News and updates from Paul and Cathy Middleton, serving in southern Africa.

22 October 2020

Eye Cataract Surgery Flights - Again

After a long gap due to the current world health issues, Mercy Air has once again been able to resume its partnership with MAF/Flying for Life, and take a team of surgeons up to Limpopo to carry out eye cataract surgeries for under-privileged people.

As always this is a big day out, being airborne at first light to see the sun rise above the clouds when in cruise.
I'm always impressed by the range the Kodiak has - and will therefore likely always post a pic of the green range rings showing how far I could fly with the fuel I have on board. For scale, the length of the UK is just over half the length of Madagascar on the right.
I arrived at Grand Central Airport in Jhb at 06:30...
.. and met and loaded the surgery team.
Within 30 minutes we were on our way again for the 1h30/430km flight to Thohoyandou. Google Maps shows this as a 5h45 drive and that's with no traffic or stops! We were then met by the Health Department's minibus for the 1 hour drive the the hospital.
Then the real work could begin. The patients, many of whom had traveled to the hospital over the preceding two days, were screened...
.. before going upstairs to the ward to wait their turn.
 

While the doctors set up, I helped arrange and order the special lenses that we had bought up with us.

Then they were led into the operating theater...

.. where I was able to 'help' watch the procedure.

Prof was very good at explaining what he was doing and let me have a look through the microscope...

.. to reveal the milky cataract that he was about to fix.
There are all sorts of things that are apparently 'better than being poked in the eye with a sharp stick'. But for these people, this is probably one of the best things that can actually happen to them!

The team were able to complete all but one of the scheduled operations before the time was up and we had to return to the airstrip to be able to take off before dark.

The flight back was mostly uneventful - a small storm over Jhb when we arrived, and I actually got back home about 2200, just  in time to watch the second half of the final Premier League match of the day which ended Newcastle 1 v 4 Man United.
The bright lights of Johannesburg
 
This flight was scheduled to happen two weeks ago but in the preceding days it became obvious that the weather on that particular Saturday was going to identify as British, and there was no guarantee that we were going to be able to get into Thohoyandou at all - even Jhb would have required some special effort. We therefore decided to postpone.
 
I felt for the patients, some of whom had already started their journey, probably accompanied by family members, from their rural communities to the hospital. Their hope and anticipation of renewed sight dashed. Many have been on the waiting list for a few years - would it ever happen.
 
It feels good though when everything does come together - especially the weather! You fly home knowing that not only the patients have a new lease of life, but all those in their communities who surround them are likewise affected for the better.

Thank you.

Paul and Cathy

07 August 2020

Logistics

One old version of the Mercy Air brochure describes Mercy Air as 'maintaining a growing team of highly motivated pilots, mechanics and logisticians'.

Pilots and mechanics are quite easy to spot (either carrying a headset or a spanner) but what on earth is a logistician? If we ever wondered, we certainty found out recently when we were asked to help organize medical equipment to be sent up to northern Mozambique to furnish a new Covid hospital.

OK, so we certainly didn't have to do all the work. A mission doctor who had been working and living in Mozambique for many years had worked out what they needed, and had ordered what he couldn't get to be sent to us here in South Africa. Then the fun began.....!

The 600kg worth of equipment duly arrived to be stored it in our hangar, although unfortunately a few days too late to go up on the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) flight that bought the first repatriation coffin down three weeks ago (http://pcm-mercyair.blogspot.com/2020/07/bitter-sweet.html).
In this new era of lock down, closed borders and general other travel restrictions, chasing paperwork has become a necessary and essential activity. It seems no-one is quite sure what all the rules are and then of course, there is always that new rule you didn't know about and which requires another piece of paper to prove you're compliant, or even a complete rule change to what you thought was the way to do something.

These twists and turns didn't allude us this time either. Even though much of the paperwork came with the goods, there was still a lot of arranging to do to make sure that the right information got to the right people at the right time. Even the MAF pilots had their fair share of the fun. After being told their flight pans were accepted, they arrived at the airport to be told that they needed a special document from the Ministry of the Interior, one that is normally only required for passengers - not crew. Immigration would not budge, so they had to re-route through Maputo which cost precious time.

Anyway, let's cut a long story short and just say that eventually, after two days,  they made it to our local international airport. We had ticked all the boxes to allow us to drive our Mercy Air truck onto the apron and meet them, together with an avionics engineer who did some quick tests.

Not quite like an F1 pit-stop, but certainly enough feverish activity to keep us all warm on a cool winters day.
The copper oxygen tubing was 5.5m long and only just fitted.


I promise they didn't fly back with it sticking out of the window!

The all important approval from the customs lady

Securing the load inside.

As we drove away
 
So, we now have a clearer understanding of what a logistician might do as a job. Whether we think that we also fit the description - that's another question.

Thank you

Paul and Cathy

04 August 2020

Repatriation

Mercy Air has been called on to do a wide variety of tasks in the past - just scroll back through the last 15 years of blog posts to get an idea.

Some are fun, some are rewarding, some can be lifesaving. All of them help and serve people in some way or another, but these last two trips are perhaps the more sad flights.

