To date, IAMA has collected all the fees for participation and has purchased exhibit the space. 26 Mission Aviation Agencies have registered and will be part of the exhibit tent with JAARS and MAF anchoring each end. Praise the Lord, we have the same location as last year. Jeff & Wonita Werley, New Tribes, will be managing the IAMA exhibit tent. The Fly4Life presence continues much like it did last year, but without the separate Fly4Life tent.

In order to pull off this massive event, IAMA, and all the participants, depend on the generous and extensive work of MASA (Mission Aviation Support Association) . MASA is lead by a governing board with Lee Smoll serving as Executive Director. Leadership teams have been assembled to care for those attending this event.

MASA provides 3 meals a day at the hospitality tent in Camp Scholler on the EAA grounds. They provide housing in area homes as well as loaner vehicles. They pick up and deliver from airports. For over 30 years MASA has made it possible for Mission Aviators to attend EAA. The cost would be prohibitive without their help.

More than just Oshkosh, MASA is also managing the IAMA store. If you have need of any tee-shirts, polo’s, caps, etc…you can contact leesmoll@tds.net to order them. These items will be available at EAA

Date: 6 August, 2001
Jack Sluiter

Ya’ know, it started out like any other day. Up at 5:00 am to get the airplane ready and off the water by 7:30. Everything was going as planned and nothing was going to set this day apart as anything strange or unusual. That was until I called in to our home base at noon. I was sitting in a little jungle village (five or six houses) eating my lunch while I waited for passengers. They were coming by canoe from someplace unknown and would maybe be another hour before they arrived.

So I called Lisa on the radio to update what was happening. When I contacted her, the flight coordinator advised me that there was a medical emergency in Atsakus, another small jungle village (as if there was anything other than small jungle villages around). It happened that there was a women who had been in labor for three days and still had not given birth. They needed to get her to a hospital today or she may not live through the night. Since Atsakus was a river village without a runway, and I was sitting in the only float plane flying in Peru, it dawned on me that I might have to change my schedule.

Upon arriving at Atsakus I found our sick passenger in a large canoe being attended by several people. As they pulled the canoe along side the plane, I removed two of the seats so she could lie down. She was still in labor as she was making her way from the canoe to the airplane. Mind you this was her third day of labor. I said a prayer, asking the Lord to have mercy on this woman and to save her life and the life of the baby. I have to say that in all my schooling, I was not prepared for this day.

After giving an abbreviated briefing (“Here’s your seatbelts, here’s the door, I’ll be up front”) we pushed off for our trip back to Pucallpa. I stayed as low as practical weighing the pros and cons between passenger comfort and keeping enough altitude between me and the expanse of endless jungle below me. Before I picked them up, my boss had given me directions on what to do if my passenger died during flight. He didn’t prepare me for what came next.

SAMAIR: We Deliver

We were passing Yurimaguas, (Not a small jungle village) when the husband got my attention and said, “She’s giving birth. Now!” My first reaction was, well, she’s been giving birth for the last three days, what’s new? He convinced me they were serious so I called the tower at Yurimaguas and advised them I had a medical emergency and would be landing at their river port. The next time I looked back I could tell we probably wouldn’t make it. I started talking to my boss via the radio and getting as much advise as possible – like he could really help. Sixty seconds later I looked back to see a little blue-faced baby passenger lying on the floor. The mother had a very refreshed appearance to her and the baby looked as healthy as any newborn does. I called the tower and canceled the landing and continued the flight to Pucallpa where she would be cared for at the hospital. “Just another day at work”, I thought as I shook my head and resumed my course.

When we landed at Cashibo there were plenty of people on shore to watch us come in and to greet the new baby. When I went back to help my passengers out of the back of the plane, they asked me if I could cut the umbilical cord. Well of course, what do you think I carry a Leatherman for? . . . snip!.

I went back to Atsakus several times since then and tried to keep up with little Jack Duane Hempts Remierez. I would love to get back there some time and see how he and his family are doing. Every now and then I get updates from other pilots who have recently stopped by. So far it sounds like he is doing great!

