The mission description from Angel Flight was:
A 55 year old gentleman from Yowah with bowel 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 trip is for a follow up in Brisbane and a pre-operation consultation.
SUBSEQUENT TRIP REQUEST: (13th and 14th Angel Flight)
I had flown Andreas home on his maiden flight with Angel Flight, Mission 288 in December 2005
Andreas arrived early for our flight to Yowah, so we managed to get airborne and into the leaden sky half an hour early.
We were the only aircraft moving at Archerfield and had to do an instrument departure, getting into cloud as we reached 1000'. Our routing, initially south of our intended track was soon amended and we proceeded as planned over the top of Oakey, thence St George, Cunnamulla toward Yowah.
Most of the time, until halfway between St George and Cunnamulla, was spent in solid cloud or between layers. Even though we had strong winds, occasionally pushing us along at some 40 odd knots, it was very smooth. So smooth indeed that, being immersed in solid grey, we had no sensation of movement. The instruments on the panel were perfectly steady, with the only exception being the fuel gauges that were inexorably moving toward zero and the GPS that was counting down the time to destination.
After Cunnamulla it cleared up a little, and by the time that Yowah hove into view we were under an almost clear sky. So I actually did not have too much trouble finding the airstrip, although Andreas requested a diversion. He had anticipated arriving three hours later and his friend would only drive out to the strip at that time. So we did a loop (I mean the a looping turn, not a vertical loop!) over the township (such as it is). Sure enough about 3 minutes after shut down his friend arrived.
I declined offers to go into town for a bite or two and definitely refused temptations to visit the pub for a liquid lunch.
Knowing that I'd be arriving into Cunnamulla about half and hour earlier than I had told the refueler, I made use of Andreas' outback mobile phone to ask him to please come out the airfield a bit sooner.
190 litres of fuel was added to the tanks to get me back home.
The flight back toward Archerfield was quicker than anticipated too. This was rare indeed. The strong winds that had pushed me in the opposite direction some 4 or
5 hours earlier had now abated or even turned a little to push me back toward home.
I was immersed in cloud again halfway to St George and did not re-emerge until between Oakey and Amberley. I did a low visibility (only about 2km to 3km visibility) approach to again find only one other aircraft, a helicopter, moving at the airfield.