The mission description from Angel Flight was:
SUBSEQUENT TRIP REQUEST: (13th & 14th Angel flights)Warren, the boy in question, had previously travelled with me on Mission 612. This time he would be accompanied by his mother and aunty instead of his father.An eleven year old boy from Roma has a complex congenital heart problem. The boy recently underwent surgery to have a new Pace Maker.
He requires regular specialist appointments in Brisbane. This appointment is to re-adjust his pace maker and undergo an ultrasound.
Luckily I had some 20 minutes of leeway, and keeping the throttle wide open, managed to make slightly better time than flight planned. So I turned up only about 10 minutes late. Waiting for me were Warren, his mum, aunty, cousin, dad and various other family members.
With tail winds pushing us along, the sun right behind us, we sailed through the air at some 165 knot (faster than expected), flying through some minor rain clouds along the way. These produced spectacular rain bows right around the plane.
I somehow managed to identify the towns along the way. And for once my passengers were in agreement with my determinations.
As the sun set behind us, the clouds turned orange and pink above us, the twinkling lights came on below us, we were cleared for our descent into Archerfield. The tower was unmanned, but with other traffic already in the circuit, the lights were already on, allowing me to find the runway somehow and put the undercarriage upon it.
We touched down at about 6:10, taxied to my parking spot. Out of the gloom of the airfield patient Earth Angel David Scott soon appeared to take my charges across town to their destination.
The weather was pretty bad on the morning of Friday, with constant rain and lots of low clouds. It looked like it was going to be an instrument kind of a day.
This time I arrived at the airfield just after 1:00pm, getting the plane ready for the 2:00pm departure. Since the previous night I had landed after the refuelers had closed I started by having the tanks topped up.
Having delayed my passengers and the Earth Angel on the way to Brisbane, they repaid the compliment, arriving some 20 minutes after 2. They blamed delays on the doctor - but I could see through them - it was payback time.
Warren took shelter from the constant rain under the wing of the Beech Queen Air that is parked next to my aircraft while I tied down the remarkably small bag in the back. Rosalie and Pauline this time occupied the back seats, while Warren sat next to me.
With an instrument departure, and a sense of déjà vu for me, we finally took off at 2:35pm
However, this was only the start of the delays. I was instructed to maintain runway heading (east - while Roma is west), to 2,000'. This was followed by more radar vectoring, to the north-east, north, north-east, south, south west, and, finally west. Thus 20 minutes after take-off we found ourselves at our starting position: right above Archerfield, albeit, at 8,000' by now.
We were flying into and out cumulus clouds all the while, affording my passengers the grand scenic tour of Brisbane, Stradbroke Island, and, possibly, a glimpse or two of the Gold Coast. My scenery, on the other hand, was limited to the attitude indicator, air speed indicator, altimeter, vertical speed indicator and engine gauges.
The winds, stronger than forecast, were straight on our nose, reducing our true airspeed of 160 knot to a ground speed of 112 knot. It was going to be a long flight. As we headed toward Oakey we were being tossed around quite badly, but kept on popping out of clouds periodically. Receiving permission to track 2 miles left of track, I was able to put us in the clear out of the worst of it.
In the mean time one helicopter departed from Oakey toward the last known position of Black Hawk 208 and another, inbound from the north was also heading for the same spot. It was with great relief to everyone when the first one of these spotted the helicopter intact on the ground and the crew unharmed.
The weather was by now breaking up and my passengers were engrossed in some women's magazines and drawing of motorcycles.
Suddenly Warren had an urgent call of nature. I told him to cross his legs and tie a knot in it. His mother offered similar caring advice from the back seat. Warren then informed us in terms that only a country boy would use that the call was of a different order of magnitude.
All I again could do was tell him to hold onto it and not soil the seat. Funnily enough, after this point Warren became very interested in he GPS - in particular the projected arrival time into Roma.
We eventually landed at quarter to 5. Warren rushed to the terminal building, while his mum called his dad to come and pick them all up.
You can see a much relieved Warren at Roma aerodrome just before hopping into the car.
I got airborne just after 5:00pm, being lightly loaded, quickly rose to my 7,000' cruising altitude and found myself barreling along at a ground speed
of some 190 knot.
With the sun again setting behind me, I again enjoyed the spectacle of pink and orange tinged clouds ahead of me. I contemplated how lucky I am to be able to do these flights - being able to help while having lots of fun in the process.
There was very little traffic and I was radar vectored toward Archerfield for another night landing some one hour and twenty minutes after take-off (contrast this with the 2 hours and ten minutes it took to get there)