Possum1

Duh! A very poor explanation. I am talking about the clear, visible and undeniable evidence of displaced thresholds on the two 2009 Google Earth satellite photo runs, the 2011 and 2012 run, all images of Kooralbyn airfield prior to it being marked closed. I am not referring to the images that clearly show the airfield closed from 2013 to 2016.

No it doesn't. Yes there is. The 2012 Google Earth satellite run shows no Xs on the runway. The 2013 run does. The Xs appeared in late 2012/early 2013. The old Rwy 12 displaced threshold is about 50m past the second cross immediately to the SE of the parking area. In the two 2009 and the 2011 Google Earth runs, adjacent to the parking area entrance, one of the arrows pointing to the Rwy 12 displaced threshold can still be faintly but clearly discerned on the bitumen, as can the displaced threshold itself, 80 metres further down the runway to the SE. The other displaced threshold at the SE end(Rwy 30) lies between the two lakes and can also be faintly discerned in the 2009, 2011 and 2012 runs.

I also noted that the windsock was missing on my visit on 19 January. I rang the reception at the Ramada Kooralbyn about this the following Monday morning and the lady said she would inform their maintenance dept straight away. As of my last visit, 16 February, the windsock has been replaced.

I don't know. Kooralbyn certainly wasn't mentioned in the overlay featured earlier in this thread.

I thought I would post a new thread here about Kooralbyn Airport as a destination for breakfast/coffee lunch etc. We recently flew into Kooralbyn from Archerfield for the all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast for $22 at Lilies Restaurant, which includes reasonable flat white coffee out of a machine, cereal, fruit and the usual full hot breakfast items. Coffee connoisseurs, you've been warned! At least you can go back and try the other coffee selections for no extra cost. There is also a toasting machine and a pancake-making machine to play with as well. The restaurant is located in the Kooralbyn Resort main building about 200m from the airstrip. Valley Kitchen Cafe(VK's), closer to the airfield, is also very popular but we have yet to try this. On the operational side, the new bitumen surface is excellent quality and the new windsock has been re-located to the parking area in front of the now unfortunately vandalised terminal building and former sky-diving base. It is of concern to me that the displaced thresholds, that were clearly marked when I was last here 23 years ago, have not been repainted on the new bitumen. I remember the Chief Pilot, under whose AOC I was operating a C206 for charters at the time, reminding me on more than one occasion about how important these were considering the surrounding hilly terrain. I have noticed at least one aircraft landing very short of where these displaced thresholds once were. I cannot find any old photos on the internet which show clearly where these thresholds once were, but there is a small history section display on the left hand side of the Resort reception area as you walk in where there is a clear photo of the runway thresholds as they once were. Here a pilot can clearly see where they are in relation to the lakes at the SE end and the parking and terminal area at the NW end. Does anyone have an old photo that shows these displaced thresholds?

I thought I would resurrect this old thread to provide updated info about Kooralbyn Airport as a destination for breakfast/coffee lunch etc. We recently flew into Kooralbyn from Archerfield for the all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast for $22 at Lilies Restaurant, which includes reasonable flat white coffee out of a machine, cereal, fruit and the usual full hot breakfast items. Coffee connoisseurs, you've been warned! At least you can go back and try the other coffee selections for no extra cost. There is also a toasting machine and a pancake-making machine to play with as well. The restaurant is located in the Kooralbyn Resort main building about 200m from the airstrip. Valley Kitchen Cafe(VK's), closer to the airfield, is also very popular but we have yet to try this. On the operational side, the new bitumen surface is excellent quality and the new windsock has been re-located to the parking area in front of the now unfortunately vandalised terminal building and former sky-diving base. It is of concern to me that the displaced thresholds, that were clearly marked when I was last here 23 years ago, have not been repainted on the new bitumen. I remember the Chief Pilot, under whose AOC I was operating a C206 for charters at the time, reminding me on more than one occasion about how important these were considering the surrounding hilly terrain. I have noticed at least one aircraft landing very short of where these displaced thresholds once were. I cannot find any old photos on the internet which show clearly where these thresholds once were, but there is a small history section display on the left hand side of the Resort reception area as you walk in where there is a clear photo of the runway thresholds as they once were. Here a pilot can clearly see where they are in relation to the lakes at the SE end and the parking and terminal area at the NW end. Does anyone have an old photo that shows these displaced thresholds?

