Brisbane nav training/planning
 

Hey ppruners,

I'm in the process of buidling PIC time for my CPL in Queensland (flying out of Redcliffe) and was wondering if anyone could suggest some interesting/challenging ideas for crosscountry jaunts. Trips around the 2.5 hr mark would be ideal, preferably with an opportunity for a short field or two thrown in. No cruisy coastal scenics - I need stuff that will make me cry and wish I had GPS.

I've also got a few questions, for any local aviators:

Are transit clearances through Brisbane CTR generally available if you submit a flight plan? Otherwise it's a long cicuitous route between the Class C step and Amberley danger zones, ploughing through umpteen visual reporting points. Which makes going south OCTA a rather expensive exercise...

Any good short strips that don't require owner's permission around? Tassie was full of them, but here most of the stuff I find is either unserviceable or privately owned.

Thanks in advance; if anyone would like to give me some Nav suggestions alà the local CPL syllabi I'll gladly post the resultant GPS track history for you to laugh at.

:)

Lozq try this Chtr scenario

The office girl at Redcliffe says you have a 12 noon charter to Kilcoy and Murwillumbah.
She is a bit hazy on the details but thinks the clients name is Kerry Obrien and you will know him when you see him as he will have red hair and blue eyes. Or was that blue hair and red eyes .
At 1.00pm a guy turns up with jet black swept back hair and dark sunglasses and says he has booked a flight to the above points. Says his name is Terry Ryan.
You reckon you have your man so you load up and takeoff.
Enroute he asks can you fly low over the Woodford Goal as he has some small parcels to drop. He also asks you to point out Archer falls airstrip and asks if he can hire a car there..

Landing at Kilcoy you are joined by another passenger with a heavy European accent who occupies the back seat.
Departing out of Kilcoy they ask you to point out Mccarrons Strip and ask if it is easy to drive to.
Enroute to Murwillumbah on the direct track they become interested in some ground objects and ask you to circle while they take some photographs. The gent in the backseat is talking on his phone.
You land at Murwillumbah and watch your passengers drive off in a Skoda 4WD
Your charter is now over and you plan to return to Redcliffe via the Gold Coast western lane through the control zone, up the M1 over Archerfield Aerodrome, Dayboro and home to Redcliffe
On arrival there seems to be a lot of police about the place.....must be taking flying lessons.
You reach into your shirt pocket and feel your trusty ASIC . Job done.
A challenging strip would be Forest Hill just a few miles east of Gatton Airpark
Don't have a contact....cheers

What are you flying?

Here's one I have all my CPL students at Redcliffe do:

YRED GALLANGOWAN (approx YGYM 234 degrees 22nm) sunny Glen (YBSU 311 degrees 68nm then YBSU with a full stop, YRED. It's a tough Nav but very much CPL standard.

As for getting a clearance through the Brisbane TMA, yes it can be done and I would expect a CPL candidate to be able to do it.

Kerry Ryan's a bit dodgy, I reckon...

Judging by the (brilliant) above scenario, a non-transponder equipped aerocommander with no registration markings, a false floor to hide 'the stuff' and a bottle of bourbon instead of an ELT. Oh, for the exciting life....

In practical terms however, I'll be doing the bulk of my hours in a PA38 or vintage 172; so about 100ktas.

I just pinged those waypoints into ozrunways - that's sadistic. But ideal. Of course it won't be quite the same without a 'passenger', deciding halfway through the second leg that he wants to divert to do low level orbits over his 'cousin's' farmhouse some forty miles off track. Oh, and by the way, some cloud's rolled in - we'll have to get there at 500'' AGL. Via one of four seemingly identical valleys, three of which are dead ends. Such fun :)

This will be my next nav - thankyou.

In terms of transiting BNE (and any large aiport) is it usually easier to present oneself at low altitude and hope to sneak under all the RPT traffic? My experience with big airports is very limited - Tasmania was very much a 'Cleared direct at 3500, and try not to hit the A320 on 10 mile final, if you can possibly help it...'.

Tell someone about your planned Nav and get them to select a point where you open an envelope that they have written a different scenario/ diversion for you. If it's a shocker make sure you get them back if they ask you to do the same.

