From the Logbook...Red Tape

The photo above is a diction of what we have been up to the last several days...not much.  Our only other flying pilot has been laid out flat with some type of bacterial infection and hasn't been able to leave his house.  I am still waiting for a checkride from a government examiner in order to get an Indonesian pilot's license and fly solo.  So, our airplanes have been resting on the hangar floor until somebody is either healthy enough, or certified enough, to fly them.

I have been very busy with little projects and things around the hangar.  There is always something to do.  Please join us in prayer that some of the red tape that seems to be slowing down my licensing process can be removed soon and I can start flying as well as for the health of our other pilot here.

Hangar Happenings

Life continues to be really busy due to the inspection of MCB (see post below).  We have removed the floats and their attaching components, cleaned up lots of corrosion, replaced both landing gear brackets, etched and alodined all aluminum parts and applied lots of fresh paint.  This type of major inspection happens every 1000 hours and poor ol' MCB has over 22,000 hours on her.  She needed this inspection bad.  This coming week we should be able to complete the inspection barring we don't find anything else that slows us down.  This inspection has turned out to be heavier than we thought and we have called "all hands on deck" to assist.  Thankfully we have great national employees.  Due to the fact that our hands are so full with this inspection, we have cancelled all flights except emergencies in order to get it done.  

I am still not flying due to some "new" laws here in Indonesia.  It seems like my licensing reputation has followed me to Borneo.  Long story short, within the next week or so I will travel to the other MAF base in Borneo so I can get certified first in a land plane, a Cessna 206; then I will return and take another test to fly the Cessna 185 floatplane.  It looks like it will be the end of June now before all of this happens and I will be legal to fly solo in Indonesia.  

We were visited by another MAF airplane last week; a Cessna 208 Caravan.  Our 208 is based at the other location I will be visiting soon.  One of our pilots from that base flew 400 nautical miles to pick up my instructor pilot and his family since they are moving there to take up a leadership role.