Welcome to the Mercy Air blog . . . . . please scroll down for new posts

Let us introduce ourselves.

Mercy Air is a Christian, non-profit organisation based in South Africa. We operate two fixed wing aircraft (Cessna 310 and a Quest Kodiak) and a two Airbus Group AS350 helicopters.

We operate out of a 600m (2000 ft) airstrip near White River in the eastern part of South Africa.

This blog is a collection of news and trip updates designed to compliment the Mercy Air web page, Face Book group and other mailed newsletters. Click on a year and read from bottom to top and it should give you a good idea of what we do.

MAF/Flying for Life Dental Flight Limpopo

Last week Mercy Air flew the first of 2020's MAF/Flying for Life visits to the Limpopo province in the north of South Africa.

Landing at Tshikondeni gives an idea of the remoteness of the area we visit.

 

The team on arrival.

This was one of a regular series of flights where we fly dentists up to work in a mobile dental unit in the rural Vhembe district. This time the dental truck went to a primary school that Flying for Life also work with, to screen classes of children for a subsequent visit.

But first there is a 1hr long taxi ride to get from the airstrip to the school. We always have the same friendly driver who looks like he may a candidate for future dental care!

At the school, the kids were happy to see us...

.. and after a brief introductory talk, showed their newly learned skill of opening their mouths for the screening.

Then down to the serious business of checking their oral health.

We're not sure whether they were happy to see us go, or just showing their appreciation for our visit!

Whilst the dental screening was taking place, some other members of the team visited the disability centre. Mercy Air and Flying for Life are working at improving the facilities here in the coming year.

Thank you.

Paul, for the Mercy Air team

Space Race 2020

A feat was accomplished at Mercy Air recently that will take some beating.

Something took off from our airstrip and climbed to near space (75,000ft) before descending and landing again.

To give you an idea:
100,000ft is in the Stratosphere and is where the ozone layer is located.
It is three and a half times the height of Everest.
Airliners fly about 35,000ft.
The SR-71 Blackbird spy plane flew at 80,000ft.
The Space station orbits only three and a half times higher at 350,000ft.
In contrast Mercy Air fly locally at around 4500ft and only up to to 12000ft when we go international.

If you've glimpsed the photos yet you will understand that this was no ordinary aircraft but two weather balloons that were launched as part of a project organised by Yellobric (http://www.schoolspacerace.com/news/). This was part of their 'School Space Race' program that aimed to encourage school children from around the globe to use maths, physics and geography to build, launch, and retrieve an unmanned craft as high as possible on a budget.

One of the pupils in an amusing t shirt

It was a pleasant morning when they arrived on the day of the launch and the lack of wind was a bonus.

There was quite a lot of preparation to ensure all connections were.. er..connected...

..and that the tracking equipment was talking to the transponders.

The payload of the transmitter, camera, radar reflector and parachute was 0.55 kg and helium was used to create a lift of 0.65 kg.

The balloons start about 1.5m in diameter but as they ascend and the air gets thinner they expand until, between 6-8m, they burst and return to earth under the parachute about 5 hours later.

The anticipation was immense!

And the crowd went wild!

There was just time for the obligatory selfie...

..before the balloons were lined up for the countdown...

 

..and release.

 

Then the tracking team got to work...

..while the cars drove off to recover them.

There was a nifty website that we used to see progress. A screen shot shows the tracks of the balloons with one achieving a maximum altitude of 22432m (73596ft) - their target altitude was 100,000ft.

We were happy to be able to help these schools in their quest by providing a launch site but we won't try to emulate any of their performance figures any time soon - promise!

Thank you.

Mercy Air team.

Preparing For The Worst - Hoping For The Best

After helping extensively with cyclone Idai in Mozambique last year, Mercy Air has reviewed its involvement and put an enhanced disaster management plan in place, to be even better prepared should anything similar happen in the future.

Quite a lot to choose from

One of the issues we faced was the supply of aviation fuel. Things worked out well for us last year, but it could have been very different and we identified that making our own plans could be very pertinent.

Checking each one for condition

To that end, we recently sourced and collected 28 fuel drums from the anti rhino poaching air wing in the Kruger National Park, and have since taken them to Maputo for filling and shipped them up to a mission base in central Mozambique.

It is a place we visit often so if, hopefully, there is no emergency to deal with, the fuel certainly won't go to waste.

Thank you.

The Mercy Air team.

