| Angel Flight comment by Stephen White
Stephen
acted as co-pilot and kindly donated the use of his aircraft,
Piper Archer II VH-FRF, and the fuel for this flight. John
donated his time and flying skills.
"Our
mission involved picking up Violet and Lyn Brown, Violet’s
daughter, from their home in Mungindi (70 NM west south west
of Goondiwindi) and transporting them to Toowoomba for a 10:30
am chemotherapy appointment at Toowoomba Base Hospital. An
"Earth Angel" Jack Lynch (also an Angel Flight pilot)
met us at the airport and transported them to hospital. The
next day Jens Meinecke (based at Archerfield) flew them back
to Mungindi in his Bonanza.
To
get them to Toowoomba by 10:30 am, we were up at 3:30am to
complete flight planning and notification for a 5:30 am first
light departure in Piper Archer FRF. ATC cleared us to 8500feet
for a very smooth flight to Goondiwindi where we refueled
(no fuel available at Mungindi). With all the recent rain
there was an incredible amount of water dotted about the landscape.
Many paddocks were lakes and numerous roads were cut by floodwater.
We
arrived at Mungindi’s long sealed strip about 8:15am.
The flight to Toowoomba was also quite smooth which was just
as well since after take off we found out our passengers didn’t
like heights and hadn’t flown much before, especially
in light aircraft. But they both really enjoyed the flight
and appreciated not having to spend five or so hours in the
car. (Our patient had made one trip to hospital by road and
needed a couple of weeks to fully recover.)"
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