Palmers Island – Yamba

Palmers Island is a privately owned grass airstrip just inland from Yamba. It is owned by the MacIntyre family, local sugar cane growers. Bob MacIntyre was a mad keen aviator who established the airstrip on his property back in the 1970s. The family has been happily hosting GA visitors every since. Unfortunately Bob died suddenly in September 2023. Apparently he’d been out on his ride on mower ensuring the strip was in perfect condition the day before he died and just “didn’t wake up in the morning”. His sudden death was a shock to his family and all his friends and there was some concern the airstrip may close but his sons and daughter have announced they will continue to run the airstrip and maintain it to Bob’s high standard into the future.

So, after a couple of failed attempts prior to Covid, on November 11th 2023 the Redcliffe Aero Club held a flyaway to Palmers Island and Yamba. It’s about 1.5 hours south of Brisbane in a 172 so a good distance to go for lunch with plenty of beautiful coastal and hinterland scenery along the way.

I decided to take one of the club 172s, IVW, which has a G1000 glass cockpit and is IFR, even though it doesn’t have an autopilot. But hey, it was only a short flight so who needs autopilot anyway? Garry Ayre had just completed his PPL a week before so we decided to fly together. It’d be good experience for Garry as he starts to spread his wings into the world. I was to be his first “passenger” along with Justin Webb, a young guy who would like to learn to fly. We agreed that Garry should fly the outward leg over the islands and along the coast VFR. It would give him some practice passing through the Gold Coast controlled airspace and down the coast and spotting the somewhat hard to find airstrip at Palmers Island. I’d fly home IFR to give both Garry and Justin an idea of how we fly under the instrument flight rules and so we’d have a different perspective, flying directly over the top of Brisbane.

The day started off looking fairly unpromising. Low cloud and showers of rain. But it was forecast to improve during the morning and clear in the afternoon so we delayed our departure time a bit and took off from Redcliffe around 9:30, passing over Moreton Island and Straddy on our way to the Gold Coast. I volunteered to do the radios to give Garry more time to enjoy the flying and the views.

Approaching the Gold Coast I called up Brisbane Centre and obtained a squawk code, and we were identified, told to remain OCTA and to contact Gold Coast Tower abeam Q1. There were a few other aircraft around as we headed south and we were asked by Gold Coast to head inland to Robina Town Centre and follow the inland VFR route due to traffic. Nevertheless this gave us a great view of the coast and the hills to the west, and we were soon over the Tweed River and out of the controlled airspace.

Passing familiar territory along the coast I could identify all the towns from Fingal Point down to Pottsville and on the right hand side we passed Mullumbimby.

CASA had implemented an air traffic service in Ballina earlier in 2023 due to a few close calls involving GA aircraft and jets so I was required to call them up as we entered their zone and tell them that we were planning to overfly the airport and track south to Yamba. There was a Jetstar plane about to depart and he called us up and asked our location when we were about 5 miles to the north. When I told him he said he’d wait for us to pass overhead before he took off. The air traffic controller told him it wasn’t necessary to wait as she had us on radar but he said he’d rather wait until he had us clearly sighted.

As we passed overhead he started to roll and took off to the east over the coast, turning left to avoid us as we headed further south.

We were about to pass over the Evans Head restricted airspace so we’d checked on the NOTAMS prior to departure to check it wasn’t operating. Just to be sure I called up Brisbane Centre and they confirmed it was inactive. Passing over the bombing run we tried to spot evidence of recent activity but there was none to see. The weather was really fining up by the time we were approaching Palmers Island. The Northern Rivers region really is spectacular country.

Having flown into Palmers Island before I knew where the airstrip is located so was able to guide Garry towards it (we had the GPS locked on it as well but we were trying to find it visually). I managed to spot it when we were about 5 miles out but Garry and Justin didn’t have a chance. It reminded me of when Mike, Brett and I flew in there a few weeks before and didn’t spot the strip until we were right over the top of it. A green grass strip surrounded by green cane fields is not easy to spot. Anyway, when we were over the top Garry did make it out and, after checking the windsock to see there was a slight easterly blowing, we joined midfield crosswind for RWY 09 and landed on the recently mowed grass.

We were four planes in all from Redcliffe and the others had arrived a bit earlier so they’d already taken one of the two loan cars (organised earlier) into town. We said hello to the Macintyre family who run the airstrip and then climbed into the second car to follow them into town. We joined them at the Pacific Hotel for great panorama out to sea and a couple of very juicy steaks.

After lunch we stretched out legs with a short walk to the lighthouse and a view of the beach. It was a “hot rod” weekend in Yamba so there are few fancy cars around.

Back at Palmers Island we had a chat to a couple of the other guys, one of whom hangared his plane there. It was an Arion Lightning Classic kit plane that he’d built himself. One of our members, Neil, had flown his own Lightning Classic down from Boonah that day and the two of them knew each other.

I’d submitted my IFR flight plan back in town so as soon as the others had taken off we were ready to go. We climbed out to 6000ft and tracked direct for the Gold Coast. It was pretty much clear of cloud by this time so we had great views along the way. Around Ballina ATC asked me to fly direct to a waypoint over Heck Field so this gave us a great view of the Gold Coast out the right hand side.

As we were approaching the south of Brisbane we were vectored slightly west of the Brisbane Airport so passed directly over the CBD.

We passed through one solitary cloud as we descended into Redcliffe. One more soft touch down and we were back home again.