Boonah – Kingaroy – Sunshine Coast – precautionary search – lost procedure – FLWOP

On March 5, 2021 I had an opportunity to do a pretest exercise. It was another cross country practice in ROC, once again accompanied by Brett. This time was different however. The testing examiner had given me the route we’d use for the test the following week so I decided to make as much use as possible of this critical piece of intel by flying the route beforehand. I planned direct from Redcliffe to Boonah at 4500 via Brisbane and Amberley controlled airspace and before starting up I called the Air Services shift manager to give him a heads up and ask whether we’d get a clearance. He said it may be possible, so I asked for a transponder code from Brisbane Centre while we taxied and then took off and lo and behold, pretty well immediately obtained our clearance and climbed to 4500. We could track direct for Boonah as we had our clearance, first passing over Keperra with a great view of the CBD.

Next we were over The Gap with a great view of the dam.

This was all going pretty well so we settled into a smooth flight past Archerfield and into Amberley airspace.

Brisbane Centre handed us over to Amberley who guided us past Flinders Peak and on towards Boonah.

From top of descent we descended to circuit height and carried out a precautionary search and landing on RWY04 at Boonah. First pass at 500ft AGL, second at 200ft, third at 100ft then a short field landing. After a short break I did a short field takeoff and headed for Kingaroy, obtaining a clearance from Amberley Clearance Delivery to climb to 6500ft through their airspace.

We passed over Laidley and the Ripcord airstrip, and passed the Cressbrook Reservoir where we had to descend to 4500ft to avoid clouds and on past Tarong power station and into Kingaroy for a glide approach on RWY16. I did a full stop and we climbed out and stretched our legs.

Starting up again we did another circuit and another glide approach then took off again and set a heading of 080 towards the Sunshine Coast. After 10 minutes Brett had me turn onto a heading of 028 for 8 minutes then did a lost procedure. Turns out we were over Gallangowan. I then replanned direct to Sunshine Coast passing overhead Manumbar, Brooloo and Kenilworth Bluff. Amazing lush green country around there.

Approaching the Sunshine Coast we had to do two orbits over Bli Bli while we waited for various aircraft to land and take off, then we joined final as a Jetstar took off in front of us and a short field landing with full stop.

ATC instructed us to do a Stop and Go landing to avoid the wake turbulence of the jet. So after touching down, ever so gently, we stopped and sat on the runway for about 4 minutes, waiting for the wake turbulence to settle and were then cleared to take off and head to Redcliffe. Over Bribie we did some steep turns and stalls then a practice forced landing without power at Hazelton, finishing with a flapless landing at Redcliffe. Lovely day for it.