Why Jet Fuel (and Turbine Engines?)

Every three months we go through this routine -- pumping avgas into 77 drums that get shipped in a container to Cameroon. We have two airplanes and one helicopter there serving a mission hospital and various mission groups, besides our own Wycliffe Bible Translator workers, in a seven country area. All three aircraft burn aviation gasoline -- "avgas" -- which is not easily available in the country. Believe it or not, this is the most economical way to get fuel to our program there, and keep service going to many self-sacrificing workers. Soon we hope we can send our first turbine-powered aircraft and begin the transition to an all-turbine fleet in Cameroon.
Since everyone has airline service around the world, jet fuel is plentiful and relatively cheap.

More Mountain Pics

Got a few more pictures of 8KQ in the mountains last week, thought I would share them with you.

Good Samaritan Kodiak

Wednesday I had the pleasure of helping out some friends with their new Kodiak - Samaritan's Purse took delivery of Serial No. 15 just last week, and needed help flying it from their aviation headquarters at Wilkes County Airport, NC to Smyrna, TN for avionics work. We brought it down to JAARS for a few hours for their mechanics to get some interaction with ours, and to compare notes. (Both airplanes pictured here in front of our hangar). Thursday we took the plane out to Smyrna where it is getting some additional electronic equipment.

008 Visits the Mountains

Last week was "Mountain Week" for our flight orientation staff and trainees. It is the culmination of three and a half months' specialized training in the Cessna 206 and Helio Courier, in preparation for field assignment. Host for the project is Avery County Airport near Spruce, Pine, NC. We joined the Training staff for two days with the Kodiak and let local people take rides in it. One side project on Saturday was checking out one of the mountain airstrips we use for training, Friendship airport, owned by the Jim Huff family. You can see the airstrip in the upper left part of this photo from the Kodiak turning on to final approach.

This beautiful little landing site, located just a few miles from Asheville, NC, sits on a hillside at between 6 and 8% slope, and is a mere 1,000 feet long (not including some useable over-runs). Mark and I took 8KQ into Friendship and shut down to spend a little time with the Huff family.

We then each did three landings and takeoffs before returning to Avery County. Just a few more lessons learned on what the Kodiak can handle, and what techniques work best in such a situation. Now this was starting to look something like what we will be seeing on the field in September! For a reminder, take a look at "What it's All About" on this blog.

Kodiak Simulations FAT

What is that big box? Well, if you look at it from the other side, you will see something rather more sophisticated than a box. Complete Kodiak cockpit, video visual displays, and electric servo motion.

Today Mark and I came to Pittsburgh, home of Fidelity Flight Simulations to help our friend Jeff Turcotte from Spokane Turbine Center (see Kodiak on Tour and Two and a Half Weeks in April for more info on "STC") in the process of testing the Kodiak simulator (actually an "Advanced Airplane Training Device") that is being developed by Fidelity. Technically this event is called Flight Acceptance Testing ("FAT"), where pilots who have flown the actual airplane run the simulator through maneuvers and critique its "fidelity" to the real thing. After all, if we're trying to simulate a Kodiak, we want it to look, sound and feel as much like a Kodiak as possible!

After the first couple flights we had some suggestions, and after some adjustments of the software by the Fidelity technicians, a final flight for the day revealed marked improvement. Amazing how that works - type in some computer code, and the box behaves differently! Two more days of this "work" (some people would pay to get to do this) and our contribution will be finished.

Hopefully this simulator will be in its bay at STC's facilty on Felts Field in Spokane, WA this summer, and the first mission pilots will be able to fly it as part of their introduction to the Kodiak.

The Navajo Comes Home

On Friday around 4:30 p.m., after ten years of service in the Philippines, and a stint before that in Colombia, RP-C2748 showd up in the sky over JAARS' runway and touched down. Now it is being retired from our fleet as we seek to upgrade to turbine aircraft.


Ken and Roger were elated, for obvious reasons, to see all the familiar faces that came out to welcome them.

The Navajo Makes the Mainland

Finally on Tuesday Ken and Roger made landfall and landed at Santa Maria, CA after an instrument approach to minimums. Last night they made it to Abilene, TX, and today we hope to see them in Waxhaw, NC. Below, some pictures of Tarawa, Christmas Island and Hawaii.