Mission 1936 - Toowoomba to Roma

Background

On Friday the 1^st of June 2007 I flew Mission 1936, making it my 63^rd Angel Flight.

The mission description from Angel Flight was:

SUBSEQUENT TRIP REQUEST:
An 1 year old baby from Dulacca near Miles / Roma has Hydrocephalus ? ?Water on the Brain? and is requiring a specialist review in Toowoomba.
An Angel Flight will alleviate the financial and travel stress that a long drive would impose on the family.

Two days before the actual mission we were informed that Ty and his family had moved to just outside of Roma only a short time ago, and would it be possible to change the destination from Miles to Roma? Seeing that it would add a mere 20 minutes to our flight time, while adding some 2 hours driving (each way), the change was readily agreed on.

Angel Flight pilots Stephen White and Anthony Sturges brought Ty and his mum Doreen to Toowoomba early in the morning and I would take them back home.

Kelly, a good friend of Heather's, who is a commerical pilot but has not flown in a few years, was also keen to smell a bit of AvGas again, so I would have company for the entire trip.

Archerfield to Toowoomba

With Kelly eyeing my amateurish atempts at pilotage suspiciously from the co-pilot's seat, we launched into the sky toward Toowoomba, climbing to 6,000' en-route through the Amberly control zone. As we started our descent into Toowoomba we were advised of a possible conflict with an air force Caribou, crusing not above 2,000'. But seeing that I would be on terra firma on touch down at 2,100' (Toowoomba sits on a mountain ridge), we discounted the possiblity of colliding with this aircraft.

We had just shut down and were walking to the fence and terminal building, when Earth Angel Kirsty Maclean dropped of her charges. Just perfect timing.

Toowoomba to Roma

We quickly settled Ty and Doreen in the back seats and set about trying to find our way to Roma. As we climbed to our cruise at 10,000' Ty fell asleep, remaining so until after touch down.

Kelly and I had technical discussions up front. We also chatted about living in the country with Doreeen in the back.

Ty woke up just after the impact of the main undercarriage on the airstrip at Roma, crying a little. He was much relieved to be back in his stroller to wave good-bye to yours truly.

Roma to Archerfield

Having off-loaded our passengers, Kelly and I took time to inspect the result of the fire brigade's training exercise - no more than 50m from the passenger terminal at Roma - one would have thought that they could have left this, less than confidence inspiring, debris a bit further away!

The flight back, at 9,000' was again as smooth as the proverbial baby's bottom, and we were back on the ground after about another one and a half hours flying and trading of tall sories.

Summary

During this flight, we

covered 478nm (885km, 550sm)
did 3 take-offs
did 3 landings
spent 4.1 hrs in the air and taxiing.
used 202 litres of AvGas