Yesterday I got up a little before 5am with excitement in the air; I was once again heading to an airport but this time an airport I have never flown into or out of before. The airport was Archerfield (YBAF) and just before 6am a group of aviation enthusiasts gathered there for a 6.30am departure to a small airfield called Watts Bridge about 20 mins by air west of Brisbane.
Watts Bridge Memorial Airfield was holding their annual airshow so a large group of us (around 18) hired a Piper Chieftain as part of the fun for the day. There were supposed to be two Piper PA-31's VH-RPV and VH-TWR; unfortunately TWR went tech so we only had RPV (CN
31-7305056)
Below are some of the 585 photos I took yesterday.
We taxied out at 6.45am and became airborne from 28R right on 6.48; we climb to around 3,500 and 22 mins later we were on the ground at Watts Bridge landing on their grass strip runway 12 at 7.12am.
Watts Bridge Memorial Airfield is located near Toogoolawah in South East Queensland and is around 1 hour 50 mins drive from the city of Brisbane.
Watts Bridge Memorial Airfield features three well formed grass runways suitable for almost all types of recreational aircraft.
Main Runway is 12R – 30L and is 900 metres (Full Length 1530m Brisbane Valley Airshow)
12L – 30R Gliders & Gyroplanes – 820 metres
03 – 21 Cross Strip – 815 metres
Obviously Watts Bridge does not have a control tower so pilots are required to communicate via a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF) to safely co-ordinate arrivals and departures on 127.3 MHz CTAF “WATTS UNICOM” and 129.0 MHz Area freq.
Apart from the over night campers we were one of the few there as the gates didn't open until 9am.
As there weren't many planes around or people we could walk amongst the parked aircraft out on the field without to much hassle, but that changed as the morning went on.
All morning aircraft arrived and quickly took their position either as a demonstrator or as a visitor and parked away from the display area, I must admit the morning flew along...(pardon the pun)
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| SAVANNAH 19-4096 |
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| SAVANNAH 19-7817 |
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| De HAVILLAND CANADA DHC-1 VH RME (CN DH/H/F/68) |
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| ULTRALIGHT 24-8782 |
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| L-39C ALBATROS |
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| NORTH AMERICAN AVIATION AT-6 MK2A VH-NRO (CN 88-10589) |
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| DIAMOND DA-62 VH-DNU (CN 62-027) |
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| WACO YKS-7 VH-YKX (CN 5222) |
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| SOPWITH AVIATION LRT 19-7339 |
The show started at 12.20pm with a flag drop and then the fun began.
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| MUSTANG CA-18 MK 21 |
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| GRUMMAN TBM-3E |
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| WINJEEL 422 |
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| WACO YMFSC VH-YOW (CN F5C080) |
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| AMATEUR VANS RV-12 VH-ULL (CN 120589) |
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| De HAVILLAND CANADA DHC-1 VH RME (CN DH/H/F/68) |
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| RIHN DR-107 ONE DESIGN VH-NIL (CN 94-0016) |
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| GRUMMAN G73 VH-CQA (CN J-35) |
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| CZECHOSLOVAK L200D VH-OKP (CN 171402) |
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| L-39C ALBATROS and a CZECHOSLOVAK L200D |
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| L-39C ALBATROS |
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| NORTH AMERICAN AVIATION AT-6 MK2A VH-NRO (CN 88-10589) |
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| De HAVILLAND DH 104 VH-DHI (CN 04410) |
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| NORTH AMERICAN P51-D 30NT VH (CN 45-11526) |
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| Mc DERMOTT AVIATION BELL 214 (CN 28065) |
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| GRUMMAN TBM-3E |
Well after 9 awesome hours on the ground it was time to go home, but the excitement was about to be turned up another notch in the way of me being co-pilot on the way home. For 25 mins I lived a dream of being a pilot and this will stay with me forever.
We taxied out at 4.17pm and we one of the few to get out early; we lined up on runway 30 and started rolling at 4.21pm. Airborne we performed a long slow bank left and headed for Archerfield.
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| BRISBANE CITY |
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| RUNWAY 10L ARCHERFIELD |
We touched down on runway 10L at 4.46 and taxied to the terminal.
Special thanks goes to Simon and Marlene for organising this fly in fly out and for James our pilot for getting us there and back safely.
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