The smell of Jet A1 fills the air - again.

Good News.

Our helicopter flew at 10:30 local time today (see pics below).


This was the first time since last March when we took it apart for its 12 yearly 'C' Check. It now sports its new colours and some safety and performance upgrades.

Its first mission trip to Moz is this coming Friday!

Mercy Air team

Wings of love to people in need

Please click on the article below to find out about Mercy Air's plans to help provide an affordable aviation service to those who need it most.

Mercy Air team

Birthday on the go

Wow, what a hectic birthday.

Technically Mercy Air's pilot Paul spent the day at work but it was probably a work day he wouldn't have wanted to miss. He was up at death o clock to fly up to Botswana to pick up our friendly Spanish family. After a splash and dash for fuel in Francistown, they headed north to find the Smoke that Thunders.

It turned out to be just where the GPS said it would be, and ATC allowed us a sneak peak...

We landed, put the plane to bed, just beat an airliner full of people to the Immigration queue, and drove 20mins to the hotel...

A quick-ish lunch and then they all headed straight for the border so that we could leave the country... for Zambia, to have a look from that side...

An hour later they were back in Zim to see how different it looked from there...

You can get quite close - and quite wet!

Then it went dark, so they went back to the hotel for more food.

Up early again the next morning to fly all the way south again. About 1500 miles total round trip. We pick them up Monday again to take them to a school in Maputo which they helped set up, after which we will drop them in Jo'burg so they can get back to Spain in a big plane.

Mercy Air team

Another Long Day in the Saddle

We just got back from a 750 mile (1200 km) day, a lot of which was spent in clouds dodging thunderstorms. We got back to White River just before dark and just before it started hoofing it down with rain.


We went to Jo'burg International pick up a Spanish family and drop them off at a dirt strip near the Moz/Zim border. We will pick them up again on Friday and take them on up through Botswana to Zimbabwe.

On the way to Jo'burg we were able to help another mission family who work in N. Moz and who had been down in SA over Christmas to have a baby. This baby became one of our youngest ever passenger at just 6 weeks! This saved Anne and the kids a five day 4x4 drive back to N. Moz which her husband was having to do.

Always worth looking right, left, and right again at T junctions at Jhb.

Not too obvious in this next pic but at the dirt strip where we dropped them off, we had to chase away an Elephant before we could safely take off again.

Mercy Air team