Monto 2010 RAAus Northern Flyin

[Spin]

just south of Hecks field there appeared to be a small plane airport near Southport. Does anyone know what the go with that airport is? Is it RAA friendly and can people tie down there? Its quite close to surfers and if we wanted a weekend away seemed to be very close to everything. Its listed in ERSA as Southport but there is a bit at the bottom that says no public or commercial ops so was wondering if it can be flown into or not?

Regards

 

Andy

As winsor68 said, Southport Flying Club although located near the sewerage works at Coombabah.

 

Yes very exclusive, joining fees were $25,000 when I enquired and no landing without an invitation and in the presence of the member doing the inviting. Lovely facility though that these guys have carved out of the middle of a nature reserve. Many locals aren't even aware that it exists, so careful are they about noise abatement. I suspect that with urban creep around them this would quickly change if they weren't so careful about who flys in and how, so cannot really begrudge them their bit of paradise. Hey I would join if I had the spare cash for fees, building a compliant hangar and an aircraft - sadly short of the Powerball, even the latter is taking a bit of time to achieve.

 

 

[Tomo]

Thanks for making the effort. If it's any consolation your Fisher912 was one of the nicest machines there IMO.

Very much so... fantastic machine:thumb_up::thumb_up:

 

 

[Guest watto]

Yeh it was a great week end, but I had to leave at lunch time Sunday due to a savage dose of the flu!

 

It was great to see such a fantastic turnout and RAA and the local council should be congratulated for their efforts, it will get better every year!

 

 

[frank marriott]

My only complaint, which is not controllable - too bloody cold for a north Queenslander - otherwise was an enjoyable trip.

 

Frank

 

 

[Spin]

My only complaint, which is not controllable - too bloody cold for a north Queenslander - otherwise was an enjoyable trip.Frank

Don't worry Frank, anything approaching 0 deg is unacceptable to this SEQ dweller too. That is perhaps something to consider though, maybe the flyin should be at a warmer time of the year as it is almost inevitably going to be fairly bitter inland at this time? I know I won't easily get my other half to attend if those sorts of temperatures are likely and from discussions with others i'm not alone.

 

 

[winsor68]

I had dinner on Saturday (I had a burger and a couple of stubbies) sitting with the Raglan Flyin crew... I said I had heard about the famous bonfire with front end loaders at their flyins... they were of the opinion that an important part of planning an event like this is keeping the punters warm in order that they stay and socialize... they really do need more heat sources for the campers.

 

Lets hope next year there is about 5 dozen 44 gallon drums with the lids cut off for heating!!! But...the cold certainly won't stop this Queenslander.

 

P.s. The real Howard Hughes sat just down from us too... It was like having dinner with Santa Claus or some other mythical character... LoL:nerd:

 

 

[Yenn]

Good fly in , but not like the Old Station ones. I don't recall meeting Winsor68, but I must have done as I am the builder of my Corby.

 

It is amazing how long it can take to work out who is a member of this forum. Ross "Slarti" and I talked for about half an hour before he suddenly realised who I was. i didn't have a clue as to his identity, but I did recognise Tomo from his Avatar. It is a pity that the areas we were using were so far from the runway, the flying was hardly noticeable. Some lovely aircraft there, but the one that took my fancy was Kiwi's C150 taildragger, it has done 22000 hours and looked as if it had just come off the showroom floor. Didn't see any 95-10s there excepr Dave's fisher and that wasn't flying. Only about 5 Drifters and all the rest seemed to be high tech. I enjoyed looking at the RV4, now I know what mine should look like when I get it finished.

 

 

[winsor68]

Good fly in , but not like the Old Station ones. I don't recall meeting Winsor68, but I must have done as I am the builder of my Corby.It is amazing how long it can take to work out who is a member of this forum. Ross "Slarti" and I talked for about half an hour before he suddenly realised who I was. i didn't have a clue as to his identity, but I did recognise Tomo from his Avatar. It is a pity that the areas we were using were so far from the runway, the flying was hardly noticeable. Some lovely aircraft there, but the one that took my fancy was Kiwi's C150 taildragger, it has done 22000 hours and looked as if it had just come off the showroom floor. Didn't see any 95-10s there excepr Dave's fisher and that wasn't flying. Only about 5 Drifters and all the rest seemed to be high tech. I enjoyed looking at the RV4, now I know what mine should look like when I get it finished.

Kiwi... that is one of the blocks I was talking to.

 

Yenn... I thought your Corby looked like it was finished? Quite some time ago.

