Brigade Air IP and missionary pilot wanna-be. Is he enjoying this or what!

Brigade Air implements a Christian youth mentoring curriculum and mission aviation camping program with the goal of encouraging young people to seriously consider God’s calling on their lives to serve in the arena of missionary aviation. Brigade Air is unique in this nationwide effort.

Brigade Air was established on June 1, 2000, with Bruce Wolff as the Director.To date, Brigade Air has educated over 1300 campers in a total of 74 summer camp weeks over the last seven years.

Here is just one Brigade Air Testimonial (visit their website to read more):

Hello Mr. Wolff,

It’s Tyler! I am all signed up and really excited for the Brigade Air camp this year. I have invited a friend to come as well, however he has not signed up yet. This will probably be my last year as I plan to attend LeTourneau University next year after I graduate High School. But, before I get into any of that, I have some important news that you might want to hear.

This last week was my spring vacation from school, and after many days of rain and clouds, I was relieved to find some clear weather to fly in and enjoy. I have been talking and struggling with my parents for over a year now to let me solo, but this past week I finally got the go ahead! My parents and I prayed for my safety before I flew. We prayed that this experience would be a large step toward my future goal to serve Christ. And after that, my instructor and I flew a few laps around the pattern. He instructed me to park the plane so that he could hop out, and then he shook my hand and said go have fun! I was only allowed to do three touch and goes in the pattern, but I still had the time of my life! The Cessna 152 Flying Fortress that I was flying screamed at Mach 2 without my instructor in the seat! When I landed, they cut off my shirt tail (which I suppose is now a dying custom of many flight schools). I now have that shirt tail, and I will forever remember April fools day 2005, for it was the day I soloed.

Hope that we have everything worked out for the camp this summer. Are we going to have two planes again as well as multiple CFI’s? Sounds like this year’s camp will be the best. I am going to make it my best because, like I said before, it might be the last one I go to for a very long time. But don’t worry, because once I get my commercial pilot’s license, high performance endorsement, multi-engine IFR rating, and maybe my CFI, I will be flying across the jungles of South America delivering the greatness of God’s news to the eyes and ears of the un-reached.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Tyler!

Here is short introductory video from Brigade Air founder, Bruce Wolff:

Click here to view the embedded video.

MSI Founder Joe Hopkins inspects aircraft damage on the field (Click to enlarge)

Mission Safety International (MSI) was founded in 1983. Their purpose is to promote safety, security, and operational excellence within the mission aviation community and related agencies.

We accomplish this through conducting safety seminars, safety audits, publishing safety material (including accident, incident, and “Share Your Experience” reports), assisting with accident and incident investigations,  assisting with developing operations manuals, and coordinating safety resources around the world.

We work in any country where missionary aviation is active.

Our website is www.msisafety.org

Here are a few recent testimonials about our work from field missionary pilots:

Dear MSI,

You have made an impact on this place!

Friday I was going out to a grass airstrip near Biri.  It was my 5th solo flight in our new airplane, the Pilatus Porter, and half way there I got a report from another mission operator that the airstrip was wet, slippery, and soft due to heavy rain that had just ended.

It took me about 5 minutes to make the decision, but the bottom line was that I turned around after I used the AESOP risk management tool you gave us.

The P for “Personnel” reminded me that my experience level in this aircraft was not up to taking on a wet, soft, slippery airstrip.  Thanks, thanks, thanks.

On a sad note, one of our pilots is on his way to Jayapura to pick up some body bags.  Friday morning, a commercial operator here, hit a mountain with their Twin Otter aircraft.  I know the family of the copilot.  They were flying from one mountain airstrip to another and trying to cross a ridge at 10,000 feet when they hit.  I know of 4 Twin Otter crashes at the place they left and this is the 3rd Twin Otter crash at the place they were going.

  If these neighbors of ours would have been at the “To Live Another Day” safety seminar you gave, they would be around to live another day.

Your AESOP Papua pilot, Paul

Dear MSI,
The last time you were here to give a Safety Seminar, one of the speakers talked about how we should use all of our senses in our work.  He said that we shouldn’t just use one sense when doing a job, but to use as many as possible to confirm what we’re doing.  That advice saved us from having a bad accident.

