Queensland Warbirds and Vintage Aircraft Association in Cressbrook | Community organisation

Queensland Warbirds and Vintage Aircraft Association

Locality: Cressbrook

Address: 801 Cressbrook-Caboonbah Rd 4313 Cressbrook, QLD, Australia

Website: http://www.qwvaa.com.au

Likes: 1221

Add/Update information

Reviews

Tags

• Community organisation

25.01.2022 VH-ZTG Cessna at a QVAG Festival of Flight back about 2000 - where is she now?

24.01.2022 2nd of 9 segments Gold Coast Airshow 1989 (Coolangatta)

23.01.2022 Dont laugh too much - ones just like there (and more primitive) used to fly at Watts Bridge. https://youtu.be/d43-sVc1_uM

23.01.2022 Pietenpol Air Camper I think.- Is this aeroplane still flying? If so where? posting these photos makes me ask the question - Can a fly-in of this scale still take place or has CASA clamped down and made it too difficult? It took quite a team of QVAG members to run the Festival of Flight are sufficient enthusiasts still about who are in the position to assist?

23.01.2022 Not a great photo od the Sea Fury - yet another photo of a Zuccoli aeroplane and I can pretty mush say for sure that it was flown by Guido. I think This may have been his favorite aeroplane - not sure.

22.01.2022 Here is the 6th segment of the series of 9 segments of the Gold Coast Airshow.

22.01.2022 T28 VH-SHT (now VH-TRO and based at Archerfield, Queensland) and a Harvard. The T28 belonged to Kim Rolf-Smith and the Harvard by Randall McFarlane. Not sure of the rego of the Harvard. The photo was taken in the early 1990s at Watts Bridge Memorial Airfield - note the absence of any development at the airfield.

21.01.2022 Here is the 8th segment of the series of 9 segments of the Gold Coast Airshow.

21.01.2022 Work has progressed on a new hangar for Kennedy Aviation at Watts Bridge in the Commercial Hangar Precinct. The second half of the slab will be laid in the next day or so and there is a large concrete apron to be laid as well. Kennedy Aviation operates fire fighting aircraft and was very active at Watts Bridge last fire season with a number of their Fire Boss aircraft operating from the field.. Great to see a new building in the Commercial Aviation Precinct.

21.01.2022 3rd of 9 segments Gold Coast Airshow 1989 (Coolangatta). I will post the next 3 segments up tomorrow and the final 3 segments the day after tha

21.01.2022 The new hangar in the front row of the Commercial Hangar Precinct is at the practical completion point and is able to be used to hangar/maintain aircraft. Its really great to see this hangar and I am keen to see it in use - well done to Kennedy Aviation.

21.01.2022 Sorry about the quality of the photo. There is a long story, I have a medium format film camera and I am thinking of selling it I noticed that it still had a roll of film in it so I took it to Fotofast at Taringa Brisbane to have the negatives developed. The camera hadnt been used for about 20 years. Fotofast scanned the negative for me and here is the result.... It is at Watts Bridge and from memory it is a "Call Back" Stearman and belonged to the Guido Zuccoli. The photo was taken at One of the QVAG Festival of Flight fly-ins

21.01.2022 The working bee held at the QWVAA Building on Tuesday 9th June 2020 was a great success. A lot of work was done by a sizable number of members exercising their woodworking skills as can be seen in the photos.

19.01.2022 Back in the 1990s and early 2000s QVAG-AFM owned a former RAAF Neptune A89-281 - here is a couple of pics of that aircraft..

19.01.2022 Fiat G59 VH-LIX flown to a QVAG Festival of Flight in the late 1990s if my memory serves me correctly. The QVAG Festivals were HUGE events with about 400 aircraft visiting Watts Bridge Memorial Airfield over the 3 days of the fly-in. The Fiat was part of the Zuccoli collection and I am wondering it still is and does it still fly?

18.01.2022 4th of 9 segments Gold Coast Airshow 1989 (Coolangatta). I will post the final3 segments up tomorrow. Anyone remember who paid for all those Warbirds to be there. LOTS of vintage aeroplanes flew in as well.

18.01.2022 Where are the interesting hangars now. Here is a short video of Barry Hempels Hangar June 1989. The Stearman stiuff belonged to Ross Smith who build a number of Boeing Stearmans there. Ross Stenhouse had his Tiger Moth VH-JRS in there Barry had the Bristol Tourer and his Pitts. I dont know who owned the Venom.

17.01.2022 Here is the 7th segment of the series of 9 segments of the Gold Coast Airshow.

14.01.2022 The AFM building now the QWVAA building at Watts Bridge. This photo shows how we first saw it way back in 1995. It was a residential house at Williwong, Brisbane. It had been moved there from Archerfield Airport was back when...

14.01.2022 The Zuccoli T6 - photo is a frame grad from a video I have of the 1989 Gold Coast Airshow and circuit time race. I have about 1 hour 20 minutes of video.