Thank you MASA and local Oshkosh area churches for your hospitality in providing all of our meals this week....meals for 400 EACH DAY! Wow!

A great day starts with a great breakfast at EAA Airventure 2009!

Thank you MASA (Mission Aviation Support Association) for you hospitality.  Without you the mission community presence at the EAA Airventure 2009 in Oshkosh would be difficult to say the least.

Our days always start at the MASA tent (just behind hangar D in the camping area) with smiling faces and marvelous breakfast food.  Local churches in the area combine their efforts and cater our meals.  Because of thehuge niumber of aviatiors this year, we have three churches catering each meal in combination.  That is teamwork!

Today I met up with my first flight instrictor from Moody Aviaiton, Nard Pugyao.  Nard was a liot for many years with JAARS.

Next stop and next post will be from the Fly4Life tent.  Stay tuned!

Sandy

Many are already there, assembling, testing, and lifting the parts into place.  Many more are traveling today from points all around the US and the world to be a part of this historic event for missionary aviation.

Stay tuned throughout the week as we update this site [and specifically this blog] with up to date photos, video, and podcasts from the event!

Blessings

“During the Ebola outbreak in October of ’07, we went into the hot zone two and three times a day,” said MAF Pilot, David Francis. "We just see this as firmly within our mission" (Click to enlarge)

“During the Ebola outbreak in October of ’07, we went into the hot zone two and three times a day,” said David Francis, a Cessna TU206 pilot from Memphis, Tenn., who operates out of Ndolo Airport (FZAB) in Kinshasa, the Congo. “Nobody else would fly in there. Even the UN pilots refused. They didn’t want to go into a contagious area. We just see this as firmly within our mission.”

But what kind of mission would require that kind of commitment and potential sacrifice?

“Helping relieve suffering,” Francis said. “That’s why God put us here.

The mission, simply put, is mission aviation: pilots, deeply committed to their religious beliefs, flying in support of missionary and humanitarian activities around the globe. In addition to the challenges associated with bush flying, over the years mission aviation pilots have contended with armed insurgencies, government harassment, civil unrest, natural disasters and even death at the hands of indigenous peoples they seek to help.

The global mission

Dozens of missionary aviation organizations operate around the globe. The International Association of Missionary Aviation in Worthington, Minn. (this website) counts some 50 in its membership, according to president Chuck Daly. Francis, the pilot in the Congo, flies for Mission Aviation Fellowship ( www.maf.org), based in Nampa, Idaho, one of the oldest and largest such organizations. Operating in Africa, Asia and the Americas, its 130 aircraft conducted more than 88,000 flights last year, serving some 3,000 locations, the great majority of them remote and otherwise inaccessible.

“The kind of environment we fly in is hostile, not just in the air and in the airstrips, but in the countries in which our people are based,” said John Boyd, MAF president and himself a former mission aviation pilot. “Most of the time you’re living in situations with no running water, no constant electricity, no telephone, no shops. You have none of the support you would have grown up with here in the U.S.”

MAF’s roots go back to World War II, an outgrowth of prayer meetings held by a small group of pilots operating in the Pacific theater. The gatherings gave rise to the Christian Airmen’s Missionary Fellowship, MAF’s predecessor organization, launched in 1945. The following year the organization began missionary work in Mexico with its first airplane, a 1933 Waco

Initially operations were focused solely on the ministry, such as bringing translated Bibles to remote villages and transporting missionaries to their posts. But In the decades since, the scope and scale of MAF’s operations have grown dramatically.

“Basically, you become the logistics system of the country,” said Harry Berghuis, a Papua, Indonesia-based MAF pilot from Holland. “Everything that needs to be transported has to be done by the airplane. We form a big part of that.”
“Typically in a week we’re flying a mixture of freight, medicines and parts to the interior stations, and we do the mail delivery as well to a lot of the small villages,” said Francis of his work in Africa. “And we’re flying sick people in and out of the villages to better equipped hospitals, and flying missionaries and pastors.”

MAF also transports personnel from NGOs (non-governmental organizations) such as the International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. But make no mistake: spiritually rewarding though it may be, there is nothing glamorous about this work.

