On 1st May 2024 Garry Ayre and I decided to go flying again. At first we were going to attempt to reach Tyagarah after our failed attempt a few weeks previously but the wind wasn’t favourable for the strip there so we decided to go to Pittsworth instead. Garry hadn’t been there before and I’d only been during very early PPL training.

We took IVW and I flew out to Pittsworth with Garry flying back. Dee from the aeroclub told us that the bowser at YRED was under repair so asked whether we could refuel while we were gone so I checked that the bowser was working at Toowoomba and we agreed we’d stop there to refuel on our way back.

Taking off at about 10:30 we tracked direct to Esk where I’d recently completed a ride on the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail.

We also passed over Lake Wivenhoe and I noticed a couple of private airstrips I hadn’t seen before.

I’d planned to fly over the top of Toowoomba but we were flying just under the cloud at 3000ft and with the Toowoomba airfield at 2100ft elevation that was too low to have enough clearance to avoid circuit traffic so we skirted around the east of the escarpment and then south of the city before heading to Pittsworth.

There were quite a few aircraft flying in and out of Toowoomba and Wellcamp so we had to keep a good lookout. The AvTraffic app incorporated into OzRunways certainly helped our situational awareness.

Landing at Pittsworth we watched as a crop duster landed, refuelled, and then took off again.

We swapped seats and Garry flew the short hop into Toowoomba, passing Wellcamp on the way. Once again there were numerous aircraft in the vicinity.

After refuelling we checked out the aero club and had a chat to a couple of people then climbed back aboard YRE and took off over the city.

Retracing our steps we passed over Esk and Lake Wivenhoe again.

We had a great view of the Lacy’s Creek Valley as we descended towards Redcliffe.

We also passed over the Lakeside Raceway.

I think Pittsworth would make a good lunch time flyaway sometime in the future.