From the logbook...Southbound

I only had 1 flight today of about 2.5 hours with 7 landings. My main goal was to pick up a medical team from the local hospital from a community called Kaan (KAN). This community is way down south, very close to the border of Peru. A unique thing about this strip is that it lays within the Cutucú mountain chain. This is a small cordillera that runs north to south in the jungle. The terrain is very rugged, and very beautiful. I had decent (although not great) weather, which made for a fun day. Flying in the mountains and over ridges and through valleys was a lot of fun, and a lot more demanding than the usual flatlands of the jungle.

One of the missionaries that I picked up took this group picture of us. I have been told that I stand out, do you think it is my hat? Overall, the community of KAN seemed really nice and not out just to get a handout.
While it is always hard to convey the ruggedness of things like terrain through pictures, this is a bit of what it looked like on my way home from KAN. There were waterfalls everywhere, and stunning gorges and rivers. I can't wait until I am sent down in that neck of the woods again. It was a fun day.

From the logbook...Way out there two

Today I had a lot of flight time (4.6hrs) but not many landings. With that much time in the cockpit I would usually have 14+ landings instead of 5. I went back to Cononaco Bameno (CNC) today to bring out the group that we took in yesterday. We had two flights in there yesterday, but I was only one of them. Today, I flew out there twice to bring out the Compassion International team. We had good weather (PTL!) all day, which makes flights like these a lot less stressful.

Because I flew so far away, I also flew higher. Because of the altitude, I was able to see rivers and communities from a new perspective. This is the Conambo River. It sure looks like it is going to crawl away.

From the logbook...Way out there

Today, I went to a new airstrip for me called Cononaco Bameno (CNC). We don't fly to many places that are much farther than CNC, at just over an hour from Shell. CNC is a Huarani village and is a little more "authentic" than other villages. Because of it's distance and isolation I speculate that all the influences of the western world haven't taken hold...yet. But, as you will see below, there are some things from our world that are just to ironic that have made it to the middle of no where.
Very often when we land, as pilots, we are asked various things. A common request is help with a radio. Sometimes it is simple to fix, other times it is over my head, like today. Because I couldn't fix the radio, I just brought it back to Shell and hopefully it will be fixed soon. The reason I put the above picture on the blog is the irony of the sticker that is on it. I couldn't believe that a Wal-Mart sticker made it all the way out into the Amazon jungle, I'm talking way out into the jungle. The human footprint and the places we travel and make trade are intriguing to me.

These are the guys that I helped with the radio. The guy in the white tank top told me he was just in NYC for an international conference for something. I wonder if all the people he met realized how far away and isolated he really lives. The fella on the far right is a small example of some of the old traditions. Although he has a shirt on, he's not wearing much else. He is wrapped in a type of loin cloth. The women of the village were a little more "natural" than I am used to as well.

Nearby where I stopped the airplane grew these pretty flowers. This particular type grow everywhere, but these were some of the nicest I have seen. The bugs crawling on it were pretty unique as well.

From the logbook...Graduation Day

Yesterday we all had a full day, and it started off with flying 4 of our 5 airplanes to Copataza (CPZ) for a high school graduation. It was fun to all be in one place together as pilots, and to see the graduation, and the similarities and differences compared to an American graduation. Around 20 kids graduated, most from different communities. There were only 3 girls in the whole thing, which shows that prejudices still exist with educating women among the jungle cultures.

Published again

A week or so again I casually submitted a photo to an Internet aviation news company called AVweb. They have a weekly photo contest, and I was selected to be a part after last weeks submission. Although I didn't win the "blue ribbon" maybe some day I will if I keep trying. Click here if you want to see the website and photos.

From the logbook...maintenance

Back a few years ago as I was working as a mechanic in training, I knew all the hard days were going to be worth something... someday. Today was a classic example of why MAF requires that their pilots are also mechanics. Although I haven't done a lot of maintenance since arriving in Ecuador, I have used my mechanical knowledge and problem solving a lot.

During my pre-flight today (I was really excited to go flying after a week of coordinating) I noticed a funny sound as I turned the propeller backwards. We do this 6 times to check for compression in all 6 of the cylinders. I felt compression in all 6 cylinders, but one of them was letting out air, with a shwooshing type sound. After taking off the engine cowling and a few pieces of baffling, I turned the prop again, this time having squirted the cylinder with soapy water. Sure enough, bubbles started foaming out like crazy indicating a crack, and I knew my hopes for flying today were dashed.