“It’s not about just jumping in your airplane and having a jolly for a couple of hours,” Boyd said. “You’re going out of eight to ten tiny airstrips a day, loading and unloading in 110 degree heat, flying around weather and over mountain ranges.”

Candidate requirements

Because of the demands of this calling, both in the air and on the ground, prospective MAF pilots are carefully screened and evaluated. (Click to enlarge)

Because of the demands of this calling, both in the air and on the ground, prospective MAF pilots are carefully screened and evaluated. All MAF pilot/mechanics must complete a minimum of 400 hours of flight time, and hold instrument and commercial ratings. And because they are expected to maintain and repair as well as fly the airplanes, they must also have an A&P (airframe and powerplant) license. Twelve credit hours of biblical training is another requirement. MAF also evaluates prospective pilots and their spouses – who will be stationed with them, along with their children, during the two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half year terms they are expected to serve – to ensure they are psychologically fit to handle life in the field.

“It’s not for everybody,” said Brent Palmer, another Papua, Indonesia-based MAF pilot. “I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. There are people who come out with good faith and they can’t hack it. The stress, the remoteness, the difficulty in living, whatever it is, it was just not what they expected.’’

Another requirement of missionary life further filters out all but the most committed: Missionary pilots are expected to raise the money to underwrite their service, typically from their church, community, and other sponsors. MAF pilot salaries are pegged to the cost of living in the country of operation. A pilot with a family of four earns an average $2,627 per month.

All applicants accepted for consideration undergo a technical evaluation at MAF headquarters. The evaluation includes ten hours, divided between flight time in a turbocharged Cessna TU206 to check their piloting abilities, and in a simulator to test instrument flight skills. That’s followed by a practical examination of their A&P talents. Thirteen to fifteen pilots undergo technical evaluation annually, and about 10 go on to the next phase, technical standardization training.

“Attitude is everything,” said Dave Ringenberg, an MAF instructor pilot. “It’s easy to teach a skill. It’s harder to teach an attitude.”

Training

Technical standardization consists of 40 hours of ground school followed by 30 hours of flight in a C-TU206 equipped with Garmin GNS 430 IFR-certified panel-mounted GPS, a Codan HF radio (used for transmitting position reports to a base station) and STOL kits. During this training pilots learn the standard procedures MAF uses everywhere it operates, focusing on three key areas: checklists, dealing with terrain, and making stabilized, power-on approaches.
“A written checklist is used for all phases of flight and preflight for MAF operations,” said Ringenberg.

The training location takes advantage of Idaho’s wealth of challenging back-country strips, giving trainees a taste of the kind of terrain and rugged landing sites they’ll encounter in the field. These operations also hammer home why power-on approaches are a necessity for bush ops: shifting winds and up- and downdrafts require power management to negotiate while maintaining a precise approach angle and airspeed. The end result is a predictable touchdown point.
Given the training, commitment and skill required for this kind of aviating, it’s noteworthy that many who find their way into MAF were not pilots when they decided to enter this line of work.

“I had a desire to be in full time ministry, the Lord just hadn’t shown me what it was going to look like yet,” said Texas-born Palmer, who before coming to MAF was a software engineer for Morristown, NJ-based Honeywell International, working on TCAS II, the airline collision avoidance device. “Right after I got married I heard about mission aviation, how they could use airplanes in ministry. I wasn’t even a pilot.”

“We asked the Lord what he wanted us to do,” said Berghuis of he and his wife, Willie. “And over and over it came to our attention there was a shortage of pilots in mission work. We thought, ‘Hey, maybe this is it,’ and decided if the Lord wanted us to do that, he’d show us how. We don’t have to worry about the details.” According to Berghuis, support just seemed to fall into place. “He provided in a miraculous way,” Berghuis said.

Even Ringenberg, the instructor pilot, heard the call of his faith before that of the sky. “I had a desire to serve God, but I didn’t know how. One day a friend encouraged me to be a missionary,” Ringenberg said. “That same friend encouraged me to look into aviation. I never thought of that before.”