 

I swear there was a gentlemen checking it out when I took my photo who claimed to have started the build. He was admiring your paintwork... lol

 

 

[rick-p]

Good fly in , but not like the Old Station ones. I don't recall meeting Winsor68, but I must have done as I am the builder of my Corby.It is amazing how long it can take to work out who is a member of this forum. Ross "Slarti" and I talked for about half an hour before he suddenly realised who I was. i didn't have a clue as to his identity, but I did recognise Tomo from his Avatar. It is a pity that the areas we were using were so far from the runway, the flying was hardly noticeable. Some lovely aircraft there, but the one that took my fancy was Kiwi's C150 taildragger, it has done 22000 hours and looked as if it had just come off the showroom floor. Didn't see any 95-10s there excepr Dave's fisher and that wasn't flying. Only about 5 Drifters and all the rest seemed to be high tech. I enjoyed looking at the RV4, now I know what mine should look like when I get it finished.

Hi Ian, yes it wasn't quite the same as an old station fly in or even a Smokey Creek one but for a first time event on short notice it was a fantastic effort on the part of the RAA and all others involved.

 

There are a lot of dedicated people out there involved in our sport and hats off to them for the result that they did achieve and that includeds all those members and otherwise that made the effort to attend.

 

Next year will be much better I'm sure, it will happen as we have demonstrated that we want it and need it.

 

We have the numbers now lets make it work.

 

We in the North can ensure with a little effort that this event will grow and continue into the future, as Natfly has.:thumb_up:

 

Regards,

 

Rick-p

 

 

[jacmiles]

Rick, i didnt realize you were there , oh well ill catch up to you one day!

 

 

[MrH]

:thumb_up:Great stories & pictures everyone . I noticed that that Rusty Pussycat kept sneaking into the photos again & good to see Tomos Blues Brother joining in :big_grin: Looked like a nice mix of aircraft too. Makes you wish you were there though it sounds like it was even warmer where I live than up there:devil:

 

Cheers

 

H

 

 

[rick-p]

Rick, i didnt realize you were there , oh well ill catch up to you one day!

Yes J I decided to go even though there had been a club fly-in arranged at Theodore for some time before the Monto one even got on the drawing board.

 

Even though it was a little tiring having to drive so far (family with me) Bilo to Theodore Saturday and Sunday Theodore to Bilo then up to Monto.

 

I thought that it was well worth it and the more of us Northern members attending could see it brought to Monto on a permanent basis, which would be great.

 

It's too far to Temorra for my liking, Naromine was the limit for most of us up here.

 

It was discussed a little between a few of us as to whether Thangool would be a better venue having a cross strip and much better positioning for spectators but in the end Monto is probably the better venue having a much nicer area in which to camp and enjoy the green surroundings of Monto as apposed to the very dead wintery look of Thangool and Biloela at this time of the year.

 

I will catch up with you one day when I can slow down a bit at work.

 

Regards,

 

Rick-p

 

 

[FlyingVizsla]

We were hoping to fly down but ended up driving this year. We arrived after 5 hours driving Friday afternoon and did a bit of a scenic tour as the airport wasn’t well sign posted. Pulled in and quickly got talking. The $4 mince rolls were good value and tasty and the welcome mat was out. It was obvious from the start that this was going to be a good weekend.

 

The Monto airstrip is bitumen with a grass cross strip. It has lighting, a small terminal and about 4 hangars. The Polo field is located there which had long drop toilets, showers with hot water and a bar. The aircraft parking was on the polo grounds which were well mowed, level and stone free. Non-aircraft camping was in a treed area at the entrance to the airstrip – no powered sites. We managed to flatten two batteries and had to use the portable generator to get the car started. The site was also having power problems with one of the food stalls resorting to gas to keep some food coming. Ergon seemed to be climbing poles all weekend.

 

Saturday and planes arrived from everywhere. No doubt I met many forumites but didn’t know it. There were big things happening in town but we didn’t go to look, but it would have been interesting for the non flyers. And we didn’t do the poker run, and didn’t meet anyone who did. Fronted up to the first forum to find the organised schedule had fallen by the wayside – the Aust Women Pilots Assoc’s presenter hadn’t arrived, the next presenter had been called away, another had been involved in an accident, the flying flea hadn’t arrived, so it was all a bit chaotic. Anyway we never really got back there as we spent our time walking around the planes.

 

The exhibitors were a bit thin on Saturday. We had money to spend but there wasn’t that much to spend it on (he wouldn’t buy me a Cheetar). Bought a few things from the Sky Shop but mainly spent on food & drink. There was a model shop, massage, and the rest were aircraft salesmen. Would like to see a bit more, but I guess it is a bit of a stretch for the good folk in Monto in the midst of their biggest festival to also be at the strip. But I think the exhibitors who came did well.

