From the logbook...Soup anyone?

One of the common terms that pilot's use to refer to their time flying in the clouds is flying in the soup. I had a big day of flying teachers again yesterday, and a lot of my day was spent flying in the soup. It seemed like my destinations had decent weather, but en route was bad all day long. For my two flights, I had to "shoot" the approach to get back into Shell, my last one which was down to minimums. Four hours of flying will make me tired anyway, but adding all the time in the soup as well definitely makes for sweet dreams.

From the logbook...More teacher flying

I was given a bit of a break today from the flight schedule. Things were still very busy in the hangar though, keeping flights going as airplanes returned. It was kind of like the pit crews of NASCAR... but different.

Late this afternoon I did make a short flight to a place called Pacayacu (PAC). Once again I had a load full of teachers and a LOT of cargo. Most of the weight was books and school supplies. You can tell by the photo above that the tail of Alas 10 is very close to the ground with the nose wheel almost in the air. ALL airplanes are like big teeter-toters, therefore it is always critical to have your weight balanced correctly or bad things can happen. I was at the very aft limit of my CG (center of gravity) on this flight. With the very capable Cessna 206, there are two ways to determine CG. One is to crunch the numbers and see where it lies. This doesn't take long and it is highly accurate. Usually though, I just use method number two (it's even quicker). To determine the CG, you load your airplane with everything that is going, except yourself. Then you carefully push the tail of the airplane onto the ground. If the tail comes back up on it's own, you are good to go. If the tail just stays there, you better do something different with where your weight is located. This method won't work for many airplanes and it is commonly known and used by many C206 pilots.

From the logbook...Teacher flying

We have been really busy flying literally hundreds of teachers and their cargo into the jungle these past few weeks. Lucky for me I am flying this week instead of flight coordinating. I have been everywhere these past few days, and logged a lot of flight time, and of course, landings. I wanted to share briefly the photo below of a place called Cononaco Bameno (CNC). I have written about it before. This village is home to Waorani Indians, and if your cannot tell by looking at the photo, many of them are still very "natural." Much of this is due to their isolation. They live about 140 miles from Shell, and there are not even any nearby roads for them. Everything is either transported by airplanes or rivers.

Sunday drivin'

As usual, we went for a drive this afternoon, after we watched the Denver Bronco's barely beat the Bills. (It was awesome!!!) Here's is a little of what we saw...These are growing in our front planters. For those of you about to loose your hard earned gardens and flowers due to the coming fall and freeze, eat you heart out! :)

Just your "average" roadside jungle flower.

Bromeliads grow everywhere. I am continually amazed by how many different types I see. Truly the handiwork of purpose and design, not happenstance. Did you know pineapples are parts of the bromeliad family?

Here is a shot of the ol' homestead. Our three fruit trees hide most of our house.


Our sweetie sitting in the back of the Bronco as we let our dog Maya run along the car for a while to burn some energy.

Coffee anyone?

On our latest trip to Quito, I shot this B737 leaving for takeoff from our hangar. I guess even the sides of airplanes are billboards now!

Jungle snow

Waking up this morning I found Sangay Volcano finally coming out from under it's cloudy blanket. It was beautiful to see a new and fresh coating of snow on it, drawing the snowy skirt ever closer to the jungle.

Master of the bush

I am coordinating flights again this week so there may not be a lot to talk about flight wise. But, that doesn't mean things aren't exciting from time to time around the hangar. One of our flights today entailed bringing out a patient that was bitten by a snake. The snake was a bushmaster. It is a beautifully nasty animal, and very stunning. Now, if you have been reading lately you will notice a lot of snakes. I am not a snake person! Although, I still marvel at their design and function.Here is a close up of it's awesome head (you can see where it was killed with a wooden rod right behind the skull). The snake came in a sack from the village of Copataza where the bite took place. The snake bite patients always try to bring the biting snake with them to make it easier to positively identify what kind of snake bit them, and the doctors in the hospital can administer the correct medicine/antivenin. I'm not sure why he has paper stuffed into his mouth, but that was fine with me. I have seen "dead" snakes do "lively" things, and a dead poisonous snake can still inject venom.
Here you can see that the snake is longer than I am, or around 7 feet from head to tail. Interestingly enough, we just watched a documentary on TV about this species this past weekend. It is not to be messed with or taken lightly. From what I read on the Wiki link above, and saw on the TV show, the patient we hauled out was lucky to be alive.

