… And because it’s dark we’re not subjected to those hideous harness colours.

The-RiotACT takes a peek at the local flying scene.

Good work Andrew.

Mark Sullivan, great to have you back on the flying scene. Looking forward to forging a whole lot more memories in the coming years.

Check out Mark’s video of the ole’ days. Amazing to see the like this.

A long, long time ago. In a land before HD cameras and recording to SD cards. The Dusty Demons crew got together during the off season for a bit of cold hard filming action.

After 4 years of procrastinating, misplacing the files a few times and YouTube changing their rules it is finally ready for public release.

Nic Welbourn, on the back of making the award winning “Show us you limits” video, continues to do great things for hang gliding by getting on the radio and really getting the word out there about what we do. Great work Nic!

The interview

Incase you missed the actual video

Dave continues to get excited about the fantastic place…

Looking at the forecast for light N/E winds on the coast it seemed like an opportunity for a day trip to try a new site. The new site for us is Mt Wandera.

I first heard about this place from hangy pilot Adrian who has been launching from this mountain near his home which is about 20km inland from the coast near Moruya.  Wandera sounded awesome and I first went for a look last year to see this place and on the second attempt found the reasonably hard to find the road to launch. At first glance from launch this site was very impressive. It has a lot of XC potential. It’s launch height is 1700ft above bombout  and it’s surrounded by incredible scenery. It’s just one peak in this massive range running north and south, and only a couple of climbs over the back is the Araluen valley, once there you could end up back in Canberra or track further south to Cooma.

Spoilt for choice in the Canberra area we forgot about Wandera this past season but every now and then Adrian would let us know what we a were missing out on. So lately I’ve been looking out for the weather that would work. With the XC season getting a little docile around here and light winds forecasted for the coast it seemed like a good chance to check out Wandera. So Trent, Nick and I threw some wings on the roof and headed down for the day.

It started out overcast on the coast with some sun starting to brake through as we arrived on the Mountain. By the time I was ready to launch there was little sun on the ground and the cycles were becoming further apart.

After some patience I ran off into a gentle bubble and turned left to head along the rock face to the west. I got a gentle bubble that formed into 300ft/min over launch and joined by Trent we were a little surprised to be in something so solid given the 18c temp and lack of sun. It took us straight to base which was only 3600ft  but that was enough to take in the incredible scenery. Looking south down to Narooma, North to Ulladulla, Pigeon House Mt and over the back to the Araluen valley. I had high expectations for this site but this was so much more than I expected.

Nick had a good launch but missed his ride out. Trent and I optimistically headed on glide along the range to get another climb which would give us glide over to next valley west, but it wasn’t to be and 30mins later found ourselves landing at the northern end of the Buckenborra Property.

We headed home with huge smiles (due in part to the cold beer we were necking) and absolutely stoked at the flying a new site with such amazing potential.

See in September Mt Wandera.

Dave

Yet another awesome site within a couple of hours drive from Canberra.

Dave, Nick and myself finally took up Adrian’s offer to fly Mt Wandera, a site that he and his brother have established near Moruya on the south coast. These guys have done a great job on the site clearing a perfectly shaped dirt ramp from the treed ridge

This site is ideally situated for some really fun flights over the Araluen valley and on towards Canberra.

The view from launch. It looks like a fair glide out to the bombout which may seem intimidating to less experienced pilots. This is partly due to the optical illusion that takes place with the treed ridge in the foreground. It is difficult to gauge depth perception on your height relative to the bombout. A similar thing happens to your perception at Tongara.

Worst case scenario, with out any lift you would make it in a Sting or better. Nic, in an older Sting was able to pick a nicer paddock beyond the usual bombout. Nice work dude!

Dave and I managed a nice climb out over launch and possibly over estimated the day a little. How good would it be to make Araluen the first time we fly the site and only a week before the start of Winter?

Too good apparently! After reaching base at around 3300ft we headed off along the ridge to the north, where, if we conected with a climb we would have had the airstrip within glide. Instead, we followed lines of buoyant air out into the Buckenbowra valley to the NE of launch.

The flight ended too soon but it was enough to get a taste for what will be possible from this site.

Tracklogs

Even if the retrieve was a little eventful you can’t complain about the scenery.

The retrieve. A picture tells a thousand words.

A big thanks to Adrian and Craig for pioneering this fantastic site. We are really excited about the potential of this place. Thanks again to Craig for picking us up, without you we would have been stuffed.

Can’t wait for spring and the flights we will be having in this area.

Nic has made another very cool little vid of our favorite flying site.

Earlier: – Looks like we’re in for a nice little boat towards the coast.

Debrief for the day:

It was pretty hard going. Andrew B, Dave, Jon, Alex in his punter and myself line up.

Climbs were only taking to 3500ft so leaving the hill was pretty tricky. The recent rain has really taken the sting out of the climbs so patience was the call for the day. It’s like April conditions have come early.

In such tough conditions it was always going to be tough crossing the dam… brb

Tracklog here

What an amazing week last week was. Dave topped it all off by pulling out an amazing flight from one of our favorite local sites:

It was the previous Friday that  the forecast was calling  Eastery winds extending inland all the way to south Australia for the start of the following week which is exactly what I’ve been watching out for to do a big flight from my favourite site-Lake George is best known for its after noon and early morning flights because its an amazing dry lake bed with a 40km ridge  facing East so its perfect for  ridge soaring the Sea breeze that pushes  inland on a regular bases. The Canberra club has no shortage of keen pilots who cruise out after work or even get up early to soar the ridge.

As for going XC from the Lake all you need is a prevailing Eastery, which doesn’t happen too often so when I saw the forecast for Monday &  Tuesday I planned to have those days off work. Over the weekend the weather was looking better & better and I was  getting real keen. I got a call from Jonny Durand making some final plans for the Manilla comp, and knowing he was in Sydney I suggested he shoot down the Hume for a fly with me. Jonny had some Red Bull things to sort out on Monday so I said i’ll test the water on and we both have a go at big one on Tuesday which did look like the better day.