The goal of this area guide is to provide the basic knowledge about the area to visiting pilots and newer club members, but the guide can not be a substitute for your own careful assessment of the conditions on a particular day. When in doubt, you may well prefer to explore the beauty of the Canungra area on the ground: the Beaudesert Shire website has lots of useful tips.

You have to make your own decisions about flying!

• Please check the Pilot Code of Conduct.
• You absolutely need to have a current HGFA membership for insurance reasons; the club requires that you either take out a (short-term) CHGC membership or that you pay site fees.
• As a visiting pilot you must fly a site only in the presence of CHGC members!
• Make sure you to follow the access rules specific to a site and be aware of height and landing zone restrictions.
• Familiarise yourself with the sites: Beechmont, Mt. Tamborine, Hinchcliffe's and Flying Fox.
• Our sites are relatively demanding to fly, please make certain you are sufficiently rated and experienced before flying here.
• As the details of site conditions (eg. access, seasonal bombouts) change occasionally, we strongly suggests that you inquire with club members about the newest status before launching.
• It is also very much suggested that you fly with club members initially; You will be welcomed by the local pilots and benefit from our detailed knowledge about the area.

For further information about the local flying sites, please contact: Ken Hill, Phil Hystek or Raef Mackay.

New pilots and visiting pilots may not realise how fragile our connection to these sites are for Hang gliding and Paragliding in the near and far future. Hang gliding and Paragliding are quite different in this respect from mainstream sports. If not for continuing work by the Club and awesome efforts by certain individuals, it is probable that these sites would be lost forever. All pilots should be super considerate and respectful towards landowners and nearby residents (close gates, pick up rubbish, drive slowly etc), support the Club and don't begrudge paying Club fees and Site fees.

This is only a guide to basic practicalities, safety, legalities and club rules for the CHGC flying sites. It is not perfect and will need periodic updating. The intentions for this guide are to help new pilots and to promote attitudes that will help protect the sites.

The established term 'bombout' is used for designated landing zones at the bases of the mountains. Pilots should remember that bottom landings are usually safer than top landings on mountains and try not to sacrifice safety for convenience or bravado.

CHGC members are friendly, cooperative and trustworthy. On weekends there are enough people flying that transport usually works out. The club uses UHF radio channel 19 with CTCSS frequency 97.4 (aka. CTCSS channel 11), and you will find there are social, convenience, educational and safety benefits in being radio-equipped.

Most of the sites have adequate coverage for Telstra GSM mobile phones.

Some club members meet at Canungra and carpool up to launch before flying. Some leave a car at Tambo bombout and then carpool up to launch to fly. If you get a ride up in a pilot's car it is accepted custom to pay $3(Tambo)/$5(Beechmont) towards petrol, as some pilots are providing their vehicle much more often than are others. There is a taxi (0755451577) which can take you from Tambo bombout to launch for $20-$25. At Beechmont walking up works quite well and hitchhiking is not so rewarding as the region is less populated and possibly the proximity of the prison farm deters motorists from stopping for strangers.

XC outlanding retrieves. It is suggested that the following contributions to fuel are made following a retrieve from:

• Biddadaba/Kerry/Beaudesert - $5
• Rathdowney/ Hillview - $10
• Boonah - $15
• Aratula - $20
• Over the Range you'll have to negotiate with the driver.

New: Airservices Australia now offer online access to airspace maps (with limited resolution and no download capability however) on their Flying Around Website.

On the current VTC airspace map (shown right) and the VNC regional airspace map (800kb) blue line areas specify the height limits in feet after "CLL", eg. CLL 7500 for Mt. Tamborine; the shaded circles denote the launch sites.
The area map (shown right, or larger here, 1.4mb) shows designated launch and landing areas. A list of waypoints in our area is available here (ZIP file with waypoints in multiple formats, thanks Matt!)

Please Note: The Kooralbyn Drop Zone (southwest of Beaudesert) operates 7 days a week within a 3nm radius of the airstrip. They monitor UHF CH 19 and can be contacted on 07 5544 6323 for information regarding operations.