Teamwork!!

Earlier this week I had the chance to spend the evening with some other MAF families and some staff of an organisation called “Every Village”. MAF partner with Every Village, helping them to carry out their work amongst the people of S Sudan and Ethiopia. (Have a look at their blog for some really inspirational stories… http://everyvillage.org/blog) The team at Every Village realise that carrying out their calling, to the best of their ability, requires a partnership with MAF, so they had invited us to dinner as a ‘thank you’. As I listened to their presentation on Tuesday night I was reminded of how much we, the Swanson family, rely on all those who support us, to carry on doing the work we have been called to here in Uganda. Sometimes the behind the scenes work that I am doing, fixing planes in a hangar, can feel very far from the high impact, life changing work that so many organisations are doing in Africa, but it is good to remember that the obedience of many small parts is playing out into a beautiful piece that God is orchestrating. Thank you so much for being part of this with us, for your prayers, support and encouragement.

For the last few months I have been busy working on Scotty’s avionics upgrade, and you will be pleased to know that the work was finished and the “return to service” flights completed last week! Routine maintenance is a big, and very important, part of what we do here in Uganda, but working on a major project like this avionics upgrade, and seeing such a massively improved aeroplane returning to the Ops team is incredibly satisfying work! Myself and Mat Thompson (our Australian avionics engineer) were the only two who worked full time on this project, with others joining in as they were available, so I have a real sense of ownership in the work that we have done – another Scottish twist in 5X-SCO’s story!

5X-SCO's new engine and avionics getting put through their paces!
(Note all the new displays showing the artificial horizon, matching the real one outside!)

Celebrating Scotty's return to service with a pizza lunch!

We haven’t had too long to sit around after Scotty flew out before the next job rolled in, though! As MAF work through their programme of rolling out Garmin avionics upgrades across the fleet, 5X-FRM is next on the list. She came off the flight line on Thursday and by Friday we were well into making a start on the jobs list.

5X-FRM is pushed back into the hangar

While the plane is down for the avionics upgrade, we will be carrying out some other work as well. The most major of these ‘other jobs’ is to remove the engine’s “hot section” and send it out for inspection. This is done every 1800hrs of operation. As the name suggests, the hot section is the part of the engine that gets hottest during operation, and is most vulnerable to heat stresses, creep and fatigue. With the cowling removed it is reasonably straight forward to remove the front “power section”, and then take out the compressor turbine and vane ring to be sent to a specialist for inspection. We have temporarily reattached the power section, and when the hot section comes back from inspection, we will reassemble the engine again.

Cowlings mostly removed...

Removing fuel nozzles to allow hot section to be removed.

Power section on the hoist and hot section out.

In the meantime, we have started work on upgrading the avionics. Lots of old equipment and wiring has to come out to make way for the new, and while some of us have been busy with that, I have made a start on building some of the shelves and brackets needed to mount all the new equipment.

We are hoping to have 5X-FRM back with Ops by Christmas, so we have a busy few weeks ahead of us!!

Martin, our Swedish avionics engineer (as opposed to Mat, our Australian one!), and
Kees, our Dutch chief engineer, pulling out wires and old equipment.

Thanks again for remembering us in your prayers!

A