January Update from the Flight Deck

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking…"

January 2014… some numbers and notes:

Flight hours:  13.0 (just out of maintenance)

Airports visited:  5

Maintenance:

We finished our annual inspection this month.  It went a little longer than normal, and we missed a couple flights as a result.  Since last year's annual inspection was so intensive, we thought this years' would be a bit more streamlined.  However, with an aging airframe and other things that popped up, we had over 40 discrepancies to sort out and, yet again, another cylinder change.  A big thanks for Dan S. at the SIL Cameroon hangar for taking on the lion's share of the jobs.  Rob, our chief pilot who is running ALL operations (passenger scheduling, maintenance, flights, etc.), had his hands full with juggling it all!

Tchibanga airport

Med-Evac Flight:

A call came for a medical evacuation from the town of Tchibanga- a 30 minute flight Southwest, toward the coast.  After getting the sign-off from Dr. Keir, Rob launched to pick up the patient.  Here's Rob's description of the pick-up: "Tchibanga sits down in a valley at about 200’. Very nice area with big long runway. I looked at the runway on Google earth and…

 ...the weather and clouds were no problem so getting in was easy.  Flight itself

MedEvac patient strapped in

was routine, the passengers were waiting when I showed up so I was only on the ground about 30 minutes."  

Other Flight Notes:

Other than the maintenance flying, returning to Bongolo, I had 16 passengers through the 25th, 545# of cargo.  The rest of the cargo came by road. (17+ bags if I remember right). 

On Tap:

Our flight permits (3) are expiring this coming week.  We've had our renewal requests in the civil aviation offices for the last week and are hopeful for the approvals soon.