Education of a missionary pilot

MAF Pilot, Brent Palmer, on the field in Papua getting the traditional dousing after completing a Caravan checkout. (Click to enlarge)

A number of Bible colleges offer aviation programs, enabling students to graduate with all the ratings, licenses, and religious training a mission aviation career requires. But it seems each pilot finds his own path to the left seat, and each represents a tale of persistence and faith rewarded. Palmer, after four years at Honeywell and a lot of soul searching with his wife, Melanie, and church members, enrolled in LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas, a Christian school with a mission aviation program. In three years he had his requisite licenses and a bachelor of science degree and a minor in Bible studies.

“That got me about 250 hours of flight time,” Palmer said. “MAF required 400, so I had to get another 150 hours.”

Palmer went back to work as a programmer and convinced his company to give him the cash equivalent of an airplane ticket when he had to travel on business. He used the money toward the rental of a Piper Warrior and flew himself on the trips, building up hours while he honed the pilotage navigational skills of a missionary aviator.

“I flew from east Texas to Toronto, Ontario, and I never turned on a nav radio,” Palmer said. “I flew the whole trip 1,000 feet AGL (above ground level). I had drawn exactly on the sectionals where I was going to go – you have to recognize every landmark you fly over.”

Palmer was accepted for his technical evaluation by MAF with 401.2 hours total time. He passed the flying evaluation with glowing reviews but failed the maintenance check.

“That was pretty devastating at first,” Palmer recalled. “They said to go work for a year as an aircraft mechanic and come back. But I was over 30 at that point. I had been working on this goal for many years.”

After considering his situation, the evaluation team told Palmer to get a C-206 service and parts manuals, study hard, and get some A&P work. Six months later Palmer came back and passed the maintenance exam, and then the month-long technical standardization course.

“From there they put you on a pretty well thought out regime preparing you to get overseas,” Palmer said.

Field conditions

But the novice’s training is far from over. After arriving on station, pilots often spend months before they fly. Rigorous language instruction and cultural orientation courses come first. Flying begins only after the pilot and his family are settled and integrated into the community. It commences with more training, applying the standard operating procedures learned in Idaho to the specific locations in which they fly. Typically MAF operates out of one or more main bases in a given country, from where pilots access to a network of remote locations. MAF operates both C-TU206s and the turbine powered C-208 Cessna Caravan.

The airstrips are typically hacked out of jungle, sometimes on mountainsides. Cleared areas can be little more than 1,000 feet in length, and sloped 20 degrees or more. (Click to enlarge)

The en route terrain often has no distinct features: no roads, power lines, or human settlements to help with pilotage. Everyone involved in mission aviation acknowledges that GPS with moving map displays has revolutionized the task of navigating in these remote landscapes.

“The GPS has allowed us to operate with more precision and safety, and with a lot less stress,” said Francis. “I don’t have to get down so low and look at all the individual river bends, the little-bitty landmarks they had to use in past, just to keep from being disoriented. We can get above the cloud layers.”

Francis, by the way, came to mission aviation after 17 years of designing advanced military aircraft for Lockheed Martin, the Bethesda, Md.-based defense contractor. “Be prepared to follow God’s leading – no matter what stage in life you may be in,” he said of his late start as a missionary pilot. “Don’t be surprised if that path may make some big turns along the way.”

Guidance from above notwithstanding, MAF pilots must be prepared to fly all their routes without GPS. Equipment failures have occurred in the field, and the units have to be considered as back-up gear. Pilots typically use ONC charts for navigation, and in the parts of the world where MAF operates, large swaths of the charts may be blank, accompanied by a simple printed legend noting that relief data is unavailable; the pilots are operating in uncharted territory.

The airstrips are typically hacked out of jungle, sometimes on mountainsides. Cleared areas can be little more than 1,000 feet in length, and sloped 20 degrees or more. Rain can render them unusable with no visual indication. Swirling gusts created by orographic lifting can routinely render strips unusable after midmorning. Some are tucked into valleys so steep and narrow that a mile out on final the pilot is committed to landing; there’s not enough lateral room for a 180 degree turn, and the terrain ahead rises too steeply to outclimb.

