Mission 5861 - Kingaroy to Archerfield

Background

On Wednesday the 15^th of December 2010 I flew Mission 5861, making it my 148^th Angel Flight.

The mission description from Angel Flight was:

INITIAL TRIP REQUEST:
A one year old boy from Nanango (near Kingaroy) has downs syndrome and pulmonary hypertension and is required to see specialists at the Mater Childrens Hospital in Brisbane.
Due to his heart defect he is oxygen dependant and he will need to travel with two (2) oxygen cylinders. This little boy is a twin and is the youngest of seven (7) children.
The family do not have a reliable car so an Angel Flight will help get this young infant to his much needed appointment.

Archerfield to Kingaroy

The flight north was fine at 6,000' I had elected to not go much higher as the total trip time was only 40 odd minutes. Arrving a little before scheduled, I discovered my passengers were still en-route to the airport (what did we do before mobile phones?).

The family soon turned up, with Ransom's older siblings amusing themselves on airport sign, while mum and dad helped yours truly strap yound Ransom in the back and stow the oxygen bottles in a safe place.

Kingaroy to Archerfield

For Ransom's mum Tracey, on her first ever flight in a light aircraft, we could not have much worse conditions. During the 45 minutes that I had spent on the ground the cumulus clouds had started to form. This meant that we spent a lot of time trying (not always sucessfully) to fly around the worst of the turbulence associated with these clouds. By the time we approached Archerfield Tracey was looking for the sick bag, but fortunately did not have to make use of it.

I soon passed her on to a smoother ride with Earth Angels Ian and Jo Brewster.

Summary

We were back on the ground in Archerfield, after having

covered 86nm, (159km or 99sm)
spent 1 hours and 30 minutes in the air and taxiing
consumed 98 litres of Avgas,
completed 2 take-offs and landings