Flying for Life - Dental and Women's Health

Mercy Air was scheduled to do another Flying for Life trip in mid November, but on this occasion the elements seemed to conspire against us.

We have weather radar and a storm scope in the aircraft and can safely navigate around most weather. However, we are also fortunate these days to have access to fairly accurate weather forecasting and it became obvious in the days leading up to the proposed trip that the conditions, particularly around Johannesburg for the return flight in the afternoon, would be less that favourable.

We therefore decided to cancel the trip, and that probably was one of the better calls we've had for a long time!

Below is a radar image of the storm we would have been flying into and back out of (dark red) in the top RH corner.

Here is a multiple image shot taken over a few minutes by some weather watchers in Jhb, at the time we would have returned.

There were also photographs of people who could only hold five pieces of hail in an outstretched hand!

Fortunately Africa can be quite flexible and after a few frantic phone calls, we were able to re-arrange the flight for the following week - when the forecast promised far better conditions.

So the trip was back on and this time Cathy, a nurse at Mercy Air, was also able to come along to help with some women's health issues.

Our team at the pick-up in Jhb...

..during the flight...

..and when we landed in Tshikondeni in Limpopo.

While the dental team got busy in the mobile dental unit..

Cathy got help from a very efficient local nurse for her series of pap-smears.

As in previous visits, after the clinic we visited a disability centre and took a few small gifts that were well received.

The area we visit is remote, even by South African standards, and is also quite neglected in terms of health provision.

This Makuya valley is one hours' drive away from the strip we land at

Tshikondeni airstrip

On the way back we were routed over Pretoria..

..and in particular the Union Buildings, the equivalent of the UK's Houses of Parliament.

The flight distance covered for this trip was about 1000 miles (1600 km), equivalent of flying from London to the north coast of Africa.

Thank you

Paul and Cathy for the Mercy Air team

Container Base, Marromeu, Mozambique

Many years ago Mercy Air re-furbished some shipping containers and drove them up to Marromeu near the end of the Zambezi River in Mozambique, in order to set up a base from where we could help a local mission team work with the almost forgotten people in the Zambezi Delta region. As there are no roads this mission group used to travel three days by dug-out open canoe in order to reach the delta, a journey which now takes our helicopter only 20 minutes!

The weather and humidity had taken its toll on the five containers and they were in bad need of repair. For this reason we flew a team, tools and materials up for a week to bring the structures up to standard. They had only been there a couple of days when they got a call that the father of a missionary doctor in Beira had been taken ill and was coughing up blood - could we help? Without much delay John, Mercy Air's chief pilot, went to Beira, collected the patient and flew him and his son back to South Africa, where he spent a week in hospital. The rest of the team stayed in Marromeu working on the 'container base'.

At the end of the week Paul, another of Mercy Air's pilots, flew up with Andy, a maintenance guy looking at joining Mercy Air, to help with the last few issues, and obviously to fly the team back to South Africa.

We're always amazed at the range the Kodiak has. In the shot below we had already been flying for an hour, yet could still have cleared Madagascar to the east or Cape Town if we had turned round.

Dotted green circle - 45mins fuel left. Solid green - no fuel.

The view was similar to the range - seemingly almost limitless.

We have been flying to Marromeu for many years. Back in the day, we used to land in the middle of town, but these days that would be unwise!

Fortunately the local sugar company has built a strip out in its plantations and we can safely land there.

Short final Rwy 11

We knew it was toasty up there but weren't quite expecting 41 deg C on the ground at 15:00 in the afternoon!

The container base has provided 'moderatley' comfortable accommodation, kitchen and ablution facilities for the heli crew as well as a place to store supplies, fuel and to facilitate some minor on-going maintenance for the helicopters themselves.

The containers were fitted with roofs to keep the rain off as well as to provide airflow to allow cooler conditions inside. One of the main issues was that the steel frames that supported the roofs were badly corroded and needed major work to prevent the sheets being torn off in the upcoming rainy/windy season.

Another of the issues that was fixed was the lighting for security at night.

Saying our goodbyes at the strip on the day we left.

On the way back we flew past a teddy bear who was waving at us!

The work we were able to do at the base will be effective through the next rainy season, but we will need to give it some major attention next year if they are to continue to be an asset in helping us help the communities in the delta, who's only contact with the outside world is a helicopter, or a three day dug-out open canoe journey.

Thank you

Paul for the Mercy Air team