The mission description from Angel Flight was:
SUBSEQUENT TRIP REQUEST: (20th and 21st Angel Flight)A forty three year old woman from Inverell requires continuous appointments at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital for the monitoring of a spinal morphine pump.
Travel via road is exhausting and is causing financial hardship.
The flight was largely uneventful until the last 15 minutes. Some heavy rain reduced the visibility when I was trying to locate Bankstown and the strong northerly wind made for a landing with an 18 kt cross wind.
Dirk was already waiting for me and guided me toward a parking spot near Airtex aviation where he works. He helped me put the plane to bed and about half an hour later we were enjoying a glass of good wine.
We took off, again with a cross wind, and headed first west toward Richmond and then north for Scone and Tamworth. Due to military flying we were kept down to 7,000' for the first three quarters of an hour. We spend most of this time in clouds. When finally cleared to climb to 10,000' we got on top of most of it, although the occasional cloud still occluded the sky.
About half an hour out of Tamworth Flight Service informed us that a preceding aircraft had failed to get visual at Inverell and wanted to know our intentions. Another aircraft, just having departed Inverell, then added to our woes by telling us that the cloud base was down to 300'.
With such poor conditions I decided against overflying Tamworth, descending toward Inverell not getting visual, to climbing back to altitude and then returning to Tamworth.
So instead I initiated a descend straight toward Tamworth. I was cleared for the VOR-A approach, and, while descending in the holding pattern, spotted the runways below. Re-cleared for a visual approach we landed on a very wet runway, again with a stiff crosswind.
In drizzling rain we unloaded the bags and got Louise and Denise landside, where they were able to get hold of a taxi that had just dropped of another passenger at the terminal building. I bade them farewell and headed back to the aircraft.
Four minutes after take-off I was enveloped by solid deck of cloud and eventually cruised at 9,000'. Half way between Glen Innes and Laravale, when Flight Service informed me that the weather at Archerfield too was now starting to deteriorate and asked me to track toward Amberly in preparation for the NDB-B approach to Archerfield.
Ten minutes later, the autopilot, trying to maintain level flight, pushed the nose down as the aircraft hit some severe updraughts. This tends to overspeed and overstress the airframe, so I immediately disconnected it and took over, reducing the power and putting out the speed brakes (ie lowered the gear). It was to no avail - I was unable to stop the aircraft from climbing without overspeeding. I advised Flight Service of my predicament and got a very reassuring block clearance ("Go as high as you like, there is no-one above you") from 9,000' to Flight Level 120 (ie 12,000').
Looking at his weather radar image the Flight Service operator told me that there was "Lots of intense red and dark green stuff near your position. You are heading straight for it". So I asked whether going via the Gold Coast would get me clear. This being answered in the affirmative I hung a sharp 60° right turn and hoped for calmer skies. An eternity and a half later I emerged between layers and finally overflew the Gold Coast aerodrome before heading to Jacobs Well VOR for the NDB-C approach into Archerfield. I landed on a very wet runway with (you guessed it) a strong cross wind again.
About 2 hours after getting home and having had a well deserved beer, Louise called to let me know that she and Denise had caught the Country Link bus from Tamworth to Inverell and were safely home now.
Despite being dropped off a long way from home she still thanked me profusely. What a nice way to end the day!