As part of my plan to reacquaint myself with the Cessna 172s at the aero club, following the destruction of MSF, I decided to go for a short flight with Garry Ayre on Sunday 5th November 2023. I hired IVW, my preferred aircraft as it’s IFR rated and has a G1000 glass cockpit very similar to the Perspective in the late model SR22s. Garry had recently passed his PPL licence so I thought it’d be good to share some of my experiences with him and he would make a good copilot. I wasn’t sure where to fly at first but when I heard the Noosa triathlon was on that day I decided we’d fly up to Noosa, my favourite bit of coastline.

Originally we’d planned to meet at 10am at Redcliffe but when I check the TAF for YBSU on Saturday evening it suggested that there’d be showers from midday so we agreed to meet at 8am instead, so we’d get to fly in the best part of the day. It was gloomy as I headed out of the Gap on my way to Redcliffe but fined up as I approached the coast.

We preflighted IVW and agreed that our original plan for a touch and go at YBSU wasn’t a good idea as a 20 knot crosswind was forecast on the runway. I still put YBSU as an alternate on the flight plan knowing that we could land there if need be if YRED was rained out later. The weather seemed to be remaining further south, with the strong north easterly wind keeping it there. We judged we’d be pretty safe and stay dry for at least the next hour although there were a few spots of rain as we taxied out to RWY07.

Taking off it was scattered cloud at about 3000ft over Bribie Island. We obtained a clearance to fly through the YBSU controlled airspace over water and were soon passing Mt Coolum with a great view to the north. At that point I realised that one advantage of flying in a 172 compared to a SR22 is that it goes much slower (115knots compared with 165knots) so you can take in the scenery much better. A bit like I discovered flying the Piper Cub a couple of years ago. Garry took over for a while so I could take some photos.

As I was planning to visit Coolum for a couple of days of golf a few days later it was great to see some of the golf courses from the air, and Coolum as well.

Leaving controlled airspace at Lake Weyba we caught a glimpse of the Noosa airstrip and then passed Sunshine Beach.

Rounding the corner over Noosa National Park we headed for the river mouth and Noosa’s main beach.

The triathlon swimmers were gallantly plying their way around the 1.5km rectangular course.

The air was crystal clear after recent rains.

From there we tracked to Boreen Point on Lake Cootharaba.

I’d recently noticed there’s a private airstrip just near Boreen Point and the owner welcomes guests so I thought we should take a look at it from the air. I did an orbit over the top while Gary took a video.

It looks like a very well maintained 800 metre long airstrip. Well worth a visit sometime.

From there we headed for Cooroy and then down the VFR route on the western side of the Bruce Highway via Nambour and back to Redcliffe where the touchdown was silky smooth.

IVW had checked out and I was happy with it. We were ready for our flight to Palmers Island near Yamba the following weekend as part of the aero club flyaway.