The mission description from Angel Flight was:
A 54 year old Yowah man with bladder cancer has been travelling alone by road to and from Brisbane, a fourteen hour drive one way, every three months for treatment and some surgery. This time he needs to undergo more surgery and he must make the minimum amount of physical movement for seven to ten days post op.
The man must first be transported to Maryborough where he will be reunited with his sister and brother-in-law who will provide emotional support leading up to the operation. After a couple of days in Maryborough they will transport him by road to the PA Hospital in Brisbane where the operation will take place.
On his release from hospital we need to fly him to Maryborough where he will stay with his sister and take a few days to recuperate before being flown back to Yowah.
INITIAL TRIP REQUEST:
I took Andreas home from Maryborough to Yowah. This meant that I first had to fly from Archerfield to Maryborough, and then onto Yowah.
Because of the distance to Yowah and the absence of fuel there, we had to stop en-route at Charleville to refuel.
In order to pick up Andreas by 9am I had to get airborne at about 8am. This in turn meant getting up at 6:30. Accordingly I set my electronic alarm clock. Heather
asked me to wake her up as well, so that she could have some quiet time in the morning before the boys woke up. But, Harry
decided to act as our alarm clock at 6:00.
Having got up earlier, I got to the airfield earlier, did my pre-flight inspection, and got airborne before 8:00. As the there were showers passing through the area, it looked like I would have to do an instrument departure. At the time I called up Brisbane Radar to negotiate the departure (the tower at Archerfield was still closed), a low rain cloud was over the field. With Brisbane going through its morning arrivals and departures I was told to either depart visually or expect a significant delay. As luck had it a Cessna Caravan was inbound from the West (my initial track, if I was to use runway 28), who reported that the conditions were good enough for visual flight. So I blasted off, tracked for the Indooroopilly bridge and was given my clearance from there.
There was a fair bit of cumulus cloud about and, after commencing my descent into Maryborough, I found a large hole in the clouds that permitted me to slip down and proceeded visually just below the cloud deck at 1,500' above the ground.
On arriving at Maryborough I was met by Andreas and his brother in law Pete.
Andreas gave me his little travel bag, which was stowed in the back, and without too much further ado, we got airborne at 9:00 for our 3 hour trip to Charleville.
Conditions were initially quite smooth at our cruising altitude of 10,000', but at about the half way mark, we wound up bouncing around just at the base of a layer of cloud. With Andreas looking a little peakish (but never complaining), I decided to descend to 8,000'. Here is was a lot smoother.
Andreas proved to be a chatty and pleasant travelling companion. I am happy to report that, unlike a few of my recent passengers, he did not succumb to the ennui of my presence and managed to stay awake for the whole flight.
On contacting Charleville CTAF (Common Traffic Advisory Frequency), the local Unicom operator gave me the wind direction and strength. This allowed me to make a straight in approach to runway 30 without first having to circle overhead. We landed just after 12:00.
I had not even shut down the engine outside the bowser, when the refueller got ready to replenish the fuel. While he pumped 234 litres of AvGas onboard, Andreas headed for the cafe, got himself some refreshments and sat on the verandah overlooking the airfield. I soon joined him, having purchased a nice meat pie and enjoying an icy cold drink courtesy of Andreas.
After thus having rested up we got airborne again at about half past 12 for our last leg to Metropolis Yowah, population 200 (dwindling to about 60 in summer).
We encountered a few rain showers en-route, but the flying was generally smooth and pleasant.
Yowah, not being serviced by any navigational aids, needed to be located by my Mk-I eye balls (The GPS did come kind-of handy too). Even though the air strip is basically just some bulldozed dirt, it was easily spotted from the air.
Andreas' friend was already waiting to take him on the long drive to town (about 1km - half a mile).
Having struggled with Andreas' 7kg bag I discharged him into the care of his friend and climbed back onboard.
Andreas, not being a long distance driver, would normally have taken 3 days to drive back home. This way I picked him up just after breakfast and had him home for a late lunch or early afternoon tea.
The weather was perfect with just some high level alto-cirrus providing some shade.
However, on crossing the ranges just to the west of Brisbane, things started to go pear-shaped weather-wise. I was initially cleared for a visual approach via Goodna, but that was soon withdrawn and I had to prepare for an NDB-B approach into Archerfield. Approaching Amberly I was told to go into a holding pattern above Amberly. This placed me right inside a very heavy rain-shower. There were quite severe up and downdrafts as I went around on my 2 minute race course pattern. George, the autopilot, had to fly at 8 degrees nose down in order to maintain altitude - normally that would give me a 1000' a minute descent!
Luckily I only had to do one pattern and was then cleared directly to Archerfield, being given descents as the terrain allowed. Having emerged from the base of the cloud at the minima I got visual with the airfield about 2 miles away and splashed down on the rain-sodden runway at 20 minutes past 4.