Thursday 11th April 2024 was one of those autumn days that are perfect for flying. Blue sky, no wind and about 27 degrees so not too hot. Garry Ayre and I decided to make the most of it and go flying. I’d planned to fly to Tyagarah near Byron Bay with a short stop in Kooralbyn on the way. Garry would then fly back via the coast.

We’d tried to book C172 IVW but it was booked out so we’d booked YRE instead. Also a G1000 glass cockpit and similar vintage to IVW so we thought it would do just as well. We wanted to get away early so they guys at the club had left the plane out on the line overnight and the paperwork was in the hangar so we could sign in and do our preflighting before they arrived at 8am. I met Garry at 7:15 and just on 8:00 I was taxiing to the bowser. We filled up and took off to the west, climbed to 1500ft and were soon passing the Pine Rivers Dam at Lake Samsonvale. It was overflowing after all the rain.

We could then climb to 2500 as we headed for Spring Mountain, passing Keperra and The Gap on the way.

I called up Archerfield Tower as we passed the TV Towers just to let them know we were staying clear of their controlled airspace. They seemed to appreciate the heads up and told us there was no other traffic in the area we were passing through. Nice.

We had a good view of the Brisbane River, the CBD and the bay as we passed over Kenmore then Pullenvale.

We skirted the eastern edge of the Amberley controlled airspace as we passed Spring Mountain, avoiding the Greenbank Firing Range restricted airspace to the east as well.

Another 15 minutes and we were arriving at Kooralbyn. The runway is nestled in between hills, so basically surrounded except to the east. As luck would have it, the wind was from the east, so I decided to land over the hills.

After checking out the windsock from 2500ft I descended to 1300 on the dead side and joined midfield crosswind for RWY12.

It’s a right hand circuit due to high terrain on the northern side. There are hills to the west as well of course so you can’t do a very wide turn onto base. As a result we were a bit high turning onto final and dived down to the threshold, passing over trees growing not too far from it. As I said to Garry, “we can always go around”. But it’s a 1200m runway so has plenty of length even if it’s only 10m wide.

We did a firm touchdown and backtracked to the apron.

After shutting down we strolled off to the reception of the golf resort to pay our $10 landing fee. We caught up a bit on the history of the place while we were there and inspected some of the facilities.

Knowing we had limited time to get to Tyagarah and back to Redcliffe we headed back to the aircraft and clambered aboard. That’s the problem arose. The engine wouldn’t start. The propeller turned about 30 degrees each time and then stopped dead. There was plenty of voltage in the battery so it wasn’t the problem. I climbed out and carefully rotate the prop a few times and then tried the starter again. No luck. After a few more attempts I decided to call the aeroclub. I was wondering whether anyone else had had this problem. I had noticed on the maintenance document that there had been a problem with the starter motor in March so it could have been connected with that. I spoke to Valerie, one of the instructors, and she didn’t know what the problem could be. She rang the maintenance people at AMS in Caloundra and the only advice they had was to wait 30 minutes and try again.

Another pilot landed in a Jabiru so we had a chat to him. He’d flown in from Heck Field for a coffee and told us we should fly there next time. Meanwhile he’d be happy to rotate the prop a few times for us if we try again. So, after 10 minutes I tried the engine again. There was some life there but not much better than before. Our new friend rotated it a couple more times and each time it spluttered a bit then stopped. We contemplated waiting a few hours for someone to come and get us from Redcliffe. Not appealing. I said to Garry “one more attempt then we can go and have a coffee”. I gave it one more turn of the ignition switch and this time it worked! The engine started. We were off!

Waving to our new friend Garry and I agreed we’d fly straight back to Redcliffe and go to Tyagarah another day. I phoned the club and told them we were heading back. Lining up on RWY12 we heard another plane 10 miles out heading for Kooralbyn.

Climbing out we turned left and headed back to Spring Mountain at 3000ft. I called up Brisbane Centre and advised of our change in flight plan and asked for a new SARTIME at Redcliffe.

Passing Archerfield we called up the tower again and they advised us of traffic in the opposite direction heading past the TV Towers. We spotted them then carried on towards Samford. Noticing another aircraft flying across our path on our iPads, we kept a good lookout and I changed our heading a bit west, so we were heading over the western part of the Samford Valley. Once we’d spotted the other plane and he’d passed us I turned towards Redcliffe.

Touching down a bit earlier than we’d planned we parked YRE then headed into the clubhouse to discuss our troubles with the starter. One of the other instructors was there and when we mentioned we’d had problems starting he asked “Were you in YRE?” Yes we were. “Oh that’s just a problem with the ignition key. You have to push it in as you turn it as there’s a poor connection”. What? Why didn’t anyone else tell us that. Or maybe write it up on the dispatch sheet? Poor communication had meant we only did half of what we’d planned and Garry didn’t get to fly at all. But hey, you get that.

It had been an excellent morning and I’d practised my tricky landing at Kooralbyn so it wasn’t that bad. We’d try for Tyagarah another day.