PCM News: Logistics

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

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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.