February 25th

A negative form of encouragement it may be, but discussing the issues and problems you face as an organisation and finding out that you are not alone, is encouraging.

SIL, New Tribes, another small mission that uses one aircraft and ourselves were all represented at a Mission Aviation Conference this week at Ukarumpa. All the organisations have issues with finding suitably qualified and experienced staff, whether as pilots, engineers or managers. All those in management find it difficult or impossible to find time to do much more than keep the show on the road, fighting the fires for each day but rarely having the opportunity to deal with the strategic, long-term projects that can make a difference.

Apart from the presentations and formal discussions, a lot of the value from getting together like this comes from the chats over the meal tables and into the evenings. If nothing else, we all hugely appreciate the cooperation and teamwork between the organisations, and the high level of trust that exists. That's good and is a positive encouragement.

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Larry & Ruth Nicholson have been in PNG for just on 31 years. Larry is an exceptionally good and experienced engineer, particularly when it comes to Twin Otters. Ruth, like Nicki, is exceptionally good at lots of different things, not least hospitality (one of her lasagnes figures in my Top 3 Lasagnes listing!).

Larry's parents were founding members of Ukarumpa; he actually came to PNG with his parents in 1957.

For quite a while they were hostel parents in Ukarumpa, and more recently they've continued to live there in their own house, while Larry commuted as necessary to Hagen. He's been looking after the maintenance management of Caravan and Otter engineers throughout the MAF International world, as well as helping out with maintenance in Hagen.

Now they've been asked to relocate to Uganda, for Larry to carry on as the turbine engine specialist, but also to support the engineering team there. Ruth, I'm sure, will help with making sure visitors are looked after and catered for.

Over the years Larry and I have been on the Leadership Team together, bounced ideas around, crossed swords (nothing serious!), put the world to right or complained about what's wrong with it. I guess when somebody has been around as long as they have, then you tend to take their presence for granted, which makes the leaving even harder.

The farewell for them was on Thursday afternoon, and it was particularly telling how many of our national engineers and staff wanted to pay tribute to them. As well as being so hospitable, Larry has had a huge input into the personal and technical development of many, many engineers over the years.

I very much hope that our paths cross again, but in the meantime they will be a major loss for MAF PNG.

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Last week I was congratulating myself on how well everything was going in preparation for assembling my second crate.

Yesterday afternoon I was kicking myself for rushing and not measuring properly before drilling screw holes.

During the coming week I will be undoing quite a lot of screws, cutting off the edges where the holes have been incorrectly positioned and cutting some fresh battens, and then, with a bit more care, I hope to reassemble the second crate. Having the second one assembled before we leave is still the target, but this hasn't helped!

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An important task this coming week will be to fill in work permit application forms. Our work permits and visas expire four days after we return, so it is sensible to get the paperwork submitted before we leave in order that we can get the approvals before we return.

My workload is going to be hectic when I get back, and a delay because our visas have expired would not be appreciated by my colleagues.

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The garden had a massive prune over the last couple of days. The hedge was cut on Friday evening, then the cherry guavas and bougainvilleas pruned hard yesterday. Seven wheelbarrows of cuttings were taken over to the heap by the front gate, where in due course MAF workmen will collect it and take it to the tip.

The garden hasn't looked so under control for a while, ready for us to leave when it can go rampant again for three months.

I hope you have a positively encouraging week.

February 18th

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink," is a well-known proverb. The adjunct is, "but when it doesn't you wish you could give it a kick to make it do what's good for it." Maybe as a vet I shouldn't have said that, but you know what I mean.

I mentioned last week that I'd had an early flight to Ambuluwa to take teachers and their supplies back for the new school year. The flight was paid for by the local MP, somebody who has channelled money into remote communities in his electorate. What I didn't mention last week was that despite being given a definite check-in time for the weather critical airstrip, they turned up 45 minutes late, with a very lame excuse.