“You take a pilot who hasn’t been exposed (to such conditions) into those strips, he’ll be blown away,” said Berghuis. “We can do it because of our training. And even more important is the proper decision-making. You have to be able to decide, ‘Is it safe to land?’”

Keeping the faith

Truly the dedication and sacrifice mission pilots routinely make is a testament to their tremendous conviction. Yet some might contend all pilots are creatures of faith. How can one not believe in the miraculous if he is willing to bet his life time and again that a hunk of metal weighing more than a ton can move through the sky, seemingly impervious to gravity’s pull? And most aviators regard the cockpit as a sanctuary, and flight as a spiritual experience. How else to explain the aviator’s axiom, “God is my co-pilot”?

Boyd chuckles when asked for comment about that phrase, and whether it carries increased weight for mission aviation pilots.

“We tend to believe that very openly at MAF,” Boyd said. “I have been a pilot and have been in situations where I can honestly testify I know God was with me. Certain things happened and otherwise I would not have survived. And there are many instances daily where we can truthfully testify that is a distinct feeling, call it what you will. (But) you try not be flippant about it. (MAF) pilots have lost their lives.”

And not just in accidents. In 1956, missionary pilot Nate Saint and four colleagues were killed in Ecuador by the Auca Indians they had come to help. News of the tragedy spread worldwide, drawing attention to missionary aviation and bringing more volunteers and supporters. (Seven of the nine Indians who attacked the missionaries and many of the tribe members subsequently converted to Christianity.) No MAF pilot has been lost in more than a decade, but overall, 18 have died in accidents.

“And the question is,” Boyd continued, “‘Where was God then?’ As Christians we have to say that is part of God’s plan.”

However one regards the plans and designs of the divine, MAF and its brethren organizations are witnessing an increase in mission aviation. And that is a blessing for the multitudes who depend on the aerial lifeline they provide.
“We think that missionary aviation is going to be around for a long time,” said Ringenberg. “There will always be people in need in remote locations around the world, and people who want to serve God by serving people.”

_____________________________________

By James Wynbrandt
Reprinted with permission of Pilot Magazine.

Here is an example of the exceptional work by Jim Rendell. Click to enlarge.

For as long as he can remember, Jim has always loved airplanes! He grew up in northwest Nigeria where his parents were missionaries with SIM (Serving in Mission) for 35 years. Before he was even in grade school he was building model airplanes with his two older brothers. Their uncle who was back in the States owned a hobby shop and kept them supplied with model airplane kits to build and fly.

Growing up in a remote area meant that Jim and his siblings were 500 miles from the mission boarding school. Flying home in the small mission plane was always an exciting event! That early interest in aviation turned into a lifetime passion and he went on to train as a missionary pilot and mechanic at Moody Aviation in Elizabethton, TN. In 1973 he returned to Africa to fly for the SIM mission in Niger, the country just north of Nigeria.

Back in the mission boarding school Jim’s teachers noticed his talent for drawing and encouraged him to develop it. Later in high school Jim asked the pastor of his church what he thought about him going to art school or to flight school for mission aviation. His answer was, “Fly now while you are young and you can draw later when you’re old!” Jim took his advice and once he had the training went back to Africa. Over the years he’s enjoyed drawing as a hobby and when he learned about the Fly4Life theme for the Air Venture show at Oshkosh this year it afforded an opportunity to do something he had wanted to do for a long time. That was to draw a series of airplanes representing those used by mission aviation around the world. This IAMA 2010 Fly4Life calendar is the result.

Jim has a commercial pilot’s license with instrument and multi-engine ratings and an A&P mechanics license. He has been with SIM for 36 years and has 33 years and 10,000 hours of flying experience in West Africa. He is happily married to Sandy. They have three grown children, Jason, Crystal, and Scott with daughter-in-law Stephanie.

Click on the link below to visit the SIM On-line Bookstore and order yours today (Note: scroll to the bottom of the store page):

_________________________________

Jim is an AOPA and EAA member and can be

contacted at jim.rendel@sim.org.