The first Watts for Breakfast has just been announced here: http://www.wattsbridge.com.au/welcome.php, and the date(Sunday March 10) clashes with the Clifton Fly-in(also Sunday March 10). I, like many SEQ pilots, often go to both. Hopefully a solution will be found before both events suffer needless low attendances.

The Queensland Country Life report clearly states he crashed in the Auburn State Forest, which is about 10nm to the south-west of the town and before he would get to Mundubberra, coming from WA. From this crash location, it looks like he was trying to make Gayndah, about 28 nm to the East, where there is fuel.

The North Burnett Regional Council, nearby to the north-west Gympie, has just put in 4 weather cameras here at Gayndah Airport. They went live last Tuesday. If this council can do it, so can Gympie Regional Council instead of doing the above, which is really just maintenance dressed up as new work. Why hasn't this so-called expert put weather cameras at the top of the list for a Gympie Airport improvement? You people at Gympie Airport did have 2 cameras on Ben Quinn's Weathercam network site, but they only worked for a little while and have been off-line for a few years now. It would be nice to have the council pick up the tab for some new cameras which they would have the responsibility to maintain.

Stradbroke Air P/L, the lessee of Dunwich Airfield, North Stradbroke Island, held its first fly-in breakfast in November under the auspices of its new food business licence from Redland City Council. The Council confirms that, "Stradbroke Air P/L has undergone a food application licence process and currently holds a food business licence with Redland City Council." This is despite clandestine attempts to hold a fly-in breakfast without a food licence since the Straddie Aero Club was de-registered back in May 2018. The company has mysteriously acquired the old club's tables, chairs, umbrellas, fridge, urn etc. to use for its breakfast, which were supposed to have been donated to another club. Is this the only instance of a business conducting a fly-in breakfast in this country? It remains to be seen how this will continue with the new, expensive compliance costs and wages to be paid.

I would say go to the one which is organised enough to at least have their breakfast fly-in listed on aeroclub.com.au and on their website. Not even a facebook listing for Wondai. Google can't find anything and the link to their website off their facebook page shows it does not exist anymore.

M61A1. This is called inferring. RA-Aus will not give out any of the info details required on the Permission to Operate form . The Gympie council cannot obtain basic name and address info of an owner and operator for an RA-Aus registered plane from RA-Aus, but they can with a GA registered plane via the CASA website. I therefore infer that this council is getting rather sick of this attitude from RA-Aus and the details on the form is one way to go towards working around RA-Aus' lack of co-operation, but not a thorough way as many/most of visiting aircraft will not have applied for permission to land. As I mentioned before, it will also save them the clerical work of looking up VH-registered aircraft on the CASA website. "Council would like to better understand the types, numbers and frequency of aircraft movements at the airport" - quote from minutes of August 14 meeting between Gympie Aero Club and Gympie Council. I haven't seen the helicopter issue brought up anywhere in recent times except in the ERSA.

Hopefully the councils will have someone with some business nous running their airfield and realise this. The amount of effort they will expend collecting individual landing fees for the return is ridiculous. They are much better off collecting on a wide variety of aviation related leasehold income which is predictable year in and year out and very cheap to administer. If they keep these leasehold rates reasonable, they will continue to attract hangar owners, businesses and services which will in turn, attract visiting pilots and passengers. The alternative is to drive customers away with charging landing fees for a has-been, wind-swept airfield with few facilities - my wife(co-pilot) mentioned dirty toilets - and vacant crumbling concrete slabs where once upon a time, there was aviation activity.

Landing fees will become more common I believe. The thing is to keep some lid on the amount charged. Gympie council has identified RA-AUS "widespread avoidance and effort to use the fields while remaining anonymous." Fortunately, their PPR for the airfield appears in the last week to have morphed into an annual permit provided on application with no fee attached as yet. This removes their problem of identifying RA-AUS aircraft and the clerical work involved in tracking GA aircraft via the CASA website.

Caloundra, Toowoomba, Murgon, Gayndah, Murwillumbah, Biggenden... Straddie is a 6km walk into Dunwich via the road; 4km via the currently open bushwalk - archived link to map and track notes here (page does not exist on current website).

