The mission descriptions from Angel Flight was:
INITIAL TRIP REQUEST:Bill also brought along a friend, Barry, to look after Elma and make her feel less lonely in the back of the cavernous cabin of the PC-12. Even with the four of us onboard, we would still have four empty seats!This eighty-eight year old lady from Quilpie was transferred to Toowoomba after having a non-stemi heart attack. She is now healthy and waiting to go home at any time
With three of us there, pushing the 8 huge hangar doors out of the way was accomplished in no time at all. Bill pushed the plane out with his tug and had
copious amounts of fuel added to the fuel tank while Barry and I closed the hangar again.
Before too long we got our Instrument departure clearance and we launched off runway 10L toward Toowoomba at 6,000' .
Bill did a GPS arrival which got us visual with the aerodrome when we were about 3 miles out. A quick circling descent and a very smooth touchdown had us taxying toward the terminal building where Elma was already waiting for us.
Despite being a little frail we had not problems getting Elma aboard. Having proper boarding steps makes a big difference.
Bill let me play co-pilot by letting me twiddle with the radios, the GPS and raise the gears and flaps for him. We were soon barreling along at 270 odd knots at 10,000'. Even though the aircraft can climb thrice as high, the winds up there were very strong, so staying down low made a little more sense. About half way along it got a little bumpy as we were just at the inversion layer, so Bill took us up to smoother FL140 (flight level 140 = 14,000').
Elma was enjoying herself in the back and even passed a pamphlet of some description forward for the crew to sign.
A mere two hours later we did a straight in approach to runway 27 and helped Elma get out and to the terminal building (such as it is) at Quilpie.
With strong westerlies up high, Bill decided to cruise at FL300 where we did indeed get a 60 odd knot tailwind, which combined with our True Airspeed of 250 odd
knots pushed us along at a ground speed of 310 to 320 knots at times.
Less than 25 minutes after takeoff we were level at 30,000'. The view as was superb, although any sensation of speed was lost at that altitude.
Less than 2 hours later, before lunch, we were back on the ground at Archerfield.
Not a bad mornings work, Bill! And thanks for the ride.