Kodiak Ferry Update 5

Today better weather allowed West Michigan to regain some sense of normality again, although Kansas is being hit very hard right now with very heavy snow falls. They don't often have snow so things are rather chaotic as I tried to phone Garmin in Kansas for some assistance with out G1000 databases. An answering machine answered and said that they were unable to help due to "inclement weather". What they really meant was that nobody was able to get to work!

We got a full days work in and the 100 hr inspection has been completed according to the Quest maintenance manual!! We just have engine runs to do and 2 or 3 small inspections for tomorrow. We did come across a problem with the chip detector, which seems to have been wired incorrectly and will not annunciate in the cockpit. Not a serious problem, but it does mean that somehow we need to get it fixed under warranty, otherwise we need to pay someone to do it in SA. We did get excellent help trouble shooting this problem from Quest, and we now know where the problem lies. We had the cowlings on and had to remove them all when the Quest avionics guy phoned, so they all had to come off again. All part of the job!

We completed the day with 2 passenger seats installed, the ferry tank installed behind them and basically ready to do engine runs tomorrow and hopefully fly it again this weekend. Our plan is to fly to New Jersey to a place where the ferry tank installation will be completed and then on to Bangor Maine, where we will have the HF radio installed. Weather permitting we will most likely be on our way sometime next week from Maine!

Enjoy this Laurel and Hardy movie with no sound.

John

Kodiak Ferry Update 4

Hi all,

Apologies, no interesting pictures today. I forgot my camera in the hangar.

The snow has eased up a bit but bitterly cold temperatures are forecast for tomorrow, probably by the time you open this email. Ron and I managed to get to the hangar early and we really managed to get into the 100 hr inspection properly today. We think we can complete the inspection by Friday, after which we need to get the HF radio installed.

I could send some pictures or videos of lots of snow from my phone, but I wont bore you with more of that today.

Regards,

John

Kodiak Ferry Update 3

Hi All,

Western Michigan is again in the grip of a large winter storm again. Today this storm caused massive disruption all across the western parts of the state. Rain prior to the snow falls caused very icy roads, accidents were plentiful, schools were closed all over the place and just moving from A to B became a major challenge.

Ron left early this morning for a trip to Grand Rapids for an oral exam with the FAA to renew his IA. He drove all the way in this weather on treacherous roads. He passed the test and made the trip safely. I did not go to the hangar this morning to start the 100hr inspection simply because of the weather. Ron and I drove ithe 20 miles to the airport shortly after lunch when the snow had abated a little. We just had time to go through some paperwork and get our planning for tomorrow's work.

 

The picture above is of our drive home where virtually all the roads are almost not visible despite snow ploughs working overtime today. Visibility is limited and driving is dangerous. All this very new to me, but it all becomes very tiring just to get simple things done.

For Ron, getting his IA renewed was another major job ticked off. I spent the time today arranging all the correct navigation databases and approach plates for our route of flight, purchased and downloaded read for installation in the Kodiak.

Hopefully we can get some better weather tomorrow to get the 100 hr properly under way.

John

Chimoio hangar progress

In case you thought the Kodiak was all we had on our minds at the moment, we should just point out that a lot of work still continues at Mercy Air's remote base up in Chimoio, Mozambique.

Mercy Air is co-locating with SAM Ministries and has jointly built a house, airstrip and hangar on the property.

In 2011 the airstrip looked like this.

Then, last year, a team from the USA constructed a hangar.

 

This week a Swiss team flew up from South Africa to join 16 strong Mozambican workers and one Canadian, to pour the concrete floor.

It took 137 bags of cement and 13 hrs non stop work to complete just half of the floor.

Now the scene looks like this and it won't be too long before the paperwork is completed and the first aircraft is allowed to land there.

Thank you.

Mercy Air team

Kodiak Ferry Update 2

Today better weather allowed West Michigan to regain some sense of normality again, although Kansas is being hit very hard right now with very heavy snow falls. They don't often have snow so things are rather chaotic as I tried to phone Garmin in Kansas for some assistance with out G1000 databases. An answering machine answered and said that they were unable to help due to "inclement weather". What they really meant was that nobody was able to get to work!