However, the bad weather saved their bacon, and their charter cost. Anxious to get back they enthusiastically agreed to a first light departure on Tuesday, with no difficulty in fitting in with the 05:30 at the latest check-in time, necessary so I had sufficient time to do a second round before the wind picked up.

The afternoon before the aircraft was loaded, refuelled and prepared for the flight, with all the paperwork as ready as possible.

Sebastian Kurz, my FO, and I were there by 05:30. The Traffic Officer assigned to help us was there at much the same time and the base was opened. No passengers. They were still not there at 05:45, 06:00, 06:15, at which times we'd had reports from our agent, John, at the community that the weather was good. In order to get a mobile connection for the weather report John has to walk a considerable distance up a mountain, and once he knows an aircraft is coming, hurry back again to get his load manifest completed in time.

Just before 06:30 the group of teachers finally showed up, by which time it was too late, I didn't have time for their flight and then the second one. They certainly weren't to have priority with such tardiness, even though it took substantial time to change the loads around and rearrange everything. In the end we were airborne at about 08:40, more than three hours after starting work, and more than 2.5 hours after I should have been in the air.

With a late show like that we keep the charter fee, but as they don't have any personal investment it won't be any more than an inconvenience to them and avoids the need for them to go to a remote community for a bit longer.

Their excuse: "It was raining overnight."

I would have liked to have replied, "I noticed. So what?"

We tried to help, but the horse wouldn't drink.

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Kompiam is about 18 minutes flight time north-west of Hagen and is where Dr Dave Mills and his family are based. It's he who oversees the medical care for the surrounding area of Enga Province. When I first flew to Kompiam Andrew and Pauline Longley were based there, Baptist missionaries who'd come to PNG in the 1970s.

Andrew died a while back but Pauline has been back by herself a couple of times since, and at the moment is working with another ex-missionary, Sally Burton, on a revision of the New Testament in the two main Enga dialects. Sally first came to PNG in the late 1960s and worked at several of the communities in the area well before PNG became independent.

On Thursday evening we had them round for an evening meal together and had a lovely time catching up with Pauline and getting to know Sally a bit. On one of our early family holidays in Cairns we overlapped with Andrew & Pauline and their two boys, James and John, so there was interest in seeing up to date photos of them and each other's grandchildren.

With Nicki and me pondering our future at the moment, it struck me that we are a bridge between some of the early MAF pilots and PNG missionaries, and newer generations of staff who have no link at all to those early days. I've had the privilege of meeting a very few of the real trailblazers who arrived in the 1950s, but most of the people I've known arrived in the 1960s.

In any organisation history is lost as people move on, it's inevitable and it's impossible to write down all the stories that sit behind the decisions that have been made, the personalities that drove them, and the conditions of the time that made those decisions necessary. I know very little, but have benefited hugely from the time that I've been able to spend with those people who worked here in the very early days when remote areas of PNG found that there was an outside world beyond the confines of their communities.

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Having handed over my FOM role I am finding, much to my relief, that my email inbox isn't anywhere so full. It is still difficult to reduce it as quickly as I'd like, but the total number is decreasing. I felt for Brad when he came in the office on Monday saying that having dealt with everything by Friday afternoon, he now had 63 new emails to deal with. I know the problem!

It is nice to have more capacity to work at some long-outstanding projects, some which have been waiting for months or years. One project to revise our IFR route structure has been given to pilot Richie Axon, but his work needed checking, so that was done this week. The IFR trainer is up and running as I mentioned last week, but I've also written some briefing notes on the upgrades for our pilots. These and various other tasks are gradually reducing and with it the satisfaction that they won't fall to Brad to deal with on top of his email mountain.

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This week I spoke in our church, Mount Hagen Baptist, using the same basic sermon outline as I used last week, but with the benefit of last week's practice and subsequent modifications, I thought it went better. Not long after we arrived in church I realised I'd left my notes at home, so a quick (or as quick as the potholes allow) dash back to collect them was necessary.