So, we pushed Alas 13 to the maintenance end of the hangar and begin pulling the jug to get another one on. Tomorrow is a big day of flying, and the goal was to get 13 back on line today. By 2:00pm with the help of one of our mechanics, I had the engine ready to start back up. It was gratifying to do something more extensive than the usual little fixes that I do. The fact that it all came back to me, and I could do it with efficiency and speed were also pluses.

We all went and had lunch together before I started the engine. We wanted to take a break and come back to the engine and see what we had missed after our brains were nourished. After a positive ground runup, I took 13 flying for a while and still everything worked fine. Tomorrow, 13 will be back on the flight line and working hard.

This is what the inside of a typical airplane cylinder looks like. The two empty holes are where the spark plugs go. The smaller circle on the left is the exhaust valve, and the larger one on the right is the intake valve. You can easily see the crack between the two black lines I made. Thankfully, this was caught on the ground. I think this jug was about to split in half.

Aves Exoticas

For a while now we have seen this sign advertising aves exoticas, or exotic birds. We finally set off yesterday to see what it was. While it is a far cry from a zoo, we still had a fun time. Also, when it only cost us $2 to get in, how can you complain. This place had a lot of VERY neat birds. They were all in cages of different sizes, and therefore all of my photos in the slideshow below are taken through a cage. Brooklyn had a good time as well, and it is always fun to see her reaction to things like this that she sees on tv or in magazines.

Hangar Happenings...

I haven't written much this week because we have once again been plagued by bad weather and I am coordinating flights. It has been a fight to get any flights done, and they seem to just keep piling up. We have collectively flown less than 50 hours this month because of the weather, which is very low.

One of the exciting things today was the show the hangar boa's put on. They haven't eaten since March, so we thought it might be time to throw a chicken or two in, and let them eat. Sorry if this kind of thing grosses you out (mom) but it's just nature doing what God designed it to do.
Sheba, our big snake, is always a patient eater. He/she? never attacks quickly like Maximo. I wonder if the snake thinks that "it has been a long time since any food came around and I'm going to enjoy it."


Here, our smaller snake, Maximo, doesn't ever wait to get things going on his/her? meal. The chicken was quickly in the death grip, and dead within seconds.



Here is how things look a few minutes later when they are almost down the hatch. As things would have it, Maximo actually ate both chickens by accident. So, we will have to do something in the future for Sheba, at least in the next few months.

Around the hangar

Today we found a fun find in the hangar when we were cleaning around some things. This scorpion was very facinating, and the first one I have ever seen in real life. This particular species gets a lot bigger, as this one is a "baby." It's hard to take pictures of things like this, but it was still fun.

Murcielego!

Today I saw a little black thing in the corner of the hangar. After I looked at it closer, I learned it was a murcielego, or bat, a vampire bat at that. Of course I took some photos. I don't have much of a fondness for bats, although like all things in God's creation, they are extraordinary non the less.

At the beach...

Yesterday afternoon in our boredom we decided to go for a drive. This is a common hobby for us, and therefore we find some neat spots. Not far from Shell I took a side road that led us the the banks of the Pastaza River. We had never been up close and personal with this river. We had always viewed it from a distance, a nearby road, an airplane, etc. We were quickly stunned by how huge this river is as you stand on it's banks. The rapids were huge, and you could hear boulders the size of small cars slamming into each other under the water. It was a fun time, and best of all, we had it all to ourselves. Our dog could run around without being bothered or being a bother, Brooklyn had her fill of sandbox playing, and I got to explore and take pictures. It was a fun time. We are sure to go back, especially since it is so close to home.

Camping trip

Last night we had a great time eating dinner with a few of our MAF families at a nearby home. On our walk home, we all noticed the stars out. I cannot remember the last time I saw the stars out that clearly here in the jungle. So, I decided that me and Brooklyn should go "camping" when we got home. I have been wanting to do this since we arrived in Ecuador. I use the term camping loosely. What we really did, was set up our tent on the roof, and slept in it. Obviously with concrete as our ground surface, there is no way to put in tent stakes, which is what holds my rain fly on. Luckily, we didn't have any rain last night, and we both had a good time.

Sean, ve por alla!

When I got back from my first flight yesterday and was unloading my cargo, one of our pilots said, "Sean, ve por alla" or "Sean, look over there." As I turned around and looked toward the runway a C206 from our neighbor was landing and had a blowout. His airplane quickly went sideways and stopped. All told, Shell was a great place to have this happen. He even got stopped right in front of his ramp. We loaned them a tire and wheel assembly that we always have ready and they were off the runway in about 10 minutes. I don't know why the tire blew, but I'm sure the places we all fly, and the type of surfaces that we encounter had something to do with it.

From the logbook...