We got a full days work in and the 100 hr inspection has been completed according to the Quest maintenance manual!!  We just have engine runs to do and 2 or 3 small inspections for tomorrow. We did come across a problem with the chip detector, which seems to have been wired incorrectly and will not annunciate in the cockpit. Not a serious problem, but it does mean that somehow we need to get it fixed under warranty, otherwise we need to pay someone to do it in SA. We did get excellent help trouble shooting this problem from Quest, and we now know where the problem lies. We had the cowlings on and had to remove them all when the Quest avionics guy phoned, so they all had to come off again. All part of the job!


 How to do a 100 hr inspection in 26 seconds!

We completed the day with 2 passenger seats installed, the ferry tank installed behind them and basically ready to do engine runs tomorrow and hopefully fly it again this weekend. Our plan is to fly to New Jersey to a place where the ferry tank installation will be completed and then on to Bangor Maine, where we will have the HF radio installed. Weather permitting we will most likely be on our way sometime next week from Maine!

Regards

John

Kodiak Ferry Update - The Long Road to Freedom

Not quite the right title but Mercy Air's new Kodiak will begin it's 'Long Flight to Africa' very soon.

Technically the journey started a year ago when the aircraft was flown from Germany to the USA for a refit and upgrades, but now the final preparations are being made to fly it across the Atlantic to it's new home in South Africa.

Ron has recently been working on fitting ferry fuel tanks whilst John flew out last week from South Africa to assist him. Yesterday (18th Feb) they managed to get the autopilot hold problems sorted out and took it for a test flight and today (19th Feb) they started the 100 hour inspection.

Here's a pic of the plane being worked on in the hanger in Michigan.

We'll keep you updated on this blog.

Thank you

Mercy Air team

Flood Survey

Whilst the Mercy Air helicopter was busy in the south of Mozambique, a consortium of aid organisations asked us to survey a large area in the north of the country.

 

We had to wait a few days till a weather system passed but we finally made it up to Quelimane to pick members of the survey team up.

The loop we flew at the top of the map may not look like much but it was 500 miles (800 km) long and took three hours to complete. The flight up itself was about the length of the UK.

As a lot of the survey area was inaccessible and the situation was thought to be quite bad, the Governor of the Province also wanted to come along and see for himself the extent of the flooding.

The area to the north east of Quelimane was extensively affected.

Where as the Zambezi River, although full, wasn't an immediate threat.

On the way back we had to request left of track due to weather and landed at Beira just after a heavy shower.

There is more rain predicted this coming week so we might find ourselves up there again soon for another survey.

Thank you.

Mercy Air Team

Water water everywhere

During January Southern Africa had some pretty grim weather and as a result Mozambique seemed to bear the brunt and had flooding throughout the country.

The worst hit area was in the south and so Matthias and Mickey went with the helicopter to give assistance. Here is their report:

We landed the helicopter during late dusk as the city of Maputo was already lighting up.

What Mickey and I saw today, is only very slowly sinking in as actual reality.

The Limpopo flooding is as bad if not worse than the 2000 floods. Places we used to land in back then, are now under water. People report that Chockwe town was 2 meters under flood waters. Roads cut. Water as far as the eye can see.

Throughout the country, over the past years, Mozambique's national disaster management agency, the INGC, has done a commendable job of relocating thousands and thousands people away from the more flood prone risk areas to higher grounds.

But the amount of water present during this flood, is simply unimaginable.

Herds of animals trapped on smallest high grounds cuddle together. So many people, children, grannies, goats, chickens, cooking pots, plastic chairs, capolanos, beds, blankets and buckets, basically everything what people own and hold valuable, rescued to the roof top of their houses.

People in trees! People wading through strong current waters!

First we started with assessment flights with staff from Save the Children, WFP and Oxfam, but then ended up spotting first survivors in the waters!

As I heard a South African Air-Force Oryx helicopter on the same radio-frequency, I asked him if they were winch equipped and able to come to our GPS position? The first rescue was two women we found trying to swim thru the brown strong current, holding on for dear life to a closed plastic bucket with their belongings.

The helicopter winch operation was a success and their lives were saved.

Now we continued scouting for more surviving groups of people and directing the SAAF helicopter to the exact locations to rescue them. Some families we found had even climbed into trees! How long had they been there?