We were asked to help repatriate a deceased person out of a neighbouring country. This time it was to fly a Turkish national who had been living in Lusaka, Zambia to Johannesburg, so he could then be flown home to Istanbul Turkey to his family for burial.

Again, the paperwork began weeks before the event and there were many emails, phone calls and forms to be filled out. Then there was waiting for replies, re-submitting, waiting again, waiting until the last minute (and even possibly a little beyond) for the final authorisation to be granted. The few lines mentioning it here goes nowhere near relaying the hassle and stress that is actually involved in bringing everything together at the right time! And then of course, you still have to go and fly it!
It turns out that Lusaka is quite a long way away - four hours flying in a mostly straight line in fact, and if you want to get there and back in a day, you have to leave quite early.

This wasn't too much of an issue and we were at our local international airport for fuel just as the sun also arrived.
So it also turns out that four hours in a mostly straight line isn't too exciting, but the highlight was flying over Lake Kariba.
Kariba is quite big, 30km wide and 280km long in fact, which is about the same distance as London to Leeds. Cathy and I once took a ferry from one end to the other and it took 24hrs. It's 5400km sq. and contains 180 cubic km of water. Not sure how you'd ever quite visualise that!

Here it is depicted on the Garmin 1000 map.
Once in Lusaka, I got to park with the big boys.
I'd like to report that everything went smoothly, aircraft was fueled, landing and nav fees paid, coffin was delivered and loaded and I was on my way again. The reality was somewhat different - very different. If you really want to know please Whats App or email and I'll dish the dirt on the occupational hazards of doing this kind of flight in the current world environment.

Let's just say that 'eventually' haz mat men came...
..as did a van with a coffin...
and it was loaded - with some difficulty - onto the aircraft.
All that was left now was 4h30 of mostly straight flying to deliver the cargo to Jo'berg International.

I enjoyed Kariba again for a second time that day and then, a few hours later a brief moment of excitement when I spotted a power line out of my window. I checked on the other side to see where it went and wondered if the Romans had had anything to do with its construction. I knew how it felt!

Eventually Johannesburg arrived and I was directed to my parking bay where some high viz guys helped unload onto a conveyor vehicle, for it to be whisked away to a Turkish Airlines A350 Cargo plane that had waited a couple of hours for me to arrive.
In sharp contrast to Lusaka, I was soon on my way again, but not before I had the chance to tuck a taxiing Emirates Boeing 777 under my wing.
After departure day...
..turned into evening...
..and then eventually night...
..before finally making it back to Nelspruit.
Despite the obstacles we faced, it was still worth all the hassle when you think that our efforts have helped bring closure for a family half way round the world, that we will likely never meet.

Thank you

Paul and Cathy

20 July 2020

Repatriation Flight

Cathy and I took part in a repatriation flight this last weekend.

Mercy Air had been asked to help repatriate a deceased South African citizen from Mozambique over a week ago, but the list of required paperwork, authorisations and special permits were longer and more confusing than a politician's excuse. Navigating the complexities of the international transportation of human remains is not something we will rush into again, especially during a global health pandemic when borders are effectively closed and no-body seems to know exactly what the rules are anyway!

We worked with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) who are based in Moz and arranged for them to bring the body down to our local international airport.
Our Kodiak, already parked, as MAF's Caravan arrives after a five hour flight

I was somewhat surprised by the size and weight of the casket and it took six sizeable baggage handlers to transfer it from one aircraft to the other.
Once it was on, it was my job to secure it.
The turnaround was relatively quick and we were soon under way for the last leg, a two hour flight to Durban.
This time of year the weather is generally stable and the flight down was fittingly calm and serene.
The funeral vehicle met us on the apron at the airport.
Thank you

Paul and Cathy

01 July 2020

Proper Flying!

As you can see from previous posts, we have been very busy with food drops in the local communities - 5000km, 55 tonnes of food and 16000 people helped to date!

As lockdown eases we are slowly being allowed the chance to do more and more flying - although under strictly controlled conditions. The last few weeks we have done a number of  'maintenance' flights as planes do suffer if they are left unused on the ground for any amount of time.

This was us last Friday test flying the new autopilot - and combining it with some training to maintain our currency.
This last week we were asked at short notice to fly someone to Johannesburg so, after a few days of permit paper chasing, I got to go proper flying today!

This time of year the weather is generally calm and stable, and today the weather listened to the forecast. Pretty nippy though at 10000'!
Routing overhead Jhb Int...

..To descend over downtown Jhb
While the passenger spent time in Jo'burg, I had time to look around a very interesting and usually busy Rand airport that is itself just waking up from lockdown.

I found the home of Mercy Air's old Beech 18 still sporting replica Amelia Earhart colours after it was used in the Hollywood film Amelia.
Our old Beech 18 with a DC3 peering over its wing

A Harvard

An interesting Russian offering

After landing back at Mercy Air - still attempting to comply!
The fact that we were allowed to even cross a provincial boundary today was a great leap forward, and shows us that we could possibly continue with some of the internal mission flights we were doing for MAF, where we would take eye cataract surgery teams/dentists/women's health teams etc up to Limpopo.

We will certainly be persuing the possibility.

In the mean time, we haven't stopped doing this..

Thank you.

Paul and Cathy.