Rapid Responses!

When we came back from Scotland in October, I had some really good intentions of keeping the blog posts regular… It seems like the last couple of months have flown by, so my apologies for turning regular into “once a month”.
As Heather said a week-an-a-bit ago, I had a fantastic opportunity to spend the first couple of weeks of December down in Florida on a “Rapid Response” trip. MMS’s mission statement is to “prepare people and planes for worldwide mission service”, and for the most part, that means having apprentices work on mission aircraft at our hangar here in Ohio. The training is fantastic, but if it lacks one thing it is the chance to work in an “operational” environment, maintaining planes that are being used on a daily basis. Sometimes it isn’t possible to have aircraft transported to Ohio, and the opportunity comes along for apprentices and staff to travel to the plane to carry out the work needed. This kills two birds with one stone, giving mission organisations an opportunity to benefit from MMS’s service, whilst giving apprentices valuable experience working in other “field” environments.

One of MFI's DC-3's prepares to leave the hangar

Missionary Flights International have been offering a regular service to missionaries operating in Haiti and the West Indies since the 60’s. As well as a Cessna 310, the MFI fleet is made up of 4 DC-3 aircraft. These planes were built from the 30’s through to the end of WWII, and as you can imagine for aircraft that are in their 70’s, they take a lot of looking after. Of the 4 planes MFI operate, 2 are turbine powered and 2 have the original type radial engines. The turbine planes are more powerful, able to carry more payload, faster and more economical to run, so it makes sense that they are the ones normally flown. When the opportunity came up to sell one of the radial engine planes, the need to carry out some major maintenance became a bit more urgent. As MMS have a long history with MFI, we were asked to go down and help out with this work.

Old engine on the right, new engine on the left, and 400MF behind.

Myself and Chuck flew down the Monday after Thanksgiving, and got stuck straight into removing the engine from the left wing of N400MF. Most of our fortnight was spent on transferring brackets, hoses and accessories onto the new engine, and getting the new engine ready to hang on the wing. When we run out of parts, there were lots of other jobs to do, with some airframe repairs underway in the tail of the plane. On our last day there I was able to get involved in a 100hr service on one of the turbine planes, then help out with an oil change on the Asas de Socorro float plane which stopped off in Florida while on it’s flight to Brasil from MMS in Ohio. (See below for Keith's video on that)

It was a busy two weeks, but a fantastic opportunity to get a taste of another organisation’s ministry, and the way they operate. Working on these old aircraft was made even more special when I discovered that one of our good friends from Pitlochry Baptist Church (and one of the people who first got me interested in MAF) was one of the pilots who ferried N300MF to Florida from England in the early 80’s!

N300MF

The New Year will probably be bringing another Rapid Response trip, provided all the visa applications currently in progress go to plan. JAARS http://www.jaars.org/ have a large base in Papua New Guinea, where they operate a variety of aircraft in support of Bible translators and other missionaries who serve in that part of the world. They recently had one of their aircraft damaged, and myself, another MAF apprentice, and one of the MMS Staff, have been asked to go and help them carry out the repairs needed to get the plane back into service. That will be a slightly longer trip (3 or 4 weeks), and the internet won’t be as “high speed” as it was in Florida. Please pray that Heather and the kids will be well while I am away from home. Abi and Matthew were a bit out of sorts while I was gone earlier this month, not understanding why dad was working “at the hangar” but not coming home at night. I will be literally on the other side of the world this time away, so having the kids settle well while I am gone will be a real blessing to Heather, and a reassurance to me. I can’t even imagine still being in my old job on the ships with my wee family left at home!!
Right now we are busy getting packed up for our Christmas holiday. We are going to visit our good friends in North Carolina for the week, returning next Saturday. We’re all looking forward to catching up with them again, and to celebrate the birth of Christ together.
Wishing you all a happy Christmas, and all the very best for 2012.