Mission 548 - Theodore to Archefield

Background

On Friday the 9^th of September 2005 I flew Mission 548, making it my 16^th Angel Flight.

The mission description from Angel Flight was:

SUBSEQUENT TRIP REQUEST: 3rd & 4th Angel flights:
An eleven year old boy from Theodore has been diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy.
His brother has been transported by Angel Flight to Brisbane for an unrelated illness.
This Angel flight is to reunite the family for the period of the school holidays.

With mum, on and off for the last few months, looking after 2 year old Mackinley in Brisbane, while he undergoes treatment for his illness, Brennan and his 7 year old brother Jayden had not seen her for the last 3 weeks.

Driving to Brisbane would be a 7 hour journey and very tiring on Brennan.

First leg - Archerfield to Theodore

The day dawned to a beautiful blue sky with the temperature around the 20°C mark.

I got airborne just before 8:00, departing even before the tower had opened, and quickly climbed to 10,000', making a respectable 167kts over the ground, thanks to a slight tailwind.

I arrived in Theodore just after 9:30 and had little trouble finding the airstrip.

The good quality of the airstrips at these small townships continues to amaze me. It was nice and smooth and perfectly paved.

A Twin Otter had landed ten minutes before me. I acted as relay for him to cancel his SAR watch, as it is difficult to contact flight service on VHF on the ground, and HF is a lot of squeaking and screeching.

By the time I landed, he was taxying for take-off, so I asked him to return the favour. Once he was in the air, he cancelled my SAR watch for me.

Return leg - Theodore to Archerfield

I had to wait a few minutes for my passengers to arrive and used the time constructively by preparing the cabin and doing a personal fuel drain.

Before too long I was confronted by a pile of luggage and a collapsible scooter that needed to be fitted onboard. This is where the large cabin and the generous double doors of the Bonanza came in useful yet again.

A quick vote established that Brennan should travel in the front and Jayden should share the back seats with his Dad, Stephen.

We got airborne just after 10 and headed to the south east, climbing to an altitude of 9,000'. Brennan enjoyed his ride next to me while Jayden appeared perfectly happy in the back. Flying, however, did not appear to be Stephen's forte, as he spent most of the time snoozing.

The boys enjoyed annoying each other over the headsets while I desperately tried to listen out for radio calls directed at me. When the jelly beans were passed around there were brief periods of silence.

En-route I called Earth Angel Bill Cooper, to advise him of our projected arrival time.

Near mid-air collision

Approaching TV Towers we had our only little bit of drama. TV Towers is one of about five inbound reporting points for Archerfield Aerodrome. All aircraft arriving from the North must fly just to the West of Mount Coo-tha which has a few TV transmission towers on it (hence its name). At that point the pilots contact Archerfield tower, report their position and in turn receive instructions as to what to do next (landing would seem an obvious answer). This means that aircraft will converge on this one spot from all points North and it can, at times, get a little busy. Having a good lookout is paramount in order to avoid a mid-air collision.

Just as I was changing the radio frequency in order to contact the tower, Jayden shouted excitedly from the back seat "Look an aeroplane!". My head went into swivel mode, my eye balls nearly popped out as I scanned the air immediately around us (but I was glad of my choice of brown underpants). Since I could not see it, I asked him where it was. His reply of "Over there!", perfectly clear to a 7 year old, did not really enlighten me. My panicked queries as to, "Is it high!!? Or is it low!!? Is it ahead of us !!? Or is it behind us!!?", were just answered with "It's over there! Over there!". I then noticed where his finger was pointing: At a jet some ten miles distant, the other side of Brisbane, probably 2000' above us, climbing out, no doubt, to some Asian destination.

Arrival at Archerfield

We did arrive right on the dot at 11:45 to be met by Bill, whose job it was to now drive them across town to their accommodation (and Mum!!!).

Also there to meet us was my driver, private Earth Angel and beautiful wife Heather (Earth Angel because she regularly brings me down to earth), who pitched in to carry the bags to the car, while I pretended to do something useful about the plane.

Once they had departed, Heather helped me pack up. This made for a quick get away, and we left for home just after 12:00.

Summary

During this flight, we

covered 458nm (848km, 527sm)
did 2 take-offs
did 2 landings
spent 3.4hrs in the air
used 186 litres of AvGas

Angel Flight is a success!

It was about a month since my previous Angel Flight mission which had mission number 447. This was mission number 548. So some 100 missions had been assigned in the ONE month.

This is in stark contrast to my first two Angel Flights, which were also one month apart, but only separated by seven mission numbers. It is a good indication as to how well Angel Flight has taken off (pardon the pun) since its early days.

On Monday, 15th of August, some ten Angel Flights had been scheduled, and nine were completed! (one mission was cancelled as the patient was too sick to travel)