 

Saturday night was very cold and we were glad we bought the aircraft trailer – we had tossed the Karasport out and had set up house. A friend of ours camped in a tent and froze. That night did convince some to leave early rather than suffer another night.

 

Sunday, the locals thought was our biggest day, as they came out in droves and more food vans and stalls set up, but a good number of planes departed. There were vintage cars, motorcycles and many more people. Two friends who were both flying over on Sunday both reneged due to weather and our Lightwing never made it from Childers on Sat. Unfortunately we too had to depart about midday Sunday due to work on Monday.

 

Summing up – Monto venue was fantastic, would like to see more stalls, Rec Flying meeting point, maybe a warmer time of year or some powered sites so tenters can run a heater. Food was good – really appreciated the “home cooked” stuff, locals were friendly. We are planning for next year already. I am writing to the Council to say how impressed I was – it will help RAAus to argue for some infrastructure improvements for next time.

 

A few photos.

 

Sue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Yenn]

Winsor. How diplomatic of you, the paint job is showing it's age and the cowling has never looked good. That gentleman was probably Barry evans, who did start the build. He built the ribs and part of fuse, tailplane and spar over many years. I finished off the ribs, spar, fuselage and assembled the whole thing, from memory I put in over 1000 hours, but would have to look at the build log to verify this. Barry did a great job of the ribs, they could have been hung on the wall as works of art.

 

 

[JG3]

I'm mystified by all those complaints about the cold. It was only about -1C and calm, no problems dressing for that. Canadians have a saying, "There's no inappropriate weather, just inappropriate clothing." I was toasty warm all evening and night. At sundown I just put on long johns, thick wool socks, a beany, and a couple of jumpers under my flying jacket. Bulked out like a teddy bear, but warm and cozy inside, even moving around between fires. At night just take off the flying jacket and jeans and into my double sleeping bags. Yes, double bags, just get a light weight summer bag and put it inside your regular bag. The double layers are even warmer than an expensive down bag. The summer bag weighs .9kg and fits in the palm of the hand. And that summer bag is good for those summer nights that are too warm for the regular bag.

 

I have a lot of experience of light weight camping, and have learned how to be comfortable in all conditions. For more info on how to keep warm at minimum weight have a look at http://www.stolspeed.com/id/75

 

JG

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

JG

 

I suspect that the great majority of flyers live on the coast. That infers that most will never see a frost and if they do it will be from the inside of their house looking out. We were camped next to you I believe ( Were you the Savy flyer that was up and in the air before many had rissen for a look around) and also werent cold in the tent, however I made the point to my wife that it was the first time that the sleeping bags we had felt comfortable rather than being in a slow cooker. I like your idea of the lightweight summer bags.

 

And as to -1, for me who lives in a place where most over night temps in the coldest part of the year would rarely go below 5, and much more likely to be 10, and I would live probably towards the most southern parts of those who made the effort to attend, so yeah it was cold, but not enough to keep me away next year.

 

Andy

 

 

[bwill157]

Hi everyone, I have to say our experience with the monto fly in was generally good and we had a fairly good time. My father and I left Innisfail in the 47 ercoupe (white, rag wing) Wednesday about lunch time and got about as far as charters towers where we refueled and overnighted at the caravan park, we had a good time in charters towers, the local van park came and picked us up from the airport, there are also some good pubs in town for a counter meal.

 

Thursday we travelled from Charters towers to springsure as a bit of a detour. Along the way we landed in clearmont, and refuelled in emerald. I have to say to any other aviators flying down this way, emerald has a fantastic new avgas refueling service there which accepts credit cards and is available 24-7. You may need an ASIC as it is a secure tarmac with Q400's rolling around. After refueling here is where our fuel pump started to play up.

 

I quickly brought her around and landed to recheck everything. Everything seemed ok so we got airborne again, it was about half way to springsure I noticed that the header tank was getting used and the wing tanks hadn't moved. This was a bit of an eye opener for us, but we had plenty of fuel in the header tank to get to springsure so it wasn't a problem. Once we were on the ground the header tank pumped itself up. We have a mechanical diaphram pump with no backup so this is our only way to shift fuel from the low wings to the higher header tank and gravity feed into the carby. It's only a short walk from the airport at the main street of town, where we stayed. Quite a nice little quiet town I should add.

 

Next morning we took off and everything checked out fine in the pre-flight. Shortly after take off we started to use the header tank again. Our flight plan was rollingston, thangool then monto. We landed in Rollingston and after an hour of diagnostics realised our pump had completely failed. From here on in we found small strips every 50 miles where we had to land, suck fuel out of the wings into a 5L container and manually fill the header tank.

