PCM News: Proper Flying!

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.

2 comments:

Unknown said...: First attempt on our part to enter a comment on your blog post. Hope it works! Love the photos and are happy for you that you are in proper flying territory again. Also love the reference to the old Beech. Continued blessing on your ministry and adventures!; 02 July, 2020
ajo said...: Hi, from Rothley UK. Just caught up with your latest news. So interesting to read about your work. Thank you for all you do x; 03 July, 2020

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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.