After waiting until almost 11am yesterday, we finally had good weather, and it just kept getting better as the day went on. I made two flights, my first to a "new to me" airstrip called Sarayacu (SAR) in which I was taking a government medical team. Click here if you want to see the SAR official website. I won't venture out to say much about SAR other than it seems like a spiritually dark place. Many years ago missionaries were based there, and now I honestly don't know a lot about the Christian community that exists. The landing and takeoff in SAR were challenging as well. The whole length of the airstrip was covered in water due to all the rain we have had. I think I would have faired better if I was flying a float plane.

For my second flight I flew a 55 gallon barrel of gas to Mashient with some other cargoes and then I went back to Cumai to pick up a missionary that is building a home there. This particular guy and his wife used to work for MAF, he as a pilot/mechanic like myself. They are from Finland (I think) and are great people. It has been fun to get to know him. They currently live in Quito, and travel into the jungle with us building their home where they hope to base and help the community of Cumai.

As I was getting ready to load in Cumai, I asked if I could get a group picture. I am rarely turned down. You can tell looking behind the airplane that there is a cliff. This cliff drops about 200 feet down to the Pastaza River below. We have many airstrips like this, and it gives an effect similar to an aircraft carrier on landing (not that I have ever landed on a real aircraft carrier, I'm speculating here). In other words...it is fun!

From the logbook...Finally

I haven't posted much lately because there hasn't been a whole lot to say. We have been having awful weather. I have had flights to do every day this week, but I was only able to accomplish a short one yesterday afternoon, and today it took me all day to day what would typically take half a day. While I was in and out of the clouds a lot today, and even waiting out weather on the ground in my various stops, I did have a good time.

At my last stop of Mashient, I was there about an hour waiting for the weather to improve in Shell. Meanwhile, one of the villagers (the pastor) and I went hiking a bit through the trails in the community. When we came out I had two banana plants to bring home. Becca and I have been wanting to plant some bananas, and now I officially have two plants in our backyard. It will probably be about a year until they bear fruit, but they will be fun to watch grow in the process.

Below is a small slideshow of today's activities...

Saturday Hike...

Today we were able to go on a GREAT hike about 45 minutes drive away into the jungle to reach a waterfall called Hola Vida...hello life. Becca does a better job of giving details of what we did and the pictures therein at her blog. I wanted to post a few of the nature shots of things we saw.First and foremost, here is the shot of the waterfall. It had a drop of maybe 80 feet. While we have seen a LOT bigger here, the setting was unmatched. Shortly after we arrived we had the place to ourselves. It was great to just be in the middle of nowhere and be awestruck by God's creation.

Dragonflies were everywhere. This is the only one I was fast enough to capture on film. At one time, Becca and I saw the largest dragonfly we had ever seen. It looked like a Chinook helicopter. I tried to gets its pic, but he was too elusive.
This is one of the dozens of species of butterfly that we say. I was amazed by how many butterflies there were. I like how you can see the thorax through the clear wings on this one.
This little guy is a little out of focus, but he has a pretty color scheme none the less.

We did see another creature that I wish I could have got a picture of. As we were walking out from the waterfall to the car (about a 40 minute hike) I saw a huge snake. I don't know what kind it was, other than it was totally black, about 4 feet long, and skinny. I don't know if it was poisonous, but he did turn tail and he fled to the underbrush like most any wild animal would.

From the logbook...

• I finished my 6 month check yesterday. I am happy to report that everything went really well. As with most things like this, I still have things that I can improve on and get better at, but overall our instructor pilot liked what he saw.
• I was also able to complete my instrument flight approval during my 6 month check. Now, I am MAF approved to fly in instrument (clouds) conditions. This should help a lot in my day to day operational flying.
  
• Today we had horrible weather again until late afternoon. So, we had to scrub flights and reorganize others with the time we had left. I went to Makuma and took the bible translators home that I pulled out of the jungle earlier this week. After that, I had some various passengers that I flew home nearby. I also brought out a man that had chopped his ear off with a machete. I didn't ask how it happened.
• Speaking of air ambulance, thanks for joining us in prayer with our situation with them. We did receive some payment this week from AA, but it is hardly sufficient, and their account is still seriously in the red. In other words, we aren't going to change how we are handling emergencies until the account is paid in full. Please keep joining us in prayer about this.
• Below is a pic of the folks in Yuvientza, my second stop. I asked if I could take their pic as a group, and they all seemed pretty excited about that. The blue sky in the background was the only sky like that that I saw today. This was also looking towards the border with Peru. If you were to look 180 degrees the opposite way towards Shell, you would see that yes, we have had crumby weather and Sean isn't always making it up.

