Hospital Aid

Paul recently flew a team from the UK who support a particular children's project at a hospital in Durban. They come out to work with another organisation near Nelspruit called Hands @ Work, but take the opportunity to fly to Durban with us because it saves them a two day round trip drive which they otherwise wouldn't have time to do.

Fueling in Nelspruit we parked by an old classic DC4.

We have done this trip for them three years in a row now.
Paul didn't visit the hospital with them but as there was a spare seat, Cathy also came along and we spent some time with our son Matthew who lives in Durban with his wife Annie.

 So, no dramatic photos of the hospital visit - which apparently went very well, but a few of the flight instead.

 Just before boarding.

 

Looking forwards...

 ...and backwards. We always think it a compliment when our passengers sleep during the flight, and we don't mind if they look a little silly whilst doing so.

 The weather at 10000ft on the way, and the way back was cloudy - but only beneath us.

Paul and Cathy

Samaritan's Purse

Last week Paul and Andrew, one of Mercy Air's other pilots, did a flight for Samaritan's Purse to Inhambane, Mozambique.

Samaritan's Purse are a large Christian relief and aid organisation who arrange and promote community self help projects around the world. Our trip was to fly donors and staff to visit a number of their programs in the south east of Mozambique.

There were seven passengers so we took both planes.

After the recent refit and upgrade it seems the 210 had a small electrical issue which meant the battery almost discharged by the time we got to Inhambane. So, whilst the group were off doing their first visits, Andrew and I returned to the airport to sort it out.

Turns out a circuit breaker had been wrongly labeled and was left unset when it should have been charging the battery. We needed a Ground Power Unit (GPU) to get the plane going again. Just at that moment a man in a big plane arrived. He worked for the same company Andrew normally works for and was flying the same plane that Andrew flies.

He said we could borrow his company's GPU, which is really a big heavy box on wheels with lots of lead acid batteries in it. We got the plane going with this and charged the battery properly. It took 20 mins and used 3 gallons of fuel.

The next day we accompanied the group on their visits. We drove almost 400km and were often greeted by singing and dancing.

At each place the group left a food package as a thank you gift.

Some of the projects include cattle and some form of trailer so the recipients can work the fields and transport the produce to market. At one place they wanted to officially hand over the cow but she had other ideas and ran to the end of her tether almost taking a few of the villagers with her.

We felt it was safer to just  present the trailer instead.

And then complete the paperwork with the cow looking on.

Inhambane is a pleasant and typically tranquil African coastal town and we did get a bit of a rest while we were there.

Paul and Cathy

International helping hands

The previous blogs activities were interupted one day as Mercy Air got a call to help someone in Mozambique. It wasn't a medevac as such but they had to return to South Africa for urgent medical treatment and we had less than 24 hours to arrange the permits and clearances.

Fortunatly at this time of year the weather is pretty stable and so the actual flight was fairly straightforward although Paul did need to return from Johannesburg in the dark.

The flight was actually for a Dutch lady working at an orphanage in Marromeu. Accompanying here was a co-worker and one of her adopted children.

The flight was for the lady in the back.

The most direct route took us about 50 nm offshore.

Blue sea and a blue sky and a few clouds to show where the join was.

A long day with over twice the length of the UK flown but only 5 landings.

Paul and Cathy

Helping hand

Recently Paul helped another operator in Nelspruit with some local flying as one of their pilots was on three weeks leave.

It made a pleasant change to what we normally do as most of the flights were less that 30 min and involved transfering people from the nearby international airport to various game lodges. Some of the days involved being in the Kruger Park for 06:20 so that the passengers could make the early schduled flight to Cape Town.

20 mins before sunrise on the way to Sir Richard Branson's private game lodge for a pickup.

One lodge I landed at had a 1000m airstrip

 which was just as well as the other end was occupied by a Giraffe.

 

I flew about 20 hours in the three weeks but racked up almost 50 landings including one at a large military airfield which required over 6km of taxiing.

Paul and Cathy