Page 11 - April 2017 Twin & Turbine

perfect airplane for me and I quickly learned all I could about what airplane ownership might mean for our family.
As I explored the possibility of buying this awesome flying machine, the seller’s broker told me that it was used frequently by the current owner to fly sick people to their medical treatment, for an organization called Angel Flight Central. The idea of using an airplane to help others had never occurred to me before, but it seemed like a really cool way to give back to others. I told myself that if I was lucky enough to actually own an airplane, and hopefully this one, that I would continue that tradition of using it to help others as well.
My wife and I did buy that airplane, but we never actually flew an Angel Flight mission in it. We only owned the airplane for three months before we realized that we needed a more capable airplane, a Piper Meridian, which we purchased in December 2009. It was in the Meridian that I finally accumulated the 500 hours of flight time needed to qualify as an Angel Flight Central pilot.
The promise I made to myself to use our airplane to help others never faded, and we’ve been using our airplane for Angel Flight missions on a monthly basis ever since. To date, my wife and I have flown more than 100 Angel Flight Central missions; around 20 of those in the Piper Meridian and the rest of them have been in our Cessna Citation Mustang, which we purchased in December 2012. We typically see between 10 and 20 percent of our logbook hours each year dedicated to flying charitable missions.
(Standing rear) Joe and Sandy Ratterman’s Angel Flight mission for this family is an example of how some trips couldn’t be practically made in anything but a private jet.
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April 2017
TWIN & TURBINE • 9