YKEP Operations

Airfield

The airfield itself has multiple runways to cope with any wind direction and there are lots of safe out-landing areas surrounding the site. The main surface is grass, however there are 400 metre bitumen sealed strips at either end of the 1.7 km main runway (runways 32/14). Agricultural and farm strips and good fields abound in the district, so there’s no reason to be out of range of a suitable site for an out-landing.

Airspace

Apart from the Tamworth Airport controlled airspace to the south-east, there is G-class airspace to 18,000ft amsl from the south-west around to the north-east. Keep an eye out locally for inbound traffic to Tamworth, as Keepit Dam is a VFR approach point. Look at a copy of the latest Tamworth VTC for more information on the airspace near our site.

Hang-gliders, ultra-lights, gyrocopters, helicopters and paragliders also put in occasional appearances at the LKSC airfield. The world-famous Mt. Borah paragliding site is 30km north-east at Manilla; the Sky Ranch ultralight strip is 2 km north-east of us and helicopters and aircraft come from Tamworth to practice at our airstrip, even at night.

Radio Procedures.
For the full story download the GFA’s Airways and Radio Procedures manual.

Lake Keepit uses the frequency 132.25 MHz in the local area. You are asked to treat Lake Keepit as a CTAF, i.e. give inbound, circuit and intentions calls within a 10nm radius and 3,000ft agl of the site. Lake Keepit uses 132.25 MHz for their entire operation.

Other nearby CTAF frequencies are:

Gunnedah  127.40 MHz

Quirindi      127.80 MHz

Narrabri      126.7 MHz

There are commonly used chat frequencies on 122.5 and 122.9MHz for informal communication during busy weekends. The international distress frequency is 121.5MHz. These are the three main gliding frequencies in Australia, and you may hear other clubs and glider pilots communicating on them also.

Lake Keepit is well away from complex airspace so use of the radio is simple even for non-English speakers.