Mission 2425 - Archerfield to Chinchilla

Background

On Thursday the 29^th of November 2007 I flew Mission 2425, making it my 78^th Angel Flight.

The mission descriptions from Angel Flight was:

SUBSEQUENT FLIGHT REQUEST:
sixteen year old girl from Chinchilla who had a failed kidney transplant and is now back on home dialysis. However she still needs to receive medical treatment at the PA Hospital?s Dialysis Unit (Brisbane) three times per week.
Angel Flight will assist the family and fly this young girl and grandmother twice per week while she makes the lengthy trip via road with her mother once per week.

Kayla is a regular with Angel Flight and has had to suffer my flying skills (or, more precisely, the lack thereof) on numerous previous occasions:

Archerfield to Chinchilla - The case of the disappearing snakes

Maurie Hand, Earth Angel for this mission, does a lot of volunteer work for Angel Flight on Tuesdays. He had expressed a desire to come along on a mission sometime. So Kylie Grünes, the co-ordinator for this mission, asked whether I'd be prepared to take him along. I answered in the affirmative, adding that he'd' be welcome, provided that he brought some jelly snakes along. As it turns out Maurie had other commitments in the afternoon (or maybe he had heard about my flying abilities) so he declined the trip. But he did promise the jelly snakes nonetheless.

When Maurie, Pam and Kayla turned up, Maurie pointed at Kayla and said, "She's already started eating the snakes - you'd better be quick". Being busy with stowing the bags, waking up the aircraft and blowing the cobwebs out of my brain, I was not able to get to the snakes until about 10 minutes after take off. Would you believe it!? Only two snakes left for the pilot!

So, in a hypoglycaemic state, I proceeded westward, dodging the build up of rain and thunderstorm clouds. Nothing much was in that and Kayla, having had too much sugar in too short a time, fell asleep next to me, while Pam was doing crosswords in the back — "12 across: delicious treat (5-5): J*LL**NA**"

I descended a little early and we sighted the airfield from about 15nm away, affecting the usual bumpy landing with a stiff crosswind from the right.

Chinchilla to Archerfield

This time I too had to actually alight at Chinchilla, for I had to retrieve the luggage from the back.

Pam's husband and more importantly, judging by the sounds of joy coming from the back, Pam's little dog were already waiting for us. So with bags in hand Pam scooted across the tarmac to the fence to embrace the loved one as well as peck her hubby on the cheek.

I climbed away quickly and headed back home, arriving a little under an hour later at Archerfield.

Summary

I was back on the ground in Archerfield after having

spent 2 hours and 12 minutes in the air and taxiing
consumed 121 litres of AvGas,
completed 2 take-offs and landings
covered 292 nm, 336sm or 531km