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Post by thevon on Feb 10, 2008 21:38:55 GMT 10
Sean has done a report on today's trip to Ngungun (used to be called Ngun-ngun but I see they seem to have abbreviated it now! I'll put some photos below. This is looking South. Sean at the top when we arrived, where the track comes to the top.  The top is a bit like the lip of a volcano crater – a narrow rock ridge running in a curve around a bowl. This is Looking from where Sean’s sitting, towards the highest (west) end of the ridge  Now looking the same way, but a bit to the right, ie looking over the backside (on the north of the ridge). That's Mt Coonowrin (Crookneck) with Mt Beerwah towering behind it. These 3 mountains are almost perfectly lined up. We'll have to try Beerwah one day with a N or S wind, in cooler weather.  Now if you walk 80m or so to the top, and look back to the East – you can see the planes on the ridge down lower, where Sean was sitting.  This was flying at the East end, just near where the planes were sitting  Pretty much the same spot, looking over the back  From the same spot, but looking the other way  |
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Post by sean on Feb 10, 2008 21:45:50 GMT 10
Well, Ngun-ngun was very promising! The wind didn't really come to the party today but we managed to get quite a bit of slow DS in. The hill has a very nice shape - there's a shear cliff facing about SSE with a very sharp, rocky ridge at the top. Behind this ridge it dips away maybe 20M before flattening out into a fairly large plateau before the mountain drops away again. The rocky ridge at the top curves around to the east so it seems flyable in anything from E to nearly S, but SE to SSE would be the best. There are no trees on the ridge and the flat area on the back is rocky with a soft low shrubs scattered around - no tall trees down there either. So the backside is very nicely shaped for DS with lots of room - no obstacles to avoid. There's a large plain in front of the mountain, so the wind should be nice and smooth. Also it looks like there should be a nice clean shear layer when the wind picks up. Overall it's one of the most promising DS sites I've seen, the only thing I'm not sure of is whether the sheer cliff at the front will create the right kind of shear layer. Throwing off the sheer cliff for the first time was a bit nerve-wracking but lift was quite good, at first  . Today the wind seemed very east, maybe even due-east at times and very light, so speeds weren't high. I only flew my Skua - I took the Reaper up too but with light patchy lift for most of the day it seemed too risky to fly it. At times we were struggling to stay up on the front and DS speeds were mostly very slow with occasionally OK speed. Andrew's heavyish Bat was getting round much quicker than my lightweight Skua later int he day. The back was very smooth but that's to be expected in such light wind I guess. Landings are a bit tricky. With the light foamies it was pretty easy - just aim for a soft bush on the back of the hill - but it tended to be you'd go straight through the bush and hit solid rock, sounded nasty but didn't actually cause much damage  . However if you wanted to fly glass up there it might be tricky. There are some nice soft looking areas of shrub down on the plateau behind the ridge, but unless you could get down to the bottom for the landing the chances are you'd miss the shrubs and hit rock (all the shrubs are growing over solid rock). I tried to land the Skua on these shrubs to see how hard it'd be to do, but being well above the landing zone I misjudged the height, went sailing past the shrubs and landed in a line of low trees on the backside of the rocky ridge. It'd be quite doable from the bottom but scrambling down the rocks while flying would be pretty challenging I reckon! Overall it was a fun, satisfying day of flying, the walk was fairly hard work but not too bad. We'll try to get back there the next time there's a really fresh SE blowing,it could be really good, fingers crossed! If it is good, we may develop some fitness climbing up there on a regular basis to satisfy our DS obsession! Couldn't be a bad thing... |
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Post by thevon on Feb 10, 2008 21:59:14 GMT 10
Sean one interesting thing is that Steve C was up at Pedwell Rd today getting his Miraj dialled in (he's still crowing) and he said there was heaps of wind, 20 - 25 knots up there. We certainly didn't have that up at the Glasshouse Mts! Would have been lucky if it ever hit 13 knots I reckon. That Pedwell Rd valley sure is good for funnelling SE winds.
I had plenty of crashes today -- 1) aiming for the top of a tree but overshooting it and crashing into the lower branches of another one ... 2) one was just brainfade and ploughed into the bottom ... 3) the worst was right at the end when I was really enjoying the Bat carving around nicely. I went around a bit too slow and too low and came up the back too slowly and thought jings, I don't want to clip the top of the ridge and spin over the cliff, so I"ll plant it into these low shrubs below my feet ... but it cleared them and did a nose plant directly into the rock wall at the top! Thud! Lots of mushy foam.
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Post by ezza on Feb 10, 2008 22:47:23 GMT 10
Wow guys!! Looks like a really fun day. Site looks great for ds'ing. Not so great for landing, but well worth trying again on a windy day, you think? Great write up. The description and photos are perfect. I can picture it perfectly. How long is the climb? Was there anywhere to hover in with flaps on a real windy day up near the frontside? Maybe a solitary soft bush. So much easier if the plane is in the wind to knock off groundspeed. Great stuff.  Eric P.S. Those landings into rock must hurt.....OUCH! |
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Post by atmosteve on Feb 11, 2008 0:01:08 GMT 10
Thanks for that guys, looks and sounds really intersting in many ways, sorry though that the wind/lift didnt quite suit. Bloody spectacular looking all the same!