Getting a clearance over BNE itself is tricky, but your best hope would be to plan manly boat Harbour- BNE - Hornibrook viaduct at 1500, otherwise overhead at 6000ft or higher. It's all to do with protecting the approach paths. If you want to get really good at CTA then do the CTA hell flight that we do (YRED YBSU yamb ybaf YBCG BN YRED). Expect radar vectors between the Gold Coast and Brisbane. If you get through that without annoying any controllers too bad your ready for CPL as far as CTA goes

You sound like the kind of instructor I would sometimes hate flying with, and then deeply appreciate in the future when other people I meet say 'At *insert airline-esque flight school here* they didn't let us fly through military airspace, land on unsealed strips, etc'. A young lady I knew did most of her training somewhere in Melbourne, where they wouldn't let students fly over water. Her first major nav in Tassie was SEP across the Bass Strait. Funny, how schools are different. Insurance thing, or CFI preference I wonder?

On the topic of annoying controllers, I think I have a bit of an inferiority complex. I always feel that as a VFR training flight I don't really have a right to be getting in the way of RPT traffic, clogging up airspace for no real reason. Of course, without doing just that I'd never get the experience needed but still - I always feel a bit guilty doing it, and tend to plan routes under/around CTA's.

The thing that most instructors keep in mind for CPL candidates is that once you get the licence, there is every chance you could be flying my family around the top end in the middle of the wet season, and if the student isn't up to that then I'm not putting them up for the test. We do lots of unsealed strips, and our students are allowed to use unsealed strips such as dunwich solo once they have been checked by an instructor. The reality is they are the kinds of conditions most people fly under for their first job.

Some schools don't do that for a risk management perspective, but I suggest you don't have much confidence in your training provided if students can't do that.

As I am also a controller, I deal with light aircraft in controlled airspace all the time, and it's normally not a problem. Controlled airspace generally isn't meant to keep people out, it's just to provide a required level of safety in busy traffic environments. If you have the qualifications to use CTA then you really should use it.

Nav complete!
 

I went up and executed the suggested nav today - despite constant turbulence the entire flight, it was quite lovely and just the thing to straighten out my slightly rusty navigation skills.

Apart from tuning the YBSU VOR briefly, today was completely dead-reckoned. And I think it went pretty well, considering this was my first proper nav in QLD (I did do YRED - YGYM last week, but that's not exactly challenging). Made a few stupid mistakes, but thankfully realised what I was doing and corrected prior to deviating significantly from plan.

Completely mucked up my departure by trying to turn onto track too early, but quickly sorted it out when I did my first position fix. First leg was all good, and then I managed to charge straight past Gallangowan, before realising it must be behind me. Lo and behold, there it was, sneakily hidden in the trees.

Sunny Glen was also nastier than the map suggested, I thought I'd found it but the ETA didn't match up. On further inspection, neither did the river/roads nearby. I pressed on a few more minutes and successfully identified it (I think) by its position sandwiched between a road and some high-voltage powerlines.

YBSU was pretty straightforward, although discerning the boundaries of townships can be a bit iffy when you don't know the area. Figured out where the reporting point was by some big reservoir though, so was all good for a cheeky touch-and-go and back to Redcliffe.

Overall, great nav involving lots of struggling to identify near-invisible rivers, powerlines and 'mountains' with funny names. And suitably tiny, obscure waypoints that should never have made it onto a WAC. Would recommend.

As promised, my route c/o GPS...

Try something which will test your DR skills...

YRED - "Simons Mill" (West of YKRY) - YLYD (Don't land unless you want to rip the spats off) - "Nukinenda" (North West of Kilcoy if memory serves) - YRED

Just like other nav routes that have been provided, this is something relatively straight forward and would expect any (young) CPL candidate to do

I remember doing that one in my training

Funny that, I just made it up on the spot just now! :E

Well you were right about lyndley, it has anthills the size of Everest and would not be smart to land on. Also slightly tricky to find as well.

Pinged it in, and looks like another winner. Tiny towns, snaking roads and a mess of powerlines to contend with. Great! And you've gotta love any route that takes you through 'HIGH SPEED LOW LEVEL MILITARY JETS OPERATING RANDOM ROUTES'. Good stuff.

Is YLYD a definite no go? The satellite image makes it look great, or is that perhaps a bit out of date?

And I notice YJBR 'Jimbour' five miles south, but no AOPA or ERSA entry. Can anyone enlighten?

Anthills. Right. Question answered.

Do yourself a proper strip inspection at YLYD, good strip for the exercise.

A little bit of CPL strip research will find who you can contact about YJBR in about 10 seconds (give or take)

Point taken - and less than ten seconds, for the record.

Colonial era historical home. I'll can wear my flying goggles and aviator's scarf, and thrill the country lasses with tales of dogfights over the channel and general derring-do.