13.01.2022 Its real easy to forget the past and what has happened at Watts Bridge. This video is yet another of the various great aeroplanes attending a fly-in It is also the work of one of the many great photographers and video makers who have documented some of the happenings at the field. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrDRZgoNORI

13.01.2022 Another Zuccoli aircraft Falco F8L in attendance at a QVAF Festival of Flight. I think the year may have been 1994 and at that time the fly-ins were called QVAGs Watts Bridge Fly-in.

13.01.2022 Guido Zucolli going flat out up the runway. From memory the competing aircraft had to do as quick a circuit as they could and they had to be below 50 foot at the runway threshold and maintain that height until they reached the far end. Made for some very spectacular flying. This photo is a frame grab from a video I shot of the air race.

12.01.2022 The latest hangar at Watts Bridge is progressing well. Wont be long before the Kennedy Aviation aeroplanes are able to use the hangar Nice to see the Aero Commander aircraft land at Watts - I have had a soft spot for this Aero Commander aircraft The Commander is normally based at Toowoomba. The pilot told me he is restoring a Piper Tri-pacer.

10.01.2022 After a lot of work I have finally made a video of the Gold Coast Airshow held in 1989 (I think) that is 31 years ago. I have cut the video into a number of 10 minute segments.I have published them in a fairly low but acceptable resolution. The original video was shot on hi band video 8. There are quite a number of very famous names in the live commentary. I think that Kerry Shyring and John Know wee presenting the commentary. The airport is Coolangatta and you will see RPT... Jets taking off during the airshow. I think that was unique for Australia then and now.. Here is the first of nine 10 minute video segment.

09.01.2022 We noticed that Atlas House Removers liked this page. Back in 1995 Atlas shifted the QWVAA building onto Watts Bridge. The photo below shows the building on one of the Atlas trucks.

09.01.2022 VH-XVN Cessna Bird Dog - you might guess the photo was taken at a QVAG Festival of Flight.- from memory this aircraft flex up from Albury in NSW. Quite a number of people flew quite substantial distances to attend the annual fly-in.

07.01.2022 This Mig 15 flew up the 12/30 runway at Watts Bridge at about 50 ft. It was probably the fastest flypast ever flown at Watts to this day. Barry Hempel was at the controls. In the photo here Barry wanted to stimulate flying training at Archerfield and so the MIG 15 was put on a truck and put on display at a shopping centre. David White - the manager at Hempels Aviation organized the move and display. Kim Rolf-Smith had his North American T28 VH-SHT on display at the same time. Barry way one of a kind and a great airman and a great showman. The aviation community needs people like Barry to show that flying aeroplanes can be great fun. He lives on in the spirit of two of his hangar rats (Cam and James).

07.01.2022 Here is the 5th segment of the series of 9 of the Gold Coast Airshow

07.01.2022 Pity Scott Williamson is only publishing his great photos on Instagram. Scot put them here so we can all see them.

06.01.2022 The latest hangar at Watts Bridge is progressing well. Won't be long before the Kennedy Aviation aeroplanes are able to use the hangar Nice to see the Aero Commander aircraft land at Watts - I have had a soft spot for this Aero Commander aircraft The Commander is normally based at Toowoomba. The pilot told me he is restoring a Piper Tri-pacer.

06.01.2022 A new hangar is being built in the Private Hangar Precinct at Watts Bridge.I understand that soon we will see another hangar being built. Well done to all concerned.

05.01.2022 Here is another pho9to from that roll of film I had processed about 20 years after I took the photo. I am surprised that any images were still there at all. Dess Farther and brother were killed in a DH Dragon crash many years earlier and Des lovingly had his Dragon restored as a memorial to his Father and Brother. The aeroplane is the DH Dragon and sadly it is no more - it crashed killing all on board. I remember you and miss you - Des Porter!

05.01.2022 A blast from the past https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M70LN2Jmbc

05.01.2022 Final segment (9 of 9) of the 1988 Gold Coast Airshow.

04.01.2022 Once upon a time QVAG-AFM (Now QWVAA) was a much larger organization with many members who owned a diverse range of privately owned vintage and warbird aeroplanes. It had a number of sub-groups within the parent group (QVAG-AFM) each of these sub-groups had a point of area of interest.. The Australian Flying Musium (AFM) had a video unit whose members shot videos of some of the interesting activities of its QVAG-AFM members.... The photo below shows Shane Winter (behind the camera) with sound guy Gary Smith (Troy Smiths dad) recording an interview with Bob Copas and Lace Maxwell in front of Bobs Tiger Moth VH-UNA. Bob and Lace flew wing walking missions in NA. and unfortunately both died on t1 MAY 1994 WHEN VH-UNA crashed whilst performing a wing-walking demonstration at Luskintyre.

01.01.2022 Guido Zuccoli taxing his Sea Fury at the 1989 Gold Coast Airshow (and Circuit Time Trial)