Rob (also and more commonly known as “Smokey”) and Teena both work for Southwest Airlines.

Rob, a former Air Force F-16 pilot,  is now Captain up front on the flight deck of a Southwest Airlines 737.  Smokey’s flying career spans from his teens logging hundreds of hours towing banners over Florida beaches to one of the most advanced cockpits in aviation, an F-16.  He is also an A&P.

Teena does her thing as a senior level flight attendant in the passenger area of a Southwest Boeing 737.  Before this career she taught school many years in a Christian school.

Both love the Lord and wanted to serve Him in a tangible way.

Rob & Teena have traveled extensively on behalf of IAMA this year in their Harmon Rocket (Click to enlarge)

They’re connection to IAMA began at Oshkosh a while back when they visited the IAMA, JAARS, and MAF booths there.  They were hooked!

Then last year it was decided [by EAA] to make Public Benefit flying a major focus for the 2009 EAA AirVenture.

It is being called Fly4Life

Public Benefit flying was a broad term coined that would convey the idea and cover the worldwide plethora of non-profit aviation activities that have as their goal of purely serving your fellow man.

IAMA was tapped as the logical organization to represent the mission aviation side of public benefit flying.

At that point, Rob & Teena came forward and volunteered to head up the massive effort of fleshing out and organizing the thousands of puzzle pieces that will make the face of mission aviation come alive to the nearly one million visitors to this years 2009 edition of EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, WI.

Rob & Teena were recognized by IAMA President, Chuck Daly, at this years IAMA Conference at Liberty University for their work on behalf of IAMA and mission aviation this year.

Rob, as an A&P, is also an avid Experimental builder having owned an RV-4 and today, Teena and Smokey hop around the country in his Harmon Rocket.  Rob also has a consulting business for prospective RV owners called R2 Aviation.

Would you like to get involved in missions and aviation as a volunteer but need a place to hang your hat?

IAMA and other mission aviation organizations need YOU!  Your lifetime experience and skill-set may be just what is needed right now  somewhere.

Contact IAMA if you are interested and we’ll point you in the right direction!

You are cleared for take-off!

In 2007, some friends of mission aviation approached the EAA with the idea of featuring mission aviation at AirVenture.  The EAA was open to the idea and invited IAMA (the International Association of Missionary Aviation) to submit a preliminary proposal.  At the 2008 IAMA conference in Spokane, the concept was discussed by the attendees at large and a plan was rapidly drafted for the EAA’s consideration.  It was an energetic time, as never before had mission aviation been given the prospect of such large-scale visibility.

Just before AirVenture 2008, the EAA approved the mission aviation feature.  When IAMA members converged at Oshkosh in July 2008, we realized this would be a huge undertaking, requiring an extraordinary amount of time, energy, and resources.  Being a virtual organization, with no executive director and a part-time board, IAMA faced a serious challenge.  But as God so marvelously does, He provided two very-capable people to serve as project managers, Rob and Teena Ray.

Rob quickly called daily meetings and began the process of creating the mechanisms needed to get things moving in high gear.  Also with us at Oshkosh in 2008 was Bob Warner, a former EAA staff member appointed by the EAA to head up the overall feature.  The EAA, being an organization made up of people interested in general aviation, wanted to expand the original concept from just mission aviation to humanitarian aviation, and thereby include the public benefit aviators.  Given this mix, IAMA decided its slogan would be “Fly4Life” and a logo was designed incorporating those words.  The EAA liked the concept and asked if they could use it for the entire feature.

With the Fly4Life theme established, IAMA began developing a plan for the Fly4Life Tent.  This tent will be provided compliments of the EAA and will be furnished by IAMA with panels explaining mission aviation.  The “Life Tent” will use photos and video to tell what mission aviation is, what it does, and why it’s done.  The material will dovetail with the EAA’s humanitarian emphasis.  The PBA organization will also have a tent adjacent to the Life Tent, at the edge of AeroShell Square on the AirVenture grounds.

The stage is being set….

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