The mission descriptions from Angel Flight was:
SUBSEQUENT TRIP REQUEST: (10th Angel Flight)I had previously carried Wendy on her maiden flight, Mission 1314 in September and again on Mission 1430 in November of last year.A 46 year old lady from Tambo needs to attend Toowoomba Hospital for Chemotherapy every 3 weeks and because of a long and arduous journey an Angel Flight will alleviate some of the stress experienced.
This time I would be taking them home again, with the first stop Toowoomba to for the pick up, thence Tambo to drop them off. After that, down south to Charleville for a re-fuel, then home to Archerfield.
Consequently I waited in the shade of the terminal building for my passengers to arrive. Earth Angel Kirsty Maclean dropped Sandy and Wendy off early and they were pleasantly surprised to see already me there
Being old hands at this, Wendy and Sandy were soon installed in the rear seats, while I spread out my maps and the Instruction Manual for the plane on the front passenger
seat.
We got away into perfectly smooth skies at 12:18, looking forward to a nice flight of some two and quarter hours to Tambo via Roma. Sandy was as chatty as always, while Wendy snoozed, and I enjoyed the view out the front, occasionally scanning the instruments while the autopilot did the real work.
However, soon after passing Roma
the clouds, intermittent at first, started to gang up on us at 10,000' making for an uncomfortable ride in the tops. Not being allowed to go higher without supplemental
oxygen, I opted to descend to 8,000' in search of smoother air. But it was to no avail. Here we still were affected by the layer of cloud above us, while at the same
time subject to thermals from the ground below.
By the time Tambo hove into view, I was feeling distinctly ordinary. My passengers, however seemed to be completely unaffected. Their only comment was that it was a lot smoother than the ride to Toowoomba two days earlier, and that, instead of the three landings that they got there, I only gave them one at Tambo.
Not that the landing was as easy as it should have been. Overflying the airfield, I could not see the windsock. I thought I could see the pole, but no windsock. So I
had to guess the wind direction by trying to remember the drift of the smoke from some bushfires we had overflown earlier.
So, after having farewelled Sandy and Wendy at Tambo's international air terminal, I set course for Roma, where about an hours and ten minutes later and shaken about a bit more, I touched down and taxied up
to the self service fuel bowser.
At this stage the left tank contained 16 litres of AvGas and the right was down to 24 litres. Thus 240 litres of AvGas were pumped onboard.
After a one hour and forty minutes in the air, I touched down again at Archerfield at 6:05.
Leg 3: Tambo to Charleville Roma
En-route to Tambo, I had decided to lessen the strain on my digestive tract by not doing the slight detour via
Charleville to re-fuel, instead stopping off at Roma, saving myself 68nm or 25 minutes of flying.
It would be tight with the fuel (I had to fly 168nm back to Roma, instead of 92nm to Charleville), but reviewing
the weather and fuel-usage as well as spinning the prayer wheel indicated that it was indeed still possible to do so without running both tanks dry.
Leg 4: Charleville Roma to Archerfield
The last leg home saw me climb to 9,000' where the air was a lot smoother again, although I did pass the occasional thunderstorm bringing a little much needed rain to the
drought stricken land.
Summary
I was back on the ground in Archerfield after having