From the logbook...Jungle yard sale

Once again today we had to wait for the weather to get better before we could launch and get something done. It was lunch time when our instructor pilot and I set off for our planned stops. I am still in process of completing my 6 month check and should be done tomorrow.

We went into an airstrip today that was new to me called Bufeo (BUF). The people seemed nice and friendly and happy to see us. The airstrip itself is one of our shortest (370 meters) and a one way in and out landing/takeoff.

I had to take this picture because it made me laugh as I was preparing to takeoff. The words on the building say "vendo algunas cosas" which translated means "I'm selling some things." While it may not appear very funny to most of my readers, you have to understand the way things work in the jungle. To see something as unspecific as some guy selling somethings in the middle of the jungle made me laugh. I'm sure whatever he had to sell was one or two things, that perhaps to us would appear worthless.

From the logbook...

Today was a light day on the flight schedule. It was a good thing, because I waited until 3:30 to set out on my first flight. My original flight was to long to do once the weather became operable, so we put something smaller together and set off. I was flying with our instructor pilot to begin the flying portion of my 6 month check. We only had 2 stops. Our first was to Iñaywa (INY) to drop off some cargo. This community is also receiving supplies to "plumb" the village with water just like the communities of Yuvientza and Paandin that I have written about also.

After landing in INY these 3 little kids made for a good picture. The grass was getting a little long, and you can see how the community had begun cutting it just behind where the kids are standing.

After INY we flew 8 minutes to Makuma, where we picked up some awaiting Bible translators that need to run some errands for a few days in the "civilized" world. To get back into Shell we "shot" the instrument approach due to low clouds and landed shortly after 5:30.

It was a lot of fun to be back in the cockpit after a week of coordinating. It is a great job that I have (although very hard sometimes) and the views are always good from my office!

Weekend

We haven't done a whole lot this weekend. We have been able to get a lot of odds and ends done around the house, which always seem to get put on the backburner in our busy life. Late this afternoon I did go for a short bike ride in which I passed by one of our local attractions...


This is what the locals call the dique, or dike. They basically put a small dam on the local Pindu River and made a small recreation area out of it. It is very well done, and looks really fun. On a nice day like we had today, it gets pretty full of people. I want to go swimming in it, but the local hospital has advised us not to. Periodically they run lab tests on the water, and they always come back very foul, mostly with human waste. So, I don't think I will be dipping in the dique anytime soon, but it is still fun to swing by there from time to time to see what is happening.

Weekend flying

These past few days at the hangar have been a bit hectic to say the least. Due to many things outside of our control, our fleet was grounded from Wednesday through Friday morning. Because of this things really backed up on us. In order to help alleviate some of the backlog, I volunteered to come in today and do one flight, even though it isn't my weekend to be on call. I had room to bring along Brooklyn which was great, because she bugs me on almost a daily basis asking me to go flying. It was fun that it worked out. But, wouldn't you know it, our flight didn't work out as planned. En route to our destinations, we began to fly over a layer of clouds, which quickly became solid. I was flying above them, but there wasn't a hole anywhere to descend through. So, we flew 50 minutes out over the jungle and then turned around came back to Shell. I told our passengers that we will give er' a try again on Monday.

I took this pic in flight. It turned out pretty funny, esp. the look on my passengers faces. It's like they are thinking "Man, we got the crazy pilot today. He doesn't even have his hands on the controls and he is always taking pictures.

Volcano flights

Recently, we got a contract with a government agency to do what we call volcano flights. Of the volcanoes in Ecuador, 3 are highly active. We are talking about 3 highly active volcanoes in a country the size of my home state of Colorado. We have an airplane based in Quito right now, and it is being flown by one of our pilots that lives there to do these flights. The group he is flying are using special thermal imaging cameras to take pictures as well. They said they will make us a disk of their photos. I will be sure to share those if they indeed share some stuff with us. Our Quito pilot brought back some neat pictures from one of his recent flights this past week. It is good to realize these were taken from 23,000 feet with the window open. Can you say Brrrrr?!

This is Tungurahua. It is always emmiting at least an ash cloud at the present time.

This is Sangay as seen from 23,000 feet. There is snow on it still, but it is on the east face. This view is taken from the western face. Notice all of the fumeroles steaming from the top. There isn't a defined crater in Sangay, meaning it might create one at any moment from one of the many steaming vents.


Here you can see El Altar, and Sangay. El Altar is the one that has the snow on it, and directly behind it is Sangay, looking like a big snowcone. Althought the picture doesn't show it, Tungurahua would be right out the front window of the airplane.

The other volcano that is active is called Reventador. It has been shrouded in clouds for a long time, and the volcano crew haven't been able to get any pictures of it yet.