arrived at Rainbow beach. SE winds still..
The Bee and I wandered the sandblow for some lift, it was not brilliant.. but the wind veered east on occasion and filled the blow with 10 knots of breeze. We ended up having the best flying on the sanblow lip down front.
More sand than blow.
Being a motorcycle hoon.
The lip of the sandblow mouth is very close to the township of Rainbow Beach just to its right. Rainbow Beach is undergoing some development expansion at the moment. Still, it is a lovely place to visit in every way.
Getting around on two wheels has a few advantages.
Monday morning i wanted to visit Double Island Point to check out fly site potential but the tide was rising until midday and i couldnt get past the 'rocks' until late arvo, not an option.
So i thought i would be clever and take the 22km of 4wd tracks to the Double Point beach and take it up from there by foot.
I got 20km along the track, and the last two were freshly graded, this meant they were really thick and flowery with sand. Fearing for my bike clutch and the lack of thick chunky knobs on my tyres, i had to turn back. I am proud to say I only fell off the bike 3 times going through thick loose sand at low speeds.
Plenty of lush rainforest on the Coloola coast.
I did want to make the most of the SE winds by hitting the Eastern side of Fraser Island, but By Monday I was running out of time, holiday funds and skin on my rearside. Maybe next year.
If any of you windsockers would like more details about the locations please PM me, I am more than happy to help. I didnt want to make the details too public.
The highlights were meeting fellow aeromodellers, talking foamies, and flying them over some of the most spectacular landscapes that the east coast of Australia has to offer.
Come to think of it, visiting friends and relatives was the perfect excuse to go trecking and RC gliding
Next year i plan to do the same sort of thing if possible. Attending the next windsock new years party, then wandering off to investigate other slope soaring sites potential up or down the east coast for a few days.
Brissy/Redcliffe area Windsock New Years Party Weekend
Woody Pt Redcliffe wasnt a goer Due to SE winds over the windsock get together weekend, but SC gave us some fair fun on Saturday arvo, less so on Sunday. Still the weather could have been much worse and we did make the most of the sea breeze while it lasted. When it failed Steve, Callun and Adrian took up the challenge to create some flying.
Toowoomba area
Approaching Gowrie Mt from Twmba. Heading due west.
The last bit must be tackled on foot, you can get most of the way up by bitumen road. Just ask a local for details if unsure.
Looking due west over what was on that day the middle backside.
Looking to the north end backside from the southern point of the ridge, the north end in view was were i tossed a loaded bee.
View recipricated, south end as viewed from the northern end of ridge.
Very clean, fat lift was what i found on the Gowrie Mt ridge. The cleanest i found anywhere on the trip. It was on the larger slopes like this I was happy my pull apart bee is a fairly rigid build suitable for lead loads, it got up and went . Though the flexy combat style elevons werent really up to it, we did ok.
Convenient foamy retardants to the left of the launch point. Landing on the top of the hill comes a distant second to the trees. Its pretty rocky up top.
The upper Twmba range suburb of Prince Henry Heights is serviced by Prince Henry Drive. This fly site is one is the first you will come across on the Drive, just before Katoomba Lookout. Twmba rarely gets a northerely, but this could just be the place to head when they happen. Heaps of soft LZ greenery just below too.
This is a bit more serious, Prince Henry Park facing SE. Heaps! of potential lift, you are up in an 1800 foot valley. I didnt fly here as i was getting a bit tired and pressed for daylight time. - i.e I piked out.
The same small park viewed from the next lookout point on Prince Henry Drive. It is a steeper frontside and more unstable than it looks in these pics, a shot of adrenalin please.
A much saner option could be Webb Park just up and around the corner from Prince Henry Heights at Fairhome. Its an interesting place to hurl your light foamy, thats all i can really say. When you get your glider around 20 metres or so above the park, try not to be to surprised when it abruptly takes an elevator lift towards valhalla.
This is having a hurl at Bill Gould lookout at Picnic Point, Twmba.
Callun mentioned elswhere that flying the Picnic Point area is not for the feint of heart. I pretty much agree, I dont recommend it either, unless you get off on this kind of thing... Its an insane place to try fly anything. Lets just leave it at that.
13Km out of Twmba on the New England hwy is the very new suburb of Preston, it has a hill, the reason for Preston real estate is the hill..
At the top of it is a very new park called, fittingly, Panoramic park. It's a decked out little parK. It faces WSW. When those famous Twmba Westerely's kick in this might be the place to be. The winds on the trip were SE, i couldnt fly here, but i think it would offer sensational lift.