Time from bite to arrival at the hospital...around 3 hours.
Time from bite to hospital without airplane service...?

A time to relax

This weekend has been a good one for relaxing. Here are a few photos of what made it nice...

We took a drive yesterday to eat at a place about 40 minutes from our house. To some that may seem like a long drive just to eat, but that is just it. We like the drive, and it helps get us out of the house. Did I mention the food was really good?

The restaurant had a nice garden to stroll though as well. So of course I took pictures. Did you know there are over 25,000 different species of known orchids in the world? That's amazing!


Yesterday on the way home from the restaurant one of the rivers we cross was really flowing. Actually, it is always "really flowing" but I finally stopped to get a picture. Just 50 yards downstream this river dumps into the Pastaza River.


Today Brooklyn and I practiced her bike riding skills on the roof. We rode yesterday as well, and I found something that really helps Brooklyn. I used duct tape and taped her feet to the pedals. Ya, I know that sounds a little...dangerous, but she really got the feel better of what both of her legs should be doing at the same time that way. Before, she would push one pedal down while the other leg hung limp, and the do the same on the other side. She wasn't getting anywhere to fast. Today I joined her riding Becca's bike. It was a great time, and our dog Maya had fun too.

Various

• I haven't flown much this week for lack of flights to do. The rest of the week looks a little more normal.

• With our two red tailed boas that we have in the hangar, we have to clean the cage out from time to time. One of our pilots is in charge for keeping it clean, and today he even pulled out Sheba, the big one, and hosed her off. They get pretty stinky and gross. I don't think I will ever have snakes for fun. You can see that Sheba is longer/taller than I am. She is probably around 7 feet long.
  

• With all of the "free time" I have had lately, I have been going to Puyo the last few days to help our new teacher family get some of their paperwork done. Tomorrow we are going to give an attempt at getting driver's licenses. You might want to keep that in prayer.
  

From the logbook...Medical day

It seems like we did a lot of medical type flying today. I didn't log a lot of time today, but I did have 3 flights. My first flight was a quick "out and back" taking a government medical team into the jungle. They are going to be there for 22 days until we pick them up again.

My second flight was a post maintenance flight. These are usually quick and during my flight I found out my airspeed indicator didn't work. It kinda makes for a weird sensation when you know you are going 140 MPH and the airspeed says "0." After landing a lot of flies were found in the pitot tube (the thingy that make the airspeed work) and they were removed.
For my third flight I switched planes for the third time and went to a close village called Villano to pick up a man that fell out of a tree. He was in pretty bad pain, and luckily the ambulance showed up quickly after my arrival. His stretcher was a simple board, cut flat with a chainsaw.
As I was getting ready to leave on my third flight, our Quito pilot was as well. He flew down from Quito to take a patient from the local hospital up to Quito to receive more advanced care. 50 minutes later they landed in Quito, instead of the 5 hour trip via ambulance.

My little glow worm

Last weekend while we were in Quito, we met a woman that lives in Washington near where we used to work. It was fun getting to chat with her, and she really took a liking to Brooklyn. As we left she gave Brooklyn a box of those special bracelet/necklace things that glow when you snap them. Anyway, a few nights ago Brooklyn had a blast with them, and still is even though they don't glow much anymore. Waving for the camera (above) and dancing with mom (below).

From the logbook..."I been everywhere man..."

This morning when I arrived at the hangar there was a various array of flight requests from all sectors of the jungle. The hard thing is that they were all important and needed to get done. Long story short, I flew almost 5 hours and had 11 landings, all in one flight. I was able to use our hangar queen, or Alas 11. She recently left the hangar for the first time in a few months after receiving a new engine and better avionics, just like Alas 10 did before. Now, Alas 13 is in for a makeover.

