River Rodeo

In order to celebrate my birthday last month we decided to have a tubing party after work on a Friday.  What a great time thrashing everyone on the inter-tube. Ogasto hung on well.  He only got "bucked off" once.

Robi rode backwards the whole time.  Despite our best attempts, he never did get bucked off.  

Our office manager Agus didn't last too long.  But kudos to him for giving it a try.  This was something new to everyone, and there was a little bit of fear and trepidation had by all.

Our night guard Yanto squealed with delight the whole time. He was hanging on for dear life.  Awesome!

Yanto squealing.  

Yanto STILL squealing.!

Hanging loose, Borneo river style.

Abet Nego rode the tube the most aggressively...

...and then paid for it quickly by getting bucked off.  Awesome!

Most everyone stayed on, but a few times they hit the waves just right and over they went.  So awesome!

Sugianto, our flight scheduler, tore it up also.  This calm, quiet man is not to be underestimated!

...but, he did get buckled off.  Hoo Raa!

...oh yeah!

We rode the tube until the sun went down.  Playing together with our team is so fun and beneficial and something we try to make happen every month or so.

Hoffmann Solo

In mid-April we were able to watch the third member of our PalangkaRaya team return from his first solo flight as an MAF pilot.  After three months of on and off flight training with me, Aaron was finally ready.

After Aaron returned I "pinned on his bars."  Officially putting the 4 stripes on his shoulders welcomes Aaron into the ranks of Captain.  Pretty cool!

With those 4 bars comes some other fun traditions.  After shaking Aaron's hand, a preset plan was initiated...Aaron's floatplane baptism.

My celebratory handshake quickly turned into a full on assault as our Indonesian staff and I scooped him up and took him to the river.

Thankfully, we work with an amazing group of men, and they were all instrumental in helping Aaron reach this milestone as well.  Convincing them to help was easy.

We took Aaron to our small launching dock, normally used to dispatch the airplane...this time we had other intentions.

And just like that, Aaron entered the Kahayan River, full water emersion float plane pilot baptism.  Welcome to the club Aaron.

He popped up and floated to our other dock, where all of these pictures were taken by our other pilot, Isaac Rogers.  Great pics Isaac!

Aaron's baptism and solo represent YEARS of preparation and training to reach this point for him.  It's a huge sacrifice to fly in the mission field and it's not always easy.  Congrats Aaron!!!

Afterwards, everyone was feeling a little spunky and thought they would try to throw the boss in the river.  I'm happy to report that I remained dry.  Guess you'll have to try again some other day little boys!

From the Logbook...Kuala Kapuas

Late last month, we were contacted to provide transportation to a high ranking government official that had a meeting in a far away town.  His role is called the Bu-pati, something we would consider almost like a vice-governor.  We have flown Pak Willy on countless flights.

But, this was a new one for me.  Although the passengers were familiar, I took him to a new location called Kuala Kapuas that I had never been to before.  Because there are no suitable docks at this community and the river is HUGE, I shut the airplane down in the middle of the river and was met by a boat that picked up the Bu-Pati and his colleague.  It was a fun experience.

Because the float plane doesn't visit this community very often, we had a few onlookers paddle over to investigate what was going on.

These boys were fun to chat with.  I tried to invite them to return to PalangkaRaya with me since the airplane would be empty, but they declined.

On the way home, I flew over Sabangau National Park.  Due to the high water right now, the swamp looks really beautiful from the air.  In the distance you can see a small rain shower adding to the swamps already full ecosystem.

From the Logbook...Jujang Parit

After visiting the village of Tumbang Olong (see previous post), we made the short flight the the village of Jujang Parit.  Even though the communities are only separated by a 15 minute flight, the two communities couldn't be more different.  After landing and finding a suitable dock, we had to use a boat to cross the river to the side where the majority of the community lived.

While crossing the river, we saw some boys enjoying a snagged tree on the river bank.  Any excuse to jump off of something high into water is good enough for me.

We made a short walk to Pastor Wilson's house in order to look at his HF radio.  We knew it had some problems and we brought some parts with us hoping to be able to fix it.

Thankfully, after changing a few connections, and plugging the radio into a battery, we were able to communicate with our office in PalangkaRaya, some 150 miles away!  Pretty cool.  Now, this VERY isolated community can contact us for any reason.

From the Logbook...Tumbang Olong

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.

From the Logbook...Indo Checkride

In mid-April I was suddenly given the chance to have an inspector come and fly with Aaron and me for the issuance of our Indonesian pilots licenses.  I jumped on the chance to schedule the inspector because I know that they are very busy and our schedule usually revolves around theirs.  Pak Ali was our inspector and it was my third checkride with him.  In Indonesia we have to take checkrides every two years to re-new our licenses.  Due to some interesting circumstances this was my fourth Indonesian checkride in about 2 years.  Thankfully, Aaron and I passed easily and we are now legal to fly in Indonesia.

From the Logbook...More Training

One of the fun things that we get to do in training is to visit new places under the premise of training but with the ulterior motive of meeting new people and communities.  Most times, people are very receptive to being visited by the float plane and considering the different ways that we could serve their community through med-evac flights, or even just plain old transportation from point A to point B.

