Phoebe's Flight to Hobart

In memory of John Tait who passed 21 July 2004

Read Phoebe's thank you letter to Angel Flight

Rob Evans reports on his Angel Flight mission with co-pilot Garth Schwartz to fly Phoebe Webb and her mother Kay from Coolangatta to Hobart, to enable Phoebe to see her dying father for the last time.

Angel Flight arranged for Rob to fly from Coolangatta to Bankstown, Mike Tickner from Bankstown to Moorabbin and John Ballantyne on to Hobart. This was to be my first Angel Flight mission, so I carefully went through the Pilot Request form and the Pilot's Handbook. The morning of the flight I was up bright and early, as I had to fly from Archerfield in time for a 7:30am departure from Coolangatta. The Area 20 forecast gave some indication of the winds we were to experience, but the reality was to leave the forecast well behind.

From past experience with westerly winds of that strength I expected some turbulence at lower levels, so I filed an IFR plan at 10,000 feet, with an ETI CG to BK of 2 hrs 31 mins. The Gold Coast sparkled gold in the morning sun as we into Cooly. Phoebe and Kay were already waiting and we got away almost on schedule. Our track to Coffs Harbour was 176 degrees, but the heading was 205 degrees, so it was obvious that the wind was much stronger than forecast. Watching the instruments closely, I could clearly see the correlation between the aircraft heading and the ground speed - for each degree I had to turn into wind, I lost one knot of groundspeed. With a TAS of 170 kts, the GS was 140.

A layer of strato cumulus started to form at 10,000 feet, so after finding that we were getting thrown around anywhere near the cloud I decided to descend to 8000. All pilots will be familiar with the sequence of events: as we descended, the cloud base descended, so we were soon bumping around in cloud again. We descended to 6000 feet and were in the clear, but by then the turbulence was being caused by our proximity to the ground. In the rough conditions, it was no surprise to find that Phoebe was sick several times. I'll have to raid the seat pockets on my next QF flight for more airsick bags.

The descent to 6000 feet caused more complications, as Phoebe was unable to clear her ears and was in some pain for a while. Garth went back to spend some time helping her to get her ears to pop. I also stopped the descent for a while to let the pressure equalise. I had some mints for Phoebe to suck, but in the end she fell asleep during the next descent.

Mike Tickner rang up to see how we were going and told me that a cold front had just passed through Bankstown, heading our way, with 30+ kt winds on the ground. I tried to get clearance to transit through CTA into Bankstown but got the well known response, "Clearance is not available, remain OCTA".

I'd hoped that at the lower levels we would get some relief from the headwind component, but at 6000 feet our GS was 124, and as we descended into the Bankstown lane of entry the GS dropped to 99.

Through the lane I was grateful for my co-pilot. He navigated with the VTC as I flew the plane insome of the worst turbulence I have experienced in years, with wind gusts producing variations of 25 kts IAS. In the Satatoga, Vma is 134 KIAS at MAUW and scales down to 105 KIAS at minimum weight. I estimated Vma for our current weight at 120 KIAS and focussed on maintaining speed below that. I stayed as high as possible in the lane in the hopes of encountering the least turbulence and advised SY Radar that we were having difficulty maintaining altitude and to expect occasional incursions into CTA. Finally, to the relief of all, we landed at Bankstown. The flight time had been 3 hours 14 minutes.

Mike met us there, realised a fast turnaround was out of the question and looked after us all until Kay and Phoebe were ready for the leg to Melbourne. They knew it was going to be another, even longer, bumpy flight. Mike gave Phoebe a set of wings to wear - she had earned them.
After Mike's departure, Garth and I set off back to Brisbane. As we lifted off at Bankstown, the tower controller advised an approaching aircraft the crosswind had just gusted to 28 kts. It certainly felt like it.

On climb-out BN Centre called us up and advised of Sigmet 02 (mountain waves and severe turbulence up to 15,000 ft). No messing around now - I requested a clearance at FL 160 and out came the oxygen masks. The flight back was smooth until the descent into Archerfield. At about 7 PM I gave Mike a call to see how the flight to Melbourne had gone. He was still in flight, battling his way home to Sydney through the turbulence. He told me they had had to stop on the way and the decision at Melbourne had been to stop overnight and continue to Hobart the next day. I bet Kay and Phoebe were glad to relax.

Through it all, Phoebe managed to give us a smile, even though at times she must have been feeling dreadful. I really appreciate that I could play a part in this very worthwhile mission.