Background noise can be a big problem for Aspergers people. One of the biggest problems I found was the noise of flying elderly GA flying school aircraft without a headset because the flying school did not want to pay for the intercoms. Fortunately/unfortunately, just as I was finishing my CPL, the flying school was given the quiet word from the powers that be to spend some money and put intercoms in all their aircraft. These days it would be rare to have an aircraft without one. On a 3-4 hour Nav, I found I put in a far better performance with my own headset, rather than a loaner or none at all. Make sure you have a good seal over the ears and you will be at peace with the world and be able to think clearly and concentrate on a quality flying performance. If you have foam ear seals, replace them with gel ear seals - Aircraft Radio at Archerfield has them for $29.(There is a trick to fitting them - turn them inside out first!) I agree with all of the above. Flaring takes practice, sometimes more than others. A slight lack of co-ordination compared with neuro-typicals may be the cause. You will get there. It will just cost you a few more flying lessons. Learning to ride a bike, then learning to drive a car took me more lessons and practice than other kids my age, so it was no surprise when flying took me a bit longer as well. Practice, Practice, Practice. On a quiet afternoon, just sit in the plane and mime your flight. It worked when I was learning to change gears in the car; It worked with the flying.

Regarding the Warwick CTAF, a lot of pilots forget or don't know that the discrete frequency is 127.85 and do all their calls on 126.7 instead. This could explain the silent C172.

If this is to comply with parking at a security controlled airport, I wouldn't bother. Just buy this trailer wheel lock http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/Product/AL-KO-AL-KO-Easy-Clamp-Wheel-Lock-650300/SPO3537948 from Supercheap Auto and lock it to the nosewheel. I don't know about the Sportstar but it easily fits without coming in contact with the wheel spat/fairing of our Piper. It has many other uses too from a chock to a waddy!

We also had the 160hp upgrade at the last engine overhaul of our Piper Cherokee Cruiser PA28-140 and it was well worth it. We went for a more modest upgrade of the TAS to 110 kts. An improvement in the take-off run and climb-out was what we wanted, especially out of airfields like Dunwich(YDUN) and Stanthorpe(YSPE), that we regularly visit. The propeller was tweaked coarse to get into the upper end of the static rpm range required by the RAM STC. In the climb, on a cold morning, the VSI will easily hit 2000 ft/min rate of climb momentarily before I lower the nose to a more sensible 7-800ft/min. One thing to be watched also on cold mornings is that the engine will easily red-line at straight and level to about 2850rpm and must be brought back manually to the 2700rpm limit. If you ever wish to sacrifice some speed for viewing fewer trees on take-off, Prop Care/ACS at Archerfield should be able to tweak the prop a little bit finer for you. I see you have what looks like Metco-aire Hoerner wingtips fitted. They will give you an extra 2-3 knots TAS as well as better aileron response and a slightly lower stall speed. Enjoy your little plane - we do!

The SGM was held today March 17, to decide on the club's future. There was an almost unanimous decision by voters to shut the club down. Three days before this meeting a formal search for the previous meeting's financial records revealed that the president of the club had taken a cash advance of thousands of dollars in payment to her company which runs the airfield against the next financial year's income of the club, then did not mention this had happened in her next year's financial statement currently before the meeting. The president then had her long-time solicitor, just an ordinary club member, chair the meeting instead of her or one of the committee members which is what usually happens. As a result the financial statement was briefly mentioned to have "anomalies", but not dealt with. Yes, the meeting was a pre-scripted circus!

The insects seem to take it in turns to bite people at Dunwich Airfield.Over the summer, the March flies have been in residence. I expect after this rain stops, the mosquitoes will move in and when the westerlies start later in the year and combine with a high tide, we will get visits from the sandflies!

She has relented because this is pretty much what she promised him in the first place to get him to take the job, then those promises evaporated once he had arrived. Previous occurrences of this sort of behaviour with previous caretakers were in 2011 and 2013 that I know about. The husband and wife caretakers are just relieving and will be leaving shortly and the other one is an occasional back-up.

The ad has been pulled from the Aviation Trader website yesterday 3 March 2018 - wonder if she had any takers...

More about Dunwich Airfield, North Stradbroke Island is on this thread: I want this job!!!!

Physical fitness is one thing but mental problems, loneliness and the spartan, wearying life of living out of a caravan in the bush with no mains power, internet connection or town water have all been problems that previous caretakers have had to face here. The work duties may not be full time, but the owner requires their presence full time. With limited opportunities to get away from the situation and expensive options to get off the island and on to the mainland, we have had men lose heart pretty quickly here and stop looking after themselves in the way they should. The owner could easily have alleviated some of these problems by providing a demountable caretaker's cottage but unfortunately she is hell-bent on getting the maximum use out of an individual for the least cost before they walk.