The Hong Kong Radio Control Soaring Society organized a soaring trip to Grass Island (Tap Mun) on Sunday, 9 February, 2003. Totally 20 r/c soarers and their guests participated in this event. The trip started early in Sunday morning as fellow pilots converged in Wong Shek Pier in Sai Kung for taking the 10:30am ferry to Grass Island.  Grass island is a small remote island in the northeast coast of Hong Kong. The surrounding scenery is one of the most beautiful in Hong Kong. People visiting this island would definitely be impressed with its tranquility, and most importantly, the island boosts many grassy east-facing slopes. The wind coming unobstructively from Mirs Bay can provide r/c soarers  with endless lift. We arrived at the slope at about 11:00am. Some overnight campers were already there. The slope is facing east to the direction of Mirs Bay with a stony  beach below. Unfortunately, when we arrived, the wind was very light, guessed to be around 2 km per hour. So only high performance or floaty gliders can manage to stay airborne. Surprisingly, for wind speed as low as this, most gliders will be grounded if we fly in other slopes, such as those in Fei Ngo Shan or Clearwater bay. But we still manage to fly in this wonderful slope - it is definitely one of the best slope available in Hong Kong! We had about one and half hour of fun flying there before going down to the village restaurant for lunch. We came back up to the slope after lunch and soon discovered that the wind was picking up at about 15 km/hr. Wow! It's wonderful! So we immediately started flying all other aerobatic models. Onlookers to this remote island were fascinated with the ability of our powerless gliders to not only stay airborne for such a long duration but also to their stunning aerobatic capability. After two hours of intense flying, some fellow soarers decided to explore other possible slopes in the northeast coast of the island. They climbed up and down to a slope near Lung Keng Kan and soon discovered that the wind direction was changed to southeast, that made the flying off the northeast facing slope very difficult. With some successful soaring off a cliff and a dangerous if not difficult pickup at the cliff's edge, we really have good fun up there. By 4:40pm it's time to pack up and left this beautiful place. We managed to reach the pier to take the 5:00pm ferry back to Wong Shek Pier. What's a wonderful trip!

A group photo at the slope in Grass Island

Good fun to soar along this grassy slope

Our exploration team to the northeast coast

Plenty of space for soaring and landing too!

You can lay down on the grass field or sit on the rock while enjoying the tranquility of silent flight

Daniel, you still need help after having logged hours and hours of airtime?

Shooting Star on carving the airspace along the slope

Wow! Y.C., this is not the way to catch a sailplane

Spot landing on the lonely bush here! Well done!

It is definitely one of the best slope in the territory