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Post by thevon on Feb 11, 2008 6:50:18 GMT 10
The walk is about 15 - 25 mins, depending how hot it is and how fit you are! Climbing Glasshouse Mts is not something you want to do on a stinking hot sunny day with no wind! At least on Ngungun, you're walking up the SE side so there's a bit of breeze in the bush (unlike Tibrogargan and Beerwah). It was a hot walk up. Yes there are quite a few soft bushes/trees on the frontside. That's one regret we had, we didn't really put much effort into working out a good landing spot. With the wind being weak we didn't want to spend too much time close to the rock. If there had been more wind you'd be more comfortable about hovering along the top of the ridge to try different approaches.
By the way, Google Earth images seem to be about 10 degrees too much clockwise rotated, when the GE compass is set North. We used a compass to check the directions of a couple of other mountains. For example Mt Tibrogargan was 155 degrees from Ngungun, but on Google Earth it looks to be about 165. Same thing for Wild Horse Mtn (was 110 but GE shows as 120). This will affect your estimations of optimal wind direction. So to correct it, you need to rotate the GE compass about 10 degrees anticlockwise.
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Post by skyboyken on Feb 11, 2008 10:49:43 GMT 10
Andrew,
I think you'll find the compass difference is because Google Earth is showing True bearings and your compass is showing Magnetic bearings. IIRC the difference should be 12 degrees.
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Post by sean on Feb 11, 2008 12:50:21 GMT 10
Hey Ezza, in my opinion hovering in on the front would be way too risky with glass. There are some trees and shrubs but they're not dense, if you landed in one it would be quite likely that your plane would fall straight through - several metres - and impact the rock below. Or if you missed the shrub by a few feet you'd be into a boulder. Also, I reckon the sheer cliff would probably create lots ot turbulence on the top of the ridge so a controlled touch down may be very difficult.
I'm really looking forward to getting there in some strong wind so some of these questions can be answered for sure!
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Post by thevon on Feb 11, 2008 14:48:38 GMT 10
Yeah I shouldn't have said "looking for a good landing spot" - should be "minimally damaging crashing spot"! On the front there are some bigger trees interspersed with the lower shrubby ones and you'd have to be a spot-landing genius to nail it. And there would also always be the risk of plopping it perfectly into the nice soft branches at the top, then having the plane slide out of the tree and fall 8ft down on its tail on a rock. There's a nice patch of dense low shrub at the bottom of the back but 1) you have to land down the dead side and 2) it's a bit too far down and back to line it up accurately. Definitely a challenge! I'll buy a King Size Mars Bar for the first guy who lands a moldie/ crunchie up there, undamaged!
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Post by st on Feb 11, 2008 20:12:20 GMT 10
why don't you guys buy a lightweight but large net that you can string up and just fly into? That'd work wouldn't it? Sounds like you guys have been having fun. Would have been good if i could join you on these adventures, but my wife is sick and I haven't been doing any work in the business. Will get back to it eventually |
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Post by ezza on Feb 11, 2008 20:16:53 GMT 10
Yeah I shouldn't have said "looking for a good landing spot" - should be "minimally damaging crashing spot"! On the front there are some bigger trees interspersed with the lower shrubby ones and you'd have to be a spot-landing genius to nail it. And there would also always be the risk of plopping it perfectly into the nice soft branches at the top, then having the plane slide out of the tree and fall 8ft down on its tail on a rock. There's a nice patch of dense low shrub at the bottom of the back but 1) you have to land down the dead side and 2) it's a bit too far down and back to line it up accurately. Definitely a challenge! I'll buy a King Size Mars Bar for the first guy who lands a moldie/ crunchie up there, undamaged! Wow, a king sized mars bar!! I'm in.  |
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. Today the wind seemed very east, maybe even due-east at times and very light, so speeds weren't high. I only flew my Skua - I took the Reaper up too but with light patchy lift for most of the day it seemed too risky to fly it. At times we were struggling to stay up on the front and DS speeds were mostly very slow with occasionally OK speed. Andrew's heavyish Bat was getting round much quicker than my lightweight Skua later int he day. The back was very smooth but that's to be expected in such light wind I guess.
. However if you wanted to fly glass up there it might be tricky. There are some nice soft looking areas of shrub down on the plateau behind the ridge, but unless you could get down to the bottom for the landing the chances are you'd miss the shrubs and hit rock (all the shrubs are growing over solid rock). I tried to land the Skua on these shrubs to see how hard it'd be to do, but being well above the landing zone I misjudged the height, went sailing past the shrubs and landed in a line of low trees on the backside of the rocky ridge. 