I was getting ready to fuel an airplane the other day, and opened a new drum that was marked “av-gas” but something didn’t smell right.  I poured some fuel into a bucket, and instead of the blue colored liquid that I expected, it was orange!  It looked just like car gas.  I showed it to the pilot and he was shocked!  We checked the markings on the drum and it was clearly marked av-gas, but someone at the refinery had put auto gas in it instead.  The pilot thanked me for doing a good job and for saving what could have been a bad accident.

That day, my nose and my eyes worked together with my hands to prevent a serious mistake.

Godfrey

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Sandy Toomer: Self protrait while flying

What is a typical day? We have a saying that “Change is subject to plan.” No two days are alike here with constant changes in needs and weather, so the number one rule here as a pilot is be flexible.

My typical day has me come to the hangar with the rest of the gang at 8 AM for prayer and a rundown of the day’s schedule both in flight and maintenance.

By 8:15 we split up and go to our respective corners of the hangar to preflight our aircraft, check loads with the cargo handlers then calculate our fuel need and give the requests to the fuelers. Up to this point the day is going as planned.

But wait…it just began to rain. Rain is a constant companion here where we receive more than 22 feet of it annually. That’s right 22 feet! But then, this is the rainforest.

We have another saying, this one regarding the rain, “Starts before 7, over by 11. Starts after 8, it’ll keep on ’till late.” So I guess I can plan on a rainy day of flying if we even get off. As I watch the deluge splatter the tarmac, our flight coordinator, Tomás, trots up to me.

Molino: Less than 500 meters, uphill, & one-way.

“Capitán there’s a snake bite patient in Molino. As soon as the weather breaks we’ll send you out. It’s a small boy…he was bitten in the face…yesterday.”

By 10 AM the rain slows, the reports out in the jungle are improving and I decide it’s worth a try to get the boy out. I depart within fifteen minutes for the thirty minute flight out to Molino, a Quichua village.

After landing on the gooey surface I can see it is bad. His head has swollen to the size of a soccer ball and his breathing is labored as his mouth and likely throat are closing off. I customarily shake hands with as many people as I can then load the boy and his mom on board my 206 for the flight back to Shell. A soon as I land in Shell, the boy will be sent by ambulance to the HCJB Hospital Vozandes, five minutes from the MAF hangar.

As soon as I get back I find that my original schedule has been shot to pieces due the spotty rain throughout the jungle. We’ll do what we can today and make up for it tomorrow…if it doesn’t rain…as much.

This young boy had been bitten several days earlier. The MAF plane made a difference.

On this flight I leave Shell to the southwest where some missionaries are working to translate the Old Testament into the Shuar language. My mission is to pick up five Shuar Indians in three villages and and get them back to Makuma before the rain starts up again.

By 2 PM I finish up and I’m ready to leave Makuma for another five landings and take-offs to pick up more medical emergencies and run them over to a jungle hospital operated by the Ecuadorian government, in Taisha.

By 5 PM, I depart Taisha still with one last stop. Go by San Carlos and pick up a carpenter and his crew and tools. They have been building a new school building in the village. From San Carlos we’ll head back to Shell.

Ahh….but wait. The rain. A new wave has formed up north of Shell and is plying it’s way south.

As I get closer to Shell it indeed looks dark, very dark, dreary and gray. The approach controller is still calling the visibility better than 10 kilometers (VFR here) however with rain to the north of the airport, moving closer.

Chainsaws, generators, rubber boots & tired men were waiting on me to take them back home

Switching gears, I pull out the instrument approach plate and give it the once over like a hundred times before. The primary approach we use into Shell is a VOR/DME Arc beginning 8 kilometers out. However we also have another straight-in VOR/DME approach and of course what would life be without one of those wonderful NDB
approaches, the epitome of “non-precision”.

Once I’m on the radial, I strain through the rain and haze then finally see runway three-zero ahead and call “Runway in sight”. Within three minutes I taxi up to the large Shell hangar just as the bottom drops out.

It’s nearly 6 PM. After twelve landings, 3.5 hours of Tach-time, forty minutes of actual instrument conditions and an approach to minimums my day is done. Hey, and it’s just Monday!

Just for grins, here is a video pieced together that day of one of the landings:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my life as a missionary pilot with MAF.

To find out more why not contact Mission Aviation Fellowship today.  Here is a link to their recruiting website.