(Yanayacu just before takeoff, and just after using the jungle bathroom.)

My last 2 stops involved picking up patients. Initially, I was just going to get a guy out of Yanayacu (YAN) and come back to Shell, but just after takeoff in YAN I was informed of some little kids that needed to be brought out of a hospital in the jungle to get more advanced care. I am glad I had the gas to get there, because they were in really bad shape. They were both 8 years old. One had severe pneumonia and the other had all sorts of problems. That poor little guy could hardly breathe because his lungs were so full of fluid. Thankfully after stopping for a shot of gas in Makuma, and then arriving in Shell, the Red Cross was quickly there to take them to the hospital.

From the logbook...Cockpit view #3

Here is my last video that I have prepared at the moment. Now that I have all of these "off my chest" I can keep on top of future video projects better. This video is just over 4 minutes and is in Achuar Indian country.

From the logbook...Video #2

Here is another video. It is about 3 minutes long...enjoy!

Mr. President

I had to run some errands today in nearby Puyo and as I drove there I could tell they were anticipating the Presidents visit, the first since his election in January. There were armed soldiers at all intersections, cops everywhere, and lots of traffic. After getting my errands done and trying to get out of Puyo and on my way back to Shell, I saw a funny crowd. As I drove around the crowd and found a parking place, sure enough, it was Mr. Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador talking to the small crowd. I got out of the car and walked (OK I ran) over to where he was and let the pictures start flying. He did seem to have some "protection" in terms of body guards and things, but nothing on the level of an American President. It was fun being 3-4 feet from him and taking his picture. I'm sure I could have butted in the crowd more and shook his hand. For those of you who want to know what Correa is and what he stands for, you won't find it on this blog. I don't like to give my opinion on things like that, especially when I am a guest in someone else's country. It was fun though playing paparazzi. More than anything I was just in the right place at the right time.

From the logbook...videos

A while back I talked of putting some video on the blog. Lately I have had enough free time (and the special cord brought by Vicki) to get some stuff edited. Now, the video below if VERY "homemade." It was shot back in April. I attached our video camera with a bungee cord to the "V" brace in our front windshield. For those of you who care, all footage below is in Alas 14. The footage includes a takeoff and landing from 3 different Waorani villages. It is about 4 minutes long. Let me know if there are any viewing problems (I am new to this) and what you think...I have about 2-3 more videos in the works from other parts of the jungle.

From the logbook...various

I had one of my biggest flight days yesterday. I had 5.5 hours of flight time and 10 landings. Here is what my "itinerary" looked like...

Flight #1 Shell - Maruramu (MSR) - Shell
Flight #2 Shell - Cusuimi (CUS) - Shell
Flight #3 Shell - Sarayacu (SAR) - Bufeo (BUF) - Montalvo (MNT) - Bufeo - Montalvo - Shell

In order to get it all done, I had to leave earlier than usual. This was just as the sun was coming up as I was getting ready to preflight.

My first stop of MSR had me picking up a government medical team. The early morning light always makes for good pictures. I'm not sure if this little guy was running from his vaccinations or from me!

Second, I flew south near the border of Peru. In CUS I picked up a team of Americans that were doing some work in the community. Because of the size of the team (12 people) and the size of the airstrip (1200 feet with steep approaches) I was only able to get 3 people and some baggage. Another airplane landed just after I did, and we were able to get half of the team out of CUS yesterday. The rest will come out today.

On my third flight, I had an unexpected stop. Originally SAR was not planned when I left the hangar in the morning. Well, things ALWAYS change with the flight plan, and this was my role in it. The large cargo under the orange tarp is a casket with a body in it. I flew this casket and the man's daughter back to their home in SAR. I was hard to see the daughter in such pain, especially since you cannot get away from it in a small airplane. I did my best to comfort her, and 25 minutes after taking off we were in SAR.

