Earlier in April, all three of us pilots went to a village called Tumbang Olong with the purpose of inspecting the river and meeting with the community to consider opening the village on a regular basis to air service. While I did some takeoff and landing testing, Issac and Aaron went in a canoe measuring lengths, widths, climb out angles, etc.
Issac was able to get some fun pictures of me flying the takeoff and landing approaches into and out of Tumbang Olong. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun!
I was surprised that the river was positioned just right so that we could actually operate both ways on it with lots of safety and margin; two things that we build into everything we do in MAF.
The community was very receptive to our arrival and the kids were a highlight. Usually kids scamper off with shyness when asked to take a group picture. Not these kids. They were practically sinking the right float on the airplane. Lots of fun to make them smile!
No meeting with a community is complete unless you gather in the "mayor's" house and drink tea and eat snacks. We enjoyed sitting around for about an hour meeting with the community leaders and asking them various questions about how we may be able to serve them in the future. We may be able to open up some type of regular air service to this community in the near future, we'll see.
1 comment:
this is beautiful! great shots! thank you guys for a really, really big, a huge help from MAF to reach those isolated communities all around the borneo island.
i wish i was there to capture those beautiful moments.
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