Folk in church had heard rumours about our plans for eventual departure, but had misinterpreted them and thought we were leaving for good in March. Relief was expressed this was not quite so imminent. Standing in front of everybody I assured them that rumours of our departure had been greatly exaggerated (to misquote Mark Twain).

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Tomorrow (Monday), I'm off to Ukarumpa for three days as part of the MAF contingent going to a Mission Aviation Conference. There's a lot of topics of common interest so I'm anticipating an interesting time. Nicki will hold the fort here.

It's a good opportunity for the aviation missions, ourselves, New Tribes, SIL and another much smaller one, to get together. I suppose you could say that we're heading to water and are going to enjoy the drink!

February 11th

Time is passing very quickly. We'd like to get to Goroka at some point within the next four weeks before we depart to say farewell to two families who are leaving while we're away. Holger Lasi and Jason Marsh and their families have been here for over 10 and 8 years respectively and have made a huge contribution to the PNG programme. Holger has been senior DHC6 pilot for several years, and Jason has been Safety Manager. We'll just have to see if a brief visit can be fitted into a busy schedule.

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I was asked to give the sermon tomorrow at the Lutheran church one of the MAF bus drivers leads a couple of weeks back. Then two days ago Kambowa, one of the leaders of Mount Hagen Baptist Church, the church we go to, asked if I'd speak there next Sunday.

With two entirely different congregations it's straightforward to make one talk fit both situations, so although I've spent several hours preparing today, I won't have to repeat the process next week.

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On Friday afternoon arrangements were made to meet with some CASA PNG officials from their Airworthiness and Flying Operations departments. In the end it was only the Flying Operations person we needed to spend time with, but the meeting was very productive and so much better face-to-face rather than trying to work via email or telephone.

For a long while we've known that the C208 Caravan can do more than it has been allowed to using the existing performance charts. These charts calculate how much weight can be carried out of each airstrip, taking length, elevation, slope etc. into consideration. For example, a short, high altitude, flat airstrip will require a reduction in payload that isn't necessary when the airstrip is longer, lower or has a slope.

The aeronautical engineers we have calculated that it was possible to amend the existing charts, but still meet the legal and safety requirements. When the aircraft type was first introduced we naturally did everything cautiously and conservatively. With a lot of operating experience we now know it can do more, so calculations can be less cautious and allow us to carry more. Excellent news.

There are still some airstrips where the payload will be very low, and we've been given permission to calculate payload on demonstrated performance. This will take a considerable amount of planning, but basically means we can use accurate GPS data along with airstrip performance markers (e.g. whether the aircraft can land or take-off within a given required distance) to treat these airstrips individually. It's probably the biggest step forward for the C208s since we first started using them.

As part of the same visit the Flying Operations Inspector also had a look at our upgraded synthetic flight trainer and gave it his approval. He'll send a new certificate through in due course, but it is now up and running.

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Having had quiet nights all week it looks like tonight is going to be noisy. At only 3:25 p.m. there is loud music from the drinking club, and quite likely that will mean it'll run all night. Ear plugs to the fore! Unfortunately they now have their own generator because there is currently a power cut and in the past this used to mean all went quiet, one of the few benefits of loss of power.

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Sally Lloyd, daughter of Tom & Salome Hoey, whom our crew all know, is staying with us over tonight and tomorrow night. Tom & Salome were in PNG a couple of months ago getting the hydro-electric power generator at Mougolu, their home village, running again. They'd only been back in Australia a short while before a landslip destroyed the whole unit.

Together with another friend and helper they returned to PNG to survey the damage and salvage what they could. We haven't spoken with them directly, but their friend, John Baskerville, came through Hagen on his way back to Australia this week and it sounds as though setting everything up again will be a huge task. Quite a lot has been salvaged as they've hosed the mud and debris away, but not everything. For people now in their 80s and in a very hot, humid environment they demonstrate a perseverance and tenacity rarely seen.