From the Logbook...Training Time

We have finally become a fully staffed base in PalangkaRaya for the first time in a LONG time.  Aaron and his family arrived in mid-February and we have been trying to focus hard on training when we can.

We have been having a good time flying together and Aaron is making nice progress.  There is a lot to learn to operate airplanes the way we do, and usually the flying is the easiest part.  The logistics of tickets, money, baggage, and weather take a lot of time to learn how to manage safely and efficiently.

We've been fortunate to cross paths with our other airplane (and it's pilot, thanks Isaac for the pictures) a few times during our training days.  It's always fun to see two floatplanes at one location, it's something that isn't that common in our line of work.  We sure fly to some beautiful places!

A Fun Visitor

Not only was April busy with some unexpected challenges (see previous post) we also hosted a lot of visitors.  We were blessed to be visited by Pastor Matt Hannon from New Heights Church in Vancouver, Washington   His stay was very short, but we all enjoyed our time with him and his contagious energy for serving Jesus and the His people.

Fuel Spill

April has been a busy month.  As I turned the corner to come into our MAF dock location earlier this month, this was the challenge awaiting me.  Our fuel shipment of 5,000+ gallons of AvGas had arrived in remarkable fashion.  While the truck backed into the driveway at 6am, the sidewall collapsed and over it went, including our liquid gold.

Thankfully, no one got hurt; but we had a potentially VERY dangerous situation on our hands.  How to salvage our AvGas quickly and safely, while also planning on getting the truck and tank out of the swamp.

We rigged up a makeshift pneumatic pump to begin draining the tank into 55 gallon fuel drums.  The process worked well, but it was slow.  It took over 11 hours to pump the tank dry.

Thankfully, I work with an amazing team of very talented and ingenious men.  With a lot of teamwork, a Caterpillar excavator, and lots of sweat, we had the tank sitting back on top of the truck and they drove off about 36 hours after first arriving. Normally the process takes less than three hours to offload the fuel.  Now, we still have a huge hole to repair in our driveway, but that will get addressed when the dry season comes in a few more months.

From the Logbook...Video Time!

We have been collecting HD video footage over the past few months with a few GoPro Hero2 cameras.  One of my colleagues recently put some of our footage together into a short video.  We hope to publish a few more videos over the next few months to reach some different audiences.  The clips above represent only a small portion of all of the video we have collected up to this point.  Make sure you have good speakers and view the video in full HD for the best results.  Good job to my colleague Isaac for doing a great job with the editing!!!  Flying floatplanes is AWESOME!!!

From the Logbook...On Call Weekend

When I received a call a few weekends ago as the on-call pilot, I decided to bring one of my little girls with me.  We had a good time.  "Roller coasters" may or may not have been involved in the flight!

The above and below pictures are from my GoPro camera.  The above picture was taken just seconds before touchdown on the river.  

After we landed, the hard work wasn't over yet.  Getting our airplanes to the dock is sometimes the hardest and most dangerous part of the whole flight.  Thankfully, we were able to get tied up to the dock without any problems, and shortly thereafter we were airborne again with a little 5 year old girl that had been hit by a scooter and suffered major head trauma.

From the Logbook...Joloi and Jujang Parit

I was crossing the Equator (see previous post) in order to pick up some of my MAF colleagues that had been ministering interior at a VERY isolated village called Jujuang Parit.  Due to the small size of the river where they were ministering, I had to make a few ferry flights to the nearby village of Muara Joloi to get them out since the small river in Jujang Parit is takeoff weight restricted.

The above picture was taken in the little village of Jujang Parit shortly after I landed to pick up my colleagues.

It was a good time to hear the stories from my colleagues.  The three of them are seen on the float and serve at our other base in Kalimantan called Tarakan.

Children always turn out to see what all of the action is about.  Being that I was so far away from "civilized" life, the people of Jujang Parit live a VERY different life than mine.  It was a pleasure to be able to serve my colleagues and the village of Jujang Parit.  

From the Logbook...Crossing Middle Earth

On the way to pick up some fellow MAF colleagues at an interior village, I was able to document crossing the Equator.  I live 2 degrees south of the Equator in the southern hemisphere and traveling north above the Equator doesn't happen that often for us.  It is always fun to watch the GPS document its crossing.

From the Logbook...Difficult Child Delivery

I was called to the village above to pick up a woman that had been pregnant with twins.  One of the babies was born without problems but unfortunately, she was unable to deliver the other baby.

The second baby had died in utero and required emergency surgery in order to save the mother.  This type of operation is unavailable in her village and we were able to pick her up with her family and bring her to PalangkaRaya where she received the treatment she needed.

From the Logbook...A New Type of Flat Tire

As much as we try to avoid underwater obstacles as we operate float planes, occasionally you still come into contact with  something.  A few weeks ago one of our floatplanes impacted a rock at slow speed and the results required a repair.  Thankfully, our floats are made of fiberglass and the repairs are usually pretty simple.

After jacking the airplane onto the table, we evaluated the damage and went to work.  By the end of the day, the float was repaired and ready to fly the next day.