 

Anyhooo, finally we arrived at monto, and were marshalled to our spot. The people were nice, the food was fairly good and the air was crisp. We stayed from Friday till Monday Morning, It was fairly cool camping in the tent but it was a good change from the heat. It was good to see so many aircraft around, and so many people on short notice. We had a great time. We found a small electric pump in town which we rigged up and it worked a charm all the way home.

 

Going home, we just flew direct in one day Monto - Innisfail. LONG day. lol

 

Well here are some photos I took of the coupe in springsure and one on friday, we didn't have power so our phones died real quick!

 

:)

 

Wow that was a bit long!

 

 

Monto: COLD

 

 

Spring sure: Nice town, unique country

 

 

[Yenn]

Nice plane that Ercoupe, I talked to your father about it.

 

One of the good things about the weekend was getting to meet Steve Tizzard. I had been under the nisapprehension that Steve was just a pen pusher and not a flyer, but nothing could be more wrong. I was impressed with his experience and knowledge. We should be in good hands with him as CEO.

 

 

[FlyingVizsla]

Springsure is a great town, strip right on the edge of town and it's all downhill to the CBD about 1km. PM me if you are visiting and we can arrange anything from accom, transport to tours - some friendly pilots and ex-pilots in town.

 

Rolleston is good too, strip right in town, about 400m to CBD. There is actually a parallel strip built by a guy who was trying to build a hangar on the Council's strip but ended up with such red tape and nonsensical conditions that it was easier for him to buy the land across the road and build his own strip and hangar. He has a 1932 Lockheed, C172 and others. So much for amalgamated Councils - hangar approvals were simple and straightforward with the Shire Council. Don't get me started...

 

Sue

 

 

[Russ]

Sue, Sue, Sue............if only i had your contact info's 3 weeks ago. ferrying jerry cans up that @#$%^& hill was no joke.

 

expect a call next time.............:)

 

 

[storchy neil]

tomo put glasses on neil

 

 

[Tomo]

tomo put glasses on neil

Ahahaha, sorry Neil. But your wallaby is good to. :thumb_up::thumb_up:

 

 

[dazza 38]

This sounds like Southport Flying Club... very exclusive. Far too expensive for mere mortals... Its where the rich retirees and other Gold Coast success stories keep there private aircraft. I had the privilege of visiting a few times many years ago with a former member who kept a SuperCub on site and the membership fees even back then were something horrendous... I can't say with any authority but did get the definite impression it was very much a private strip for members and their guests.

Yes as Windsor has mentioned, you need deep pockets.Full of money.

 

 

[Ballpoint 246niner]

:cool:For a minute there I thought you were suggesting Tomo was my optomitrist! He can work on my car but I wouldn't dare let you near my eyes:cool:

 

 

[dazza 38]

So they say that a picture tells a As to the route, used as per Dazza' question, not sure of the Valley names, but in effect I flew over Murwullimbah then direct Hecks Field via the 2500 and then 1500ft CTA control steps. From there across to Stradie and then Morton up to Tangalooma, and across to Landsborough and then to Gympie- Monto. On the way back had to swing east towards the coast to go around a SHRA over Murwullimbah and then various directions to Lismore avoiding the rainfalls on the way, After Lismore it cleared back to Grafton where all was going well until touch down where a flock of ducks, didn't, on the roll out and I saw first hand just how dangerous a rotating prop can be. Fortunately for the prop it was just at idle and there doesnt appear to be any damage, the same cannot be said for the 2 halves of the pigeon or the duck that didnt, requiring trips on foot out to clear the carnage for the next plane. As this is a family site photos werent appropriate

 

just south of Hecks field there appeared to be a small plane airport near Southport. Does anyone know what the go with that airport is? Is it RAA friendly and can people tie down there? Its quite close to surfers and if we wanted a weekend away seemed to be very close to everything. Its listed in ERSA as Southport but there is a bit at the bottom that says no public or commercial ops so was wondering if it can be flown into or not?

 

Regards

 

Andy

Hi Andy, sorry about the valley name, as it isnt on the maps, thats a good way you went.Numinbah valley is just west north west of murwillumbah, via chillingham.It takes you up to beechmont, then on to Canungra.Sorry to hear about the bird when landing home, its good to here your prop is OK.It would have put a dampner on the trip.It looked realy realy cold at monto looking at the photos.

Just to add to the southport post, i am pretty sure it is around $10 000 to join there

 

Very exclusive club, nice field there it would be nice to be able to land there for holidays, closest would be murwillumba or Hecks-Cheers