Home from Papua New Guinea!

Well it has been nearly 6 weeks since my last blog post; since then I have covered 9000 miles there and back, 15 time zones, 2 equator crossings and two date line crossings, and have had three weeks of fantastic experiences in Papua New Guinea.

Most of the work that MMS does happens here in the hangar in Coshocton Ohio, but from time to time a mission agency will get in touch and ask for help working on an aircraft that is unable to come here. Last year the King Air 200 operated by SIL Aviation (part of the Wycliffe family) suffered a landing gear collapse shortly after landing. Thankfully no one was injured and the damage was much less severe than it could have been, but it was still bad enough that quite a bit of work had to be done repairing the landing gear (which was the root of the problem) as well as the rear fuselage which took much of the weight of the aircraft when it went down. Tyler Weaver, one of the engineers at the SIL base in Ukarumpa, had completed his training at MMS some years ago, so he saw an opportunity for a rapid response trip and contacted us with the request.

Mark, myself and Jim having a look at the job in hand when we arrived in PNG

There are a couple of reasons why Rapid Responses are good experience for the apprentices at MMS; obviously the work that is being done on the aircraft is good training for us as we prepare for our FAA exams, and the broader the experiences we get, the better for us. Another reason why it is good to go on rapid response trips is that it gives us experience of working in an operational “field” environment. There are many different Christian missions operating aircraft and each one has a different way of doing things, a different fleet to operate, a different approach to the kind of flying they are involved in, and a different set of environmental challenges to be tackled. The third reason why it is so beneficial to go on RR trips, is that often they take place in areas away from what we are used to and the experience of living and working in a different culture, climate and situation is really valuable, as many of us prepare to serve with mission organisations around the world.

A MAF caravan lands behind the SIL Kodiak that flew us into Ukarumpa.

I am just home a few hours ago, still jet-lagged from my 45hr journey and am enjoying catching up with Heather and the kids after just over 3 weeks apart, so I won’t be telling all in this blog post, but hopefully over the next wee while I will be able to fill you in on some of the details and tell you a bit more about the work we were doing, some of the different ways we saw aircraft being used, and some of the cultural differences we were blessed to experience while we were in PNG!

Thanks for checking in!!