Sally is due in shortly, depending on whether Air Niugini actually run the flight. In theory she should be halfway here as I write this, but we've not had a text to say she's boarded yet. Wait and see! Sally and her husband Ian were hostel parents at Ukarumpa while our boys were there. Sally and Ian ran Rhema hostel, next door to the ECPNG one where our boys lived.

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I got up early on Thursday so that a flight could depart for Ambuluwa before 7:30, an airstrip where wind is a problem from mid-morning onwards. Unfortunately the agent at the strip reported heavy rain overnight, continuing light rain and cloud on the airstrip. By 8:00 the conditions hadn't improved so that round was postponed, and we continued the rest of the programme which was three rounds taking teachers and teaching supplies back to a community after the Christmas/New Year break.

Since there is the outstanding flight to Ambuluwa, plus another scheduled for Tuesday, I'm going to try for a first light departure at 6:00 a.m. in the hope that we can get two flights done before the wind picks up. Whether we'll get a weather report remains to be seen as mobile signal coverage is poor and the agent has to walk about 4km up a mountain to talk to us.

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Sally has just sent a text that the aircraft door has just closed, so she should be here in about an hour and we'll leave in about 30 minutes.

When we had the dry, windy weather for a couple of weeks the highway was graded and it remained in reasonable, though very dusty condition. The word 'reasonable' wouldn't mean the same for describing a road's condition in the UK as it does here. Anyway, it meant that it was possible to get to the airport down the highway without getting lost in a pothole or tearing the axles off the car. Heavy rain over a couple of days has washed a lot of the fill out of the potholes once again, so it's a question of deciding whether to go the longer and smoother back road, or the still slightly quicker but much rougher highway. 

Highway = two lane road, often unsealed where it hasn't been maintained, or where it has been washed out or ripped apart by a landslip. Potholes are common, often in extended patches that cars and trucks lurch through. Edges of some potholes are sharp due to the tar seal persisting for a while until it breaks off and the lip becomes smoother.

Reasonable = potholes have been filled with gravel (rather than mud) and the surface graded and rolled. The surface generally lasts until the first heavy rain after which the surface becomes wash-boarded before potholes develop again.

A 4-lane highway between town and airport is under construction, no doubt to impress visitors during APEC meetings scheduled for PNG in November (APEC = Asia Pacific Economic Community).

The moral (as the Queen of Hearts says in Alice in Wonderland) of the road conditions is that you must never let yourself get stuck in a rut.

... it's now Sunday afternoon. We very much enjoyed our visit to a rural community church this morning where I was speaking. The mix of village language (Melpa), Tok Pisin and a low level of English gave us a smile. The two collection pots were labelled "Offerings" and "Tights"!

February 4th

Dave Fyock, MAF International’s new CEO, visited PNG over last weekend and into the start of this week. Although he’s been to the Indonesian western half of the island multiple times, this was his first visit to the eastern half. Everybody enjoyed his visit and his warmth and approachability.

Our partner organisation, Christian Missionary Radio Fellowship, CRMF, based in Goroka has had a series of break-ins over the last few months. There are concerns that they are being deliberately targeted, possibly by somebody wanting their property, though this is not confirmed. Nonetheless, the ongoing intrusions are leaving them all very worn out and Dave thought it would be better to visit them, rather than go on a scheduled operational flight.

Getting to Goroka was the next challenge, and I flew him and Todd Aebischer (Country Director) there in our Cessna 172. The C172 belongs to the Aviation Training Centre, but as the ATC isn’t functioning at the moment, it is proving a very useful taxi for flights like this, and also for moving pilots between bases. However, its normally-aspirated engine is not the greatest performer at highlands altitudes.

During the last couple of weeks, and only calming down yesterday, PNG has been swept by unusually strong winds, often