It is Thursday and has been for the last 1.5 hours. Wednesday (our financial deadline day) will be one of my most thrilling days in a long time ... when we first put up the airspeed indicator to the right it read something like 39%. Now it is sitting at a titillating 99.45% (How funny is that ... can that be rounded up? )
Six minutes. Five passengers stuffed into the airplane. Cargo tied down in the back and loaded in the pack screwed onto the bottom of the plane. The pilot’s mind had looked at every angle, every option, and every combination told him he had six minutes.
The other option is to be stuck for the night. With the last rays of daylight, an airplane’s options fade away as the exotic terrain below the airplane changes from a managed concern to a deadly unknown.
Then someone asks the pilot, “What about her?”
She stood quietly outside the plane. She was from the village, and obviously near full term in her pregnancy. She needed to get into town. There was not room for her, and the schedule allowed no flexibility.
“Can she get to town another way?”
“Well, yes. In two days, a truck with gravel comes through. She could sit on top.”
A glance at the airplane ready to go, then he looked back at the woman. He could take her where she needed to go, but it would throw the entire schedule off by half a day. Getting to their destination would not be an option before dark.
A glance at the watch. Six minutes were up. He tried to think of every option, but the picture of her riding on top of the gravel was too grim.
“Alright, change of plans.”
Passengers climbed back out, cargo was rearranged, and they helped the lady onboard. In a matter of minutes she arrived safely at the nearby town. The original passengers had to wait until morning to leave for their intended destination.
Whatever the pilot thought of his decision then, the truth became clearer several months later. He stopped in the same village and a man came and approached him.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You saved my wife’s life!”
“You are welcome. But I just helped her get to a place to have her baby. She was doing fine on her own.”
Somebody pulled the pilot aside and explained what had happened. 30 minutes after arriving in town, the lady went in premature labor. The baby needed to come out, but because of complications, she needed an emergency C section. Fortunately, the only person in that part of Central African Republic who could perform the operation was a pastor who lived in THAT town. He had been trained by a missionary doctor several years early.
He successfully performed the operation that saved the mother’s life and the baby’s.
“I don’t know what that thing is you wear on your wrist,” the husband said. “I know all you pilots who fly these airplanes listen to them. You look at it and say ‘We must go now!’ or ‘We cannot wait for them.’ I do not know why you did not listen to this thing last time, but I am very happy you did not. Thank you, because my wife is alive. Thank you for not listening to that thing.”
The pilot, who was one of my instructors, shared this story with us during my orientation last September. He said “That conversation changed how I viewed my flying forever.”
I have had the privilege of knowing Jerry and Breanna for the last several years. I have watched them grow, develop, and go through some very important, and sometimes difficult steps of maturity and transformation. I will tell you as I have told them: “I am very proud of them and the ways they have humbled themselves, answered God’s call of ministry on their lives, and paid the price of preparation for the mission field.” And, now it is time for them to launch and labor in the field of God’s choosing. God has prepared them, and they have done much to prepare themselves.
And you will sing
as on the night you celebrate a holy festival;
your hearts will rejoice
as when people go up with flutes
to the mountain of the LORD,
to the Rock of Israel.
Isaiah 30:29
I'm back! From where?
Let me explain ... no there is too much ... let me sum up.
The past five weeks we have been in Waxhaw, North Carolina so I can go through pre-field training with Jungle Aviation and Radio Service (JAARS). The training has been crammed into my cranium for eight hours a day, but it all began to make sense last Thursday.
The last week is called "mountain week" and it is a chance to put everything into practice from the previous lessons. The fact that we are flying over fiery red trees in the highest part of the Appalachians is just a bonus!
The heart of my training is what is called "STOL" which is an acronym (like everything in aviation) for short takeoff or landing. The Cessna we practice in has been modified to land extra slow, and the technique I have been learning puts the airplane in a stable but somewhat vulnerable area of flight. The final 45 seconds before landing are a mix of my eyes looking outside, the seat of my pants detecting roller coaster like drops and rises, and ears listening to the sound of ... flutes.
Yup, that's right. However, not the woodwind instrument we all think of. It is actually the vent
system for the little Cessna. A hole in the front of the wing blasts cooling air into the cabin and over the front seats. However, as we slow down for a short landing, the airflow reverses and pulls air out of the cabin. This creates a faintly audible whistle which tells us we are at the right configuration for landing.
I put this to the test for the first time in the mountains. JAARS has been using a hayfield in the mountains for over ten years to make a good short training runway. It is less than 1000 feet long and runs across a narrow valley. Because of the obstacles around and the hills on both ends, I have to commit to land about a quarter mile away.
The desire to land in the "zone" was never stronger!
Yesterday was interesting. My instructor was a missionary pilot in Papua New Guinea and was a friend of my sister and brother-in-law, Gweni and John. He coached me through the unusual pattern around the valley through saddles and scraping over the trees. It was a wild ride. The 206 acted like a glider -with almost no power applied- wanted to float in the rising air currents. Then the floor dropped out and down we came. The next updraft slammed into us and the power had to come off again.
Inside I listened for my flutes. I heard them faintly blowing, so I locked the airplane into that attitude. Then the runway fell away as our descent slows. The wind shift caused the stall warning to sound. It is unsettling. Stall, unlike a STOL, is not an acronym, but it is short for the point where the airplane stops flying and begins falling ... uncontrolled.
So to sum up, flutes good, stall warning bad. But this is the area of control I must land the plane. If I land too fast, I run out of runway and would go barreling through the highway off the end of the field.
After a go around and two landings, I elected to stop. The wind was picking up and shifting direction. But the lessons up to this point all began to make sense. You can land a plane in a field in the mountains by applying all the skills I have practiced ... and listening to the sound of flutes.
Another highlight was a spaghetti dinner on Thursday night. Around 400 people came to hear more about mission aviation. They love the fact we use their home turf to train in. Everyone was very generous and friendly.
A lady introduced herself to me. "I am the owner of Valhalla." Valhalla is another field turned runway. It is even shorter and is on the side of a mountain.
"I hear you are going there next week? Well ... good luck!" she said with a concerned smile
