On Saturday 20th February 2021 Airsport QLD held their fly-in event called the Airsport QLD Fly and Thai Breakfast at Boonah airfield, which is located around one hour south-west of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. This was my first trip to this picturesque rural airfield which I had been wanting to visit for some time, and this event proved to be the perfect impetus.
I made contact with the organisers to get a basic overview of the plans for the morning and was told they expected at least 160 people for the breakfast. At the end of the event I was told that they had over 60 visiting aircraft, an excellent turnout for a rural fly-in. After several months of COVID restrictions, I can only imagine a lot of owners were very keen to get out for a fly and catch up with some of their aviation buddies.
I was told it was safe to photograph from the eastern side of the runway which gave the best morning light direction, so I carefully made my way across the runway and waited for the aircraft to arrive. They came thick and fast, for the next three hours there was hardly a five minute period where there wasn’t a takeoff or landing movement.
At one stage I sensing movement behind me, I had to laugh when I turned around to see that a stealthy ninja cow had snuck up to see what I was up to. Betsy didn’t hang around long once I made eye contact, I think all the camera gear I was carrying proved too much and off she went, unsure of what she had stumbled upon.
On this morning I shot around 2,500 images, after many hours of editing I had around 450 aircraft images. I hope you enjoy my work, it was a busy morning of photographing with so many aircraft in and out in a three hour period. Feel free to leave me a comment at bottom of this page to let me know what you think, and if you attended the event let me know about your trip.
Which aircraft attended the event?
Over 60 aircraft visited on the day, and including a few local aircraft I managed to capture photos of 70 individual aircraft. There was a good number of vintage types, including several de Havilland Moth models, a pair of DHC-1 Chipmunks, an Auster J/8L Aiglet, a Genairco Biplane, a Victa Airtourer and a beautiful WACO Classic Aircraft EGC-8 biplane. There were more than ten Cessnas, a pair of Piper twins and four Piper singles, six Van’s RVs, an American Champion Citabria and an American Champion Super Decathlon in very nice red shooting stars livery. A pair of ZLIN Savage Cubs and a Just Aircraft SuperSTOL represented the STOL types, and there were good numbers of light aircraft and homebuilts from Tecnam, Aeroprakt, Slings and Jabiru.
I’ve divided the aircraft into the groups below. There’s at least one photo of each aircraft I photographed in this article, just click on an image to open a new page with all images of that particular aircraft that I captured on the day. If you’d like to see the gallery of all images from the day follow click here. If you’re interested in purchasing any image, there’s a Buy button option on the full image that opens when clicked on from this article. Alternatively you can contact me at mmpi@mmpi.biz for image purchases or other queries.
In this section are the images of the grand old dames of the sky that were at the event. The prize for oldest aircraft on the day goes to De Havilland DH.60M VH-UMK “Golden Quest” which was built in 1929. The Genairco Biplane VH-UOD and WACO Classic Aircraft EGC-8 VH-EGC were built in 1930. Most of the other DH Moths on the day are from the WWII era, as is the Auster J/8L. It was fantastic to see so many older aircraft at the event, there a good number of these old classics based at Boonah.
Aircraft in this section
- Auster J/8L Aiglet Trainer VH-RIE
- De Havilland DH.60M VH-UMK “Golden Quest”
- De Havilland DH.60M Metal Moth VH-UUX
- De Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth VH-UZV
- De Havilland DH.82A Tiger Moth VH-FAG
- De Havilland DH.82A Tiger Moth VH-HCI
- De Havilland DH.82A Tiger Moth VH-APB
- De Havilland Canada DHC-1 Mk 22 Chipmunk VH-SSJ
- De Havilland Canada DHC-1 T.10 Chipmunk VH-JHN
- Genairco Biplane VH-UOD
- Victa Airtourer 115 VH-MUZ
- WACO Classic Aircraft EGC-8 VH-EGC
Cessna and Piper Aircraft
A good number of Cessna and Piper types flew in for the event. On the Cessna side, there were six of the 172 family, a 150, and three of the 180 family. The Piper team were represented by an Archer, a pair of Arrows, one Saratoga and duo of very nice Seneca twins.
