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

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.