Your panoramic launch point, sir.
Most all the places in this post are on public/state land, so as usual care and consideration to residents and spectators comes first.
This was a private slope i used to fly a 2m glider as a twelve year old kid. Back then, going over the back meant you had stuffed up.
Nature has claimed it today.
Sunshine Coast Hinterland, Bald knob
Sean was kind enough to meet and introduce me to the Maleny RC glider club site at Bald Knob, what a totally gorgeous place to lob a glider into the yonder!!
The weather was not kind on Thursday, but we had a go and made the most of the blustery south wind.
Sunshine coast
Friday at Clowntown was a bummer. The weather was a fizzer for all but a wave of young grommets.
We had much better luck after taking the short drive up the road to Alexandra Headlands. A leadless bee and 5-6 knots of eastish breeze had the ultra light bee wafting around in a very non-threatining manner.
Waiting around for nothing to happen at Pt Cartwright between 2-3pm Friday.
On the way home to Caloundra I had to call into Moffat's beach point and Kings beach again. No joy due to SE winds. I didnt get to fly Moffats, but i believe you guys when you say it can go off when the wind swings from east through to northerely.
Saturday the weather redeemed itself and the bee and i were rewarded with a 10-15 knot south easterely. We had a quick fly at Kings beach, but then high tailed it to Pt Cartwright, good move.
Absolutely love this site, a sheer joy to fly and land in the hand.
You can even buzz the tower. ;D
Sometimes you just have to kick back, relax, and enjoy the view.
Coolum area
From Pt Cartwright and Moloolaba, I choofed off up the road a bit Saturday arfternoon to Coolum. Point Arkwright down Andrews street has a nice little SE facing coastal slope, with an excellent LZ. I didnt fly here though, a hill behind me was calling.
The park LZ at Point Arkwright, pretty sweet.
Yep you cant ignore it, cruising along the Sunshine Motorway.
Flying Mt Coolum... the grin is still etched on my face. You are more than rewarded for your steep climb to the very top.
This is serious front siding, on an average afternoon with a sea breeze happening, your model is really going to travel fast, even a combat wing thats rigid enough to keep inflight flex down.
This place is very much the business, your glider is soaring higher than the jets that bank and turn into the Marcoola jet airport!
If you want to see your foamy do lazy inverted loops, more consecutive rolls than you can count or any other manouvre or circuit you can dream up then this is the place for it.
The wind on Saturday afternoon wasnt smooth
but there sure was a lot of it. 
Noosa/Koroy area
Noosa resembled a crazed ant nest Sunday morning. I didnt stop for my $7 machiatto. Nice scenery there but.. ;D
This was taken from the lookout not far from Koroy. The Noosa and beach area didnt yield any clear fly zones. You could fly fronside here from the lookout, but best on a quieter weekday.
The Noosa hill lookout in the bakground faces NW and is shrouded now by greenery, a gliding no-go.
Show us your backside... Pretty rude hey. Lookout.
Rainbow Beach area
Sunday afternoon we arrived at Rainbow beach. SE winds still..
The Bee and I wandered the sandblow for some lift, it was not brilliant.. but the wind veered east on occasion and filled the blow with 10 knots of breeze. We ended up having the best flying on the sanblow lip down front.
More sand than blow.
Being a motorcycle hoon.
The lip of the sandblow mouth is very close to the township of Rainbow Beach just to its right. Rainbow Beach is undergoing some development expansion at the moment. Still, it is a lovely place to visit in every way.
Getting around on two wheels has a few advantages.
Monday morning i wanted to visit Double Island Point to check out fly site potential but the tide was rising until midday and i couldnt get past the 'rocks' until late arvo, not an option.
So i thought i would be clever and take the 22km of 4wd tracks to the Double Point beach and take it up from there by foot.
I got 20km along the track, and the last two were freshly graded, this meant they were really thick and flowery with sand. Fearing for my bike clutch and the lack of thick chunky knobs on my tyres, i had to turn back. I am proud to say I only fell off the bike 3 times going through thick loose sand at low speeds.
Plenty of lush rainforest on the Coloola coast.
I did want to make the most of the SE winds by hitting the Eastern side of Fraser Island, but By Monday I was running out of time, holiday funds and skin on my rearside. Maybe next year.
If any of you windsockers would like more details about the locations please PM me, I am more than happy to help. I didnt want to make the details too public.
Hard to describe where I was withoug actually being there, or having you in front of me to explain.
