The mission descriptions from Angel Flight was:
SUBSEQUENT TRIP REQUEST:I had flown Rebecca and her Mum before on Mission 4761 and Mission 4770 This time, I again would only be taking them home, another Angel Flight pilot earlier in the day.A nine year old girl from Blaxlands Creek (near Grafton) has kidney failure and is on home automated peritoneal dialysis.
Due to the stress of the dialysis her cardiac condition is worsening and she now requires Haemodialysis three times a week at the Royal Childrens Hospital in Brisbane
Barry and Cheryl Arentz had flown Rebecca and Kylee up to Brisbane in the morning.
Kylee gave me a call about 3 hours prior to departure to let me know that the dialysis was progressing nicely and that we would most probably be able to get away an hour early. Having made an earlier arrival, refuelled the aircraft and counted the wings, I ambled over to the terminal building to find Earth Angel Joy Bryson just arriving with her charges.
Barry had called to warn me of the atrocious weather conditions that Cheryl and he had encountered. They had only just managed to get visual on the GPS approach. Indeed, the weather forecast was predicting even worse conditions for our arrival time. Seeing that I had enough fuel to hold for about 3 hours and still return to Archerfield, I decided to give it a try anyway.
As is often the case, the conditions were much more benign. We were between layers at 9,000' (some alto cirrus in the flight levels above us, a deck at about 6,000' below), and cruised along nicely, with Rebecca sleeping most of the way.
Approaching Grafton, it did look a little worse and we spent some time descending through the scattered cloud deck. About 20 miles out, I could see enough of the ground to proceed visually, and lo and behold, somehow Grafton airport again hove into view, even the T-VASI confirming that I had fluked an arrival on the proper glide slope.
So, about an hour and a quarter early, and after the shuddering and shaking of our arrival had subsided, Rebecca and Kylee headed to the gate, while I slammed shut the cabin door and re-started the engine.
The air traffic controller at Brisbane Centre was surprised to hear me making my taxi call and request for IFR traffic a mere 3 minutes after canceling my SAR time for arrival, but with Rebecca and Kylee being old hands at this air travel business by now, the turn-around at Grafton is quick indeed.
I blasted off to the north and climbed to 10,000' where the sailing was smooth. I had to descend through a bit of cloud, but soon got clear of it, so that I could to a visual arrival via Parkridge into Archerfield.
About an hour later I turned final to alight on runway 10R at Archerfield.