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.