The mission description from Angel Flight was:
INITIAL TRIP REQUEST: This young boy has an acquired brain injury and global developmental delay. He is required to attend a series of specialist appointments in Brisbane. He has 3 other siblings and his mother is supporting the whole family alone.This mission was another weather induced assignement to yours truly. The original pilot, Jobn Keane, on his maiden mission, had proposed to take Nayden and his mum home in his helicopter, but, being only rated for Visual Flight Rules, could not fly through the inclement conditions.The provision of an Angel Flight for Nayden into Brisbane will greatly reduce some of the stress.
When I extended an invitation for him to ride shotgun with me, John eagerly accepted.
Nayden's appointment was over earlier than anticipated, so that by the time I turned up at the aerodrome he and his mum were already waiting for me. I left them inside the terminal building and proceeded to have a look at the aeroplane.
By the time I had performed the ritual counting of wings, propeller blades and tyres, John, too, had arrived, so we all got aboard, fastened the seat belts and started heading into a severly clear sky. There were a few cumulus clouds to be seen on the horizon, and en-route we flew over a few of them, but once clear or a line abeam Toowoomba, there was nary a cloud to be seen. So John could have easily done this flight afterall.
A little over an hour later we left the imprint of our tires on the runway at Goondiwindi and rolled up to the terminal building, where Nayden's siblings were already keenly awaiting his and his mum's arrival.
With the family happily re-united, we climbed back into our steed and, heading into the rapidly approaching dusk, sought to locate Archerfield aerodrome some distance to the east. Along the way we did find one cloud and spent approximately 47 seconds in Instrument conditions.
Despite our best efforts we managed to find Archerfield, and having contended with some errant traffic in the circuit, loosened our dental filling for the second time that day.
Jobn was kind enough to stick around to help me put the aeroplane to bed.