PCM News: Member of the four mile high club

08 July 2011

Member of the four mile high club

The day before NASA prepared for the final launch of Atlantis, Mercy Air also was on a mission, to explore strange new heights and to boldly go where no Mercy Air aircraft has gone before.

We had some issues with the turbo charging on the C-210 and needed to do a test flight to verify that things were working as they should. This basically involved flying it at a certain climb power setting and noting what happened.

Towards the end of the test I took a couple of pics. This one shows us doing 500ft/min rate of ascent at 170 knots ground speed - not too bad for a 210.

But a quick glimpse at the outside air temperature shows a chilly 0 deg F or getting on for -20 C.

The reason for that is found with a closer look at the altimeter, not 11500ft but 21500 ft. That's just over four miles high.

And a quick look out of the window...

It was well chilly up there wearing just shorts and T shirt and it only occurred to me to close the air vents on the way back down. More important was though was to use a little supplementary oxygen, which you can just spot in the next pic.

So, I didn't find any new life or new civilisations up there and I was only gone an hour, rather than the five years it took the Starship Enterprise.

The proof from the Spidertracks site

If you are an airline pilot or Himalayan mountaineer, please feel free to be quite unimpressed by all this. But for a little plane pilot like me it was a very novel experience.

Paul

1 comment:

Derek White said...: Very impressed and more than a little envious.
Derek; 11 July, 2011

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A short history of us

Not long after we were married we felt that God had some full time work for us overseas. This initially began with a move to Sheffield in 1992 to work for a Christian management training company. Three years later we felt the Lord's prompting that another change was imminent and this led to a move to Africa where we helped set up a youth program with the Lesotho-Durham link in the capital Maseru. An initial three year commitment turned into four after which the youth work was handed over to the nationals.

Then, after feeling God was moving us into mission flying Paul enrolled at a flying school and completed his South African commercial license with an instrument rating in December 1999.

We moved from Lesotho to White River in South Africa in June of 2003 where we now work with Mercy Air. Mercy Air was borne out of Youth with a Mission (YWAM) and is a sister, although smaller organisation to the more well known Mercy Ships. We are situated near Nelspruit and provide a service to missions and the development/aid community in the southern African region but mainly serve Mozambique.

We operate four aircraft at present - a Quest Kodiak, a Cessna 310 and two Airbus 350 helicopters which are often used for the relief flights.

When not flying Paul is responsible for flight operations and is Mercy Air's Safety Officer.

Cathy, who is a registered Nurse and Midwife works part time at Africa School of Missions which is a bible college preparing missionaries for overseas service. She teaches in their School of Health and is part of a team which visits a number of rural clinics during the week. She is also helps with the hospitality ministry that Mercy Air runs.

Matthew spent four years at Rhodes University in Grahamstown where he studied photo journalism. He has now flown the nest and is living with his wife in Durban. They have a young daughter named Isabella.