Geek Habitat

During this morning’s general aviation flight with Justin (more about that in a subsequent entry, including aerial photos), we heard a fair amount of aviation radio traffic from flights involved in the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. They were all going by radio identifiers of “Evac x” where x is a unique number. Some of the pilots sounded pretty tired like they’ve been pulling some longer-than-usual hours.

I don’t have any information on what types of missions the Evac flights were on — carrying actual evacuees vs. supplies for evacuees, etc. — but it was good to hear them on the air and have a “close to home” reminder that things are being done. I still reserve my right to be cynical, upset with bureaucratic back-slapping in place of real action, and just generally a sidelines blogger wondering if this is the best America can really do in the face of a known threat (a Cat 5 hurricane).

While we didn’t hear any on the air, I wanted to share a bit about Angel Flight and their volunteer pilots participating in the evacuation and relief efforts. Angel Flight, if you’re not familiar with them, is a fantastic non-profit organization in which licensed pilots donate their time, piloting skills and in most cases their personal aircraft, to transport patients and their families free of charge to medical facilities nationwide. They also help transport medical and relief personnel and others in need. There are 7 Angel Flight chapters serving the U.S.A. Our local chapter (Angel Flight - South Central) includes the disaster-stricken areas of Louisana and Mississippi. You can view the chapter’s daily list of missions, as well as a list of available missions not yet picked up by volunteer pilots. For the foreseeable future, both of these mission listings are going to include many flights directly attributable to the evacuation and relief efforts. However, you will also see things like cancer patients and their families being transported to life-saving treatments, transplantable organs being delivered to hospitals for surgery, and other life-saving missions. Justin has participated in an Angel Flight to Fort Worth, Texas, with his flight instructor; their mission was to pick up a Fort Worth resident and transport him to his cancer treatment here in San Antonio, Texas. After his treatment, Justin and his instructor brought the gentleman back to his home airport in Fort Worth. Angel Flight also helps coordinate ground transportation for patients and their families.