The mission description from Angel Flight was:
SUBSEQUENT TRIP REQUEST: 11th and 12th Angel flights.Benjamin and his mum Michelle were flown to up to Brisbane in the morning by Angel Flight pilot Greg Tom.A six month old baby from St George has been born with Bilateral Talipes ie. club feet.
The boy is required to travel to Brisbane for a post operative review.
The one thousand kilometre trip necessitates a three day excursion. Angel Flight will help alleviate the long road trips for this young family.
How often have air travellers heard this announcement and silently uttered an oath or two?
On his way to pickup Benjamin and Michelle, Greg Tom encountered stronger head winds than anticipated, arriving some 40 minutes late, delaying their arrival into Brisbane, causing a missed appointment, and having to wait for a slot to become available at the doctor.
So Earth Angel Bill Cooper could not deliver my my charges at Archerfield until 1:00pm for our original 12:30pm departure.
I saw no evidence of Michelle uttering any oath, silent or othewise, and suspect that she was quite relieved to see me delay the departure and wait for her (as, I am sure, were the folks at Angel Flight).
I had spent the additional time moving the aircraft to the terminal building and resting up in the shade. Outside it was some 32°C in the shade and I applied some maps to the cockpit to keep it from heating up too much. Rest assured to know that I did remove these prior to taxiing.
Having installed the baby seat, stored the nappy bag and stroller we finally got airborne at 1:20pm. The skies were filled with just a smattering of cloud and the climbout through the Amberly control zone and past the air base was smooth.
Despite my magnetic and enthralling personality (or maybe because of it?) both Benjamin and Michelle fell asleep before we had even passed Ipswich.
Amberly control cleared us for a direct routing to St George, saving some 6 minutes of flying. As we climbed to our cruising altitude of 10,000' a layer of cloud first appeared below us, and then dissipated again as we neared
St George.
But just 15nm short of St George we were confronted by a large thunderstorm cloud. Emanating from this were spectacular lightening flashes and the visibility was greatly reduced.
I opted to detour well to the south of the storm cells and was rewarded with a mainly smooth flight with only one or two minor bumps.
Benjamin, being a frequent traveller, was not fazed in the least and kept on snoozing.
We landed in the clear just after 3pm (the 40+kt headwinds that Greg encountered obviously having abated) and quickly moved Benjamin, the stroller and the baby seat to Michelle's car.
I made use of the facilities provided by the air terminal and then headed back to the plane.
I got airborne at 3:23pm and had to decide whether to make a large detour to the south to get around the thunder storm, or a smaller one to the north. I opted for the northerly
route, and before too long was enveloped in cloud. While clear of the main storm, I did encounter some reasonably severe turbulence in the cloud, and was glad when some 15 minutes
later I was spat out into clear air again.
The rest of the flight at 9,000' was either between layers of cloud or completely in the clear. I arrived back at Archerfield a few minutes before 5pm, refueled the aircraft, tied it down and headed home, happy to have made a difference; Instead of a 3 day odyssey to see the doctor, Michelle and Benjamin left home in the morning and were back for afternoon tea on the same day.