SAFA Skysailor Magazine

22 SKY SAILOR December-January-February | SUMMER 2025/2026 Photo: Tex Bec Re-opening Carties: What it took to bring the site back by Carol Liang and Susy Goldner Point Cartwright (aka ‘Carties’) has been a beloved site on the Sunshine Coast for decades. It features a grassy, sloping launch with a stunning ocean outlook and is one of only two sites in the region that reliably work in the prevailing SE winter winds. It has always felt special, and for disabled tandem passengers, it’s one of the only accessible flying opportunities in the region. It also happens to sit squarely within Class D airspace, meaning an exemption from CASA is needed to fly there. When Carties was lost due to rule breaches a few years back, it wasn’t just a theoretical incon- venience. We lost a genuinely special flying site, and pilots felt it immediately. When the new Sunshine Coast Free Flyers (SCFF) club committee came in, we