PCM News: July 2020

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.

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.