The mission description from Angel Flight was:
INITIAL TRIP REQUEST:Warren had been transported to Brisbane by Angel Flight pilot Trevor Steel on Wednesday and had undergone tests and observations at the hospital to monitor his reaction to various drugs used to manage his condition.Warren is an eleven year old boy from Roma and has a complex congenital heart problem.
He will need to see specialist at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane on a regular basis.
He has been advised not to travel by road.
He and his dad, Michael, were now keen to be going home.
On the day of this flight, however, the forecast started off with the words POOR CONDITIONS. I took this ever so subtle hint.
A trough was sitting out to the west of Archerfield and Roma and was travelling towards the east. It was forecast to be right between the two locales at the scheduled departure time. It was accompanied by lots of thunderstorm activity, rain and poor visibility.
Seeing that this was Warren's second flight in a light aircraft, I decided to spare him the opportunity to inspect the inside of a sick bag and the prospect of having to return to Archerfield, should we not get visual at Roma. So I delayed the departure from 1pm to 5pm, by which time most of the bad weather was forecast to have passed to the east of Archerfield, leaving clear air on the way to Roma.
A quick phone call to Michael and Earth Angel Bill Cooper had this sorted out.
I went out to the airfield just before 4pm to do the pre-flight and move FWL from its muddy parking spot to the concrete tarmac outside the Archerfield air terminal.
Bill soon turned up and disgorged Michael and Spiderman. Well, not Spiderman, but Warren in his Spiderman pyjamas. Upon being offered a seat either inside the cabin or the opportunity to use his sticky web to cling to the top of bottom of the fuselage, Warren opted for the seat inside.
After a quick safety briefing we all clambered onboard. Michael took a back seat, while Warren occupied the passenger seat next to me in the cockpit, complaining all the while that he was too short to look over the instrument panel.
As it was a muggy day, I decided to keep the door of the plane ajar until just before take off. This allows some cool air to enter the cabin and the door never is open more than about 5cm, the slip stream of the propeller keeping it in that position. Warren, being seated next to the door, was a little startled by this and I consequently received at least 12 reminders to close it by the time we reached the run-up bay.
We still had some overcast, necessitating an Instrument Departure, entering the clouds at about 1,200' as we turned west toward Roma. The air traffic controllers initially held us
down at 2,000', then 4,000' and asked us to do a little zig-zagging as they vectored an F-111 into Amberly air base below us. But soon we were cleared to climb to the
flight planned 8,000'. The conditions were clear and smooth as we headed toward the setting sun.
Warren kept me occupied by quizzing me about all things aeronautical (How do you know where the other planes are? How many engines does the plane have? What's a pitot? What, if the wind came from another direction?..) as we flew into the 30kt head wind.
I countered this quizzing by having him help me work out our descend point:
We are at 8,000'.With a little prompting from the back seat Warren eventually worked it out.Roma is at 1,000'.
We want to be 1,500' above Roma when we get there.
How many feet to we have to descend?
If we descend at 500 foot a minute, how long before we get to Roma should we commence our descent?
Given that we are now 22 minutes from Roma (we were 30 minutes when we started the exercise) and the time is 36 minutes after the hour, at what time should we tell Brisbane Centre that we will start our descent?
By this time it was dark and, having turned on the runway lighting on the PAL (Pilot Activated Lighting) frequency, we circled in for a landing to the south, arriving just a minute or two before 7pm.
Warren's welcome committee consisting of mum, sister, grandma, cousin and various other family members was already waiting at the terminal.
Warren is sure to become an aviator: As he met his family he told them excitedly that next time he would definitely be asking to be travelling with me again, and not with Trevor, because in my plane he could sit in the cockpit!!
Only on approaching the ranges just to the west of Brisbane did I dip into some clouds, emerging from them on descent into Archerfield at about 3,500'. The radar controller wanted me to maintain 2,500' until I had the Archerfield runway lights in sight. There was only one hitch - while I could locate the position of Archerfield I could not see the lights; they were not turned on. My request to change to the PAL frequency in order to turn them on was initially refused. I was told that I could not change frequency until I had the lights in sight. Only when I pointed out the Catch-22 nature of this situation was I cleared, and had an uneventful arrival into Archerfield at about 8:40pm