From there I went to BUF to get out another government medical team. I had to do "saltos" or jumps from BUF to MNT. Because of the limited size of BUF, and the amount of people and cargo I had to get out of BUF, I had to ferry everything to the larger MNT where I could take off with everything in one attempt, safely.

I have the day off today since I am on call this weekend. Can't say what we are going to do. Sounds like Becca and Brooklyn are getting sick, so we might be homebound. The President of Ecuador is coming to Shell today to visit the mission hospital. I might go ever there later this morning and "play paparazzi." I also got some videos almost ready to post of my flying, maybe later today they will be posted.

From the logbook...Preacher man

If you have read Becca's blog, you will see my reason for my lack of posts. We were in Quito since last Saturday, and we just returned yesterday.

I was put right back into action today with the flights we had. Mid morning I first went to a place called Quenahueno (QNO), a Waorani village. There is a missionary woman visiting here in Shell that used to live with and work among the Wao Indians for over 10 years. She wanted to go back to her old "stomping" grounds for a few days and catch up on how things were since she left back in the 80's.
When we landed in QNO quite a crowd showed up. It was more people than I had ever seen in QNO. Usually it is a hand full of kids that come to see the airplane. Today we were treated with a few more than that.

(This was one of my passengers today, Dewey. He is a murderer, saved by the same grace I am. He was part of the spearing party that killed the 5 missionaries all those years ago. Today, he is quite a different story. On his recent trip to the "big" city (a.k.a. Shell, pop. 3500) he acquired a large illustrated kids Bible. He didn't waste anytime in QNO showing it off to the whole village and thus telling them the various stories throughout the Bible. He had a pretty devoted crowd and was very passionate in his preaching, although I couldn't understand any of it, it was all in Waorani. After about 40 minutes on the ground in QNO, we flew to Tiweano (TIW) which is where Dewey lives and the missionary was going to visit. I also had a patient return on board that was also from TIW.

The woman I took to stay with the Wao was a Bible translator, and played a key part in getting the Bible translated into Waorani. She brought some Bibles with her and it seemed like the community was really happy to get them. I thought this picture was neat since it represents the two most precious things on this Earth, God's word and his children.

(Note-one of the things that Becca's mom brought for me was a new camera I had ordered. I will try to put my pictures on at full resolution for best viewing. If it seems like a little overkill to some with slower connections, let me know and I can make them smaller. )

Chicken head mount?

We were busy at the hangar today. With our three operational airplanes we made almost 30 stops today hauling people and cargo all over God's green Earth. I was in the hangar trying to keep things moving and the airplanes out in the jungle and not at the hangar. At the end of the day, I saw a funny chicken as one of the cargoes coming from the jungle.

Now, we always haul stupid chickens. They are always put in the belly pod, and they usually manage to poop on everything. I appreciate when the people put their chickens in something, like a big banana leaf, a box, a sack, whatever. This one below was sure funny. I could tell that the chicken was simply stuffed in the box, and an air hole was punched in the side. The stupid chicken managed to get his head though the hole, but he couldn't get it back in. His head was stuck rigid, and his feathers were all fluffed and big behind him. He looked like a hunters trophy. You know, the head mount kind that you see hanging on the walls of hunters houses? I'm sure he is now sitting in somebody's cooking pot nstead of his box.

From the logbook...tour day

This week I am coordinating flights again. That said, I may not be flying much this week, although I did have a great flight today. For those of you who have ready Becca's blog you know that Becca's mom is here to visit us this week. It is great to have her, and today was a light day on the flight schedule, so we planned on going to the village of Tiwaeno (TIW) to see how things are done, jungle style.

This was also a memorable flight because not only did my mother in law come, but so did all my other girls, Becca, Madison, and Brooklyn. This was Becca's first flight with me in years, and the first time in Ecuador. It was fun to show her a bit of what I do everyday, and what it looks like. We all had a great time. Below is a brief slide show of some of our sights in TIW today.