The mission description from Angel Flight was:
INITIAL TRIP REQUEST:Pride, as they say, comes before the fall. And so it was for me. A couple of months ago I did another Angel Flight to Theodore. Part of the usual mission co-ordination requires landing fee waivers etc to be arranged. On that occasion I got a copy of an email from John Watson advising the folks at Tara of my pending arrival.This lady has developed a potentially serious and as yet undiagnosed blood disorder. She travels at short notice for a complete haematology investigation.
With glee I jumped on this error of his, responding along the lines of "I'd be a pretty lousy navigator, if I wound up in Tara instead of Theodore".
When this mission was posted I had just completed another mission to Tara and had it firmly on my mind. Even when I received the mission notes clearly labelled Theodore I still thought Tara. John rang me the day before to make sure I was all set to go, but, with us having done this so many times before, it was an informal question along the lines of "Are you all set for tomorrow then?" with no hint of the destination - so it was "Tara, here we come!"
On the morning I did meticulous flight planning for Tara and submitted the flight plan. It was only when I printed out the mission notes (so that I could contact my passengers en-route, if necessary), that Juanita Goodland's name jumped out at me. Regular readers of these pages will recognise her as the good soul that organises a lot of our Angel Flights out of Theodore. This prompted me to do a double take and check my data. I had to go to Theodore indeed! Just as well I was doing the planning about an hour and a half earlier than needed, for all of a sudden I had to fly 150nm further than anticipated!
With the planning for Theodore now completed I just managed to get to Archerfield on time for my departure.
It was iffy weather with the Visual Flight Rules departure north being marginal, but Brisbane Radar soon upgraded me to Instrument Flight Rules and I was ensconced in clouds in no time. I did not get out out it until well past Gayndah, just prior to descent into Theodore. It was still in and out of the stuff, but by the time I reached 3,000' I was clear and had not trouble finding Theodore (or was it Tara?, or Taree?, or Tarlee???).
Margaret and her husband Laurie were already waiting for me. I gave them the customary briefing and soon had them aboard.
We initially encountered the same heavy cloud layer, but soon emerged over the top of it and thus proceeded in largely smooth air back toward Archerfield. Occasionally we'd touch the clouds along the way. Approaching Kilcoy we had to descend into the stuff again and did not become visual until established inbound of the Final Approach Fix for the NDB-B approach into Archerfield.
Despite my best efforts the landing was somehow smooth and I disgorged my passengers in the driving rain and handed them over to Earth Angel John Upton for the dangerous journey to the hospital.
No other aircraft moved while I got soaked tying down and refueling the aeroplane - not even the ducks were flying. So, rather bedraggled, but still pleased to have been of some help today, I headed home to dry off
We were back on the ground in Archerfield, after having