Aircraft in this section
- Cessna 150M VH-WWP
- Cessna 172M Skyhawk VH-MDX
- Cessna 172N Skyhawk VH-KBL
- Cessna 172N Skyhawk VH-UWI
- Cessna 172N Skyhawk VH-KJR
- Cessna 172R Skyhawk VH-PPX
- Cessna 172S Skyhawk SP VH-WPL
- Cessna 180A VH-DEK
- Cessna 180A VH-DLM
- Cessna 182M Skylane VH-MLY
- Piper PA-28-180 Archer VH-PYX
- Piper PA-28R-200 Arrow II VH-WJO
- Piper PA-28R-201T Turbo Arrow III VH-RMW
- Piper PA-32R-301 Saratoga SP VH-NED
- Piper PA-34-220T Seneca VH-YSA
- Piper PA-34-220T Seneca VH-YSC
Vans RV Aircraft
Aircraft in this section
- Vans RV-7 VH-DOW
- Vans RV-7 VH-KGN
- Vans RV-7 VH-LVS
- Vans RV-8 VH-YGY
- Vans RV-7 VH-PSW
- Vans RV-7 VH-EYE
I captured VH-LVS kicking up some dust on its takeoff roll.
Jabiru and Tecnam Aircraft
Aircraft in this section
- Jabiru J120-C 24-5427
- Jabiru J200 19-4150
- Jabiru J230-D 19-7756
- Jabiru SP500 19-3944
- Tecnam P2008 VH-UZI
- Tecnam P2010 VH-ARQ
- Tecnam P92 Eaglet G5 24-8211
- Tecnam P92 Echo Mk II 23-1712
- Tecnam P96 Golf 100 24-5395
- Tecnam P96 Golf 100 24-7433
I captured a total of four Jabiru and six Tecnam aircraft at this event.
Other Aircraft
In this section are all the other aircraft types not covered separately in the sections above.
Aircraft in this section
- Aeroprakt A-32 Vixxen VH-OGY
- Aeroprakt A-32 Vixxen 23-1912
- Aeroprakt A-32 Vixxen 23-1696
- Aeropro Eurofox 2K 24-7772
- Aircraft Factory Sling 2 24-8582
- Aircraft Factory Sling 2 23-1625
- Aircraft Factory Sling 2 24-8489
- American Champion Aircraft 7GCAA Citabria VH-BWR
- American Champion Aircraft 8KCAB Super Decathlon VH-NQX
- Atec 122 Zephyr 19-3399
- Austflight Drifter 582 25-0414
- Bearhawk Patrol 19-8645
- Europa XS Monowheel VH-CUA
- General Avia F.22 VH-PIQ
- Glasair GlaStar GS-1 VH-MEV
- Jarvis Minicab 19-3780
- Just Aircraft SuperSTOL 19-8831
- Maule M-5-180C VH-NAT
- Rans S-7 Courier VH-ZMA
- Schleicher ASK 21 VH-BGE
- Zenair Zodiac CH 601 HD 19-1501
- Zlin Savage Cub 24-5360
- Zlin Savage Cub 24-8455
A very nice livery on Super Decathlon VH-NQX, the red and white with shooting stars is quite striking on this interesting little aircraft. I still remember being taken for an aerobatic flight by a work colleague way back in 1985 in one of these very manoeuvrable little machines – the loops, rolls and stall spins scared the pants off me and I definitely wasn’t feeling very good when we landed.
Scenery and Vintage Autos
Boonah airfield is set in a scenic rural area and is surrounded by mountain ranges, making for some nice backdrops for photographing aircraft. Below are a few images where I think the scenery really adds to the subject.
There were a couple of restored vintage cars in attendance at the event, I believe both are local to the airfield. The Chevrolet fire engine has been converted to a fuel tanker, with appropriate warning signs in case anybody tried to put out a fire from it!
Where is Boonah Airport?
Boonah Airport (ICAO:YBOA) is in the township of Boonah, around 85Km (1 hour) by road South-West of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. For more information about the airfield and its operation, visit the airfield’s website.