Continuing the search, we hovered slow and low over the brown flood waters, not wanting to miss any one of them, but the hard fact for me is realising, that I know we must have missed people, who could have been rescued. I feel guilty about that. I pray they are found tomorrow. Government boats are continuing as well.

In this short op together, we saved probably over 20 women with children on their backs, men, weak and old people- this afternoon alone.

A Save the Children team drove to help people a couple days ago at Barragem, but now got stuck themselves. During a 1 hour round trip heli flight we evacuated the staff off the high grounds, back to Xai-Xai. During the 30 second turnaround time on the ground, many children came with waving hands, asking to be flown away too!

As I think of those families on the rooftops I ask my self, what do they eat tonight? All the food got destroyed by the surprising floodwaters during the night. How do they go to the toilet, on a roof top? How long will they remain healthy, if they drink only the brown flood waters around them? Do the people of Chilaulani on top of their hoses know people in far away countries care about them? Do they still keep hope?

It was overwhelming to see, we were not prepared for that.

We all need wisdom for tomorrow's work and flights.

Matthias Reuter and Michael Aebi

Crewing the Mercy Air helicopter

Stormy Monday Blues

We were recently asked by the South African Police Service to help transport, Erol, an officer who had been shot whilst on duty eleven years ago.

He had undergone surgery a number of times with limited sucess but needed taking from his home in Kwa Zulu Natal to the hospital in Pretoria. This would usually be a slow eight hour drive but we could fly him there in just over an hour. As he finds sitting very uncomfortable, the only realistic option was lying down in our aircraft.

The little red triangle on the map above doesn't look like much but it still took four hours to navigate and actually gives an idea of the scale of South Africa.

We knew that getting Erol in and out of the plane would be hard work so he got some help in the shape of Roger, the Mercy Air US Board Chairman, who was in SA and who just hapens to be an ER Doctor - handy.

  

The transfer from car to plane and back took six people.

 

But once on board he could travel in relative comfort.

 

The weather wasn't completely compliant and we had to do quite a bit of storm dodging on the way.

 

This did allow us some impressive views between cloud layers though towards the end.

Thank you,

Mercy Air Team

Another hot day in the saddle

As mission trips go, this was an easy one. A little lie in, a late start, good flying weather, one overnight and then just flying missionaries back to SA for their onward travel to the UK and the USA for furlough. No physical labour in the heat of the bush, no sweating continuously for 20 hours a day, no endless nights sleeping outside in a moaquito net tent, no rice and beans for days on end. Not that we mind all that to be honest, it's what we do and we really enjoy it. True, the hours can be a little unsocial, but it beats most other things we are capeable of and a whole bunch of people can benefit from it other than us.

The perfect start to any day - fried English breakfast and a cup of tea,.on the stoep, in the sun.

Feels like my birthday!

Then a bit of flying..

A total of about four hours in the air from South Africa to Vilanculos in Mozambique via the Limpopo river...

Then on up to Marromeu on the Zabbezi River.

We fly past the aptly named Paradise Island surrounded by an emerald sea, where Bob Dylan once wrote a song whilst sitting at the grand piano in the foyer of of the now defunct hotel apparently. It's on the 1976 album 'Desire' along with Isis, Hurricane, Black Diamond Bay .... and others I can't remember.

A gold star to anyone who can tell me the name of the song.

It really is quite a jewel in an ocean of tranquility...

Then on up past Beira, Mozambique's second city where we would usully land except that they had no fuel - again.

They won't be getting our landing fees today.

The YWAM guys we are picking up live modestly in Marromeu. Part of their garden furniture is this tank, left over from the civil war quite a few years ago now.

 

We spent the night at Mercy Air's heli base sleeping in a shipping container.where the temperature at 10 at night was still over 30 deg.

The next day dawned bright and sunny and even though we were airbourne by 07:00 it was already hot.

We flew back past some interesting expansive scenary.

 

One of the big green bits looked like a huge heart.

The passengers seemed quite happy - which is usually a good sign.

 

We also take it as a compliment if they're comfortable enough to sleep.

It was a wonderfully boring and uneventful flight back to South Africa - just the kind we like.

After we landed and did the customs and immigration formalities the passengers had to wait in the shade of the wing whils we paid the landing fees.

Then we flew the eight miles back to the Mercy Air Farm where we were able to put them up fopr a night before their onward travel to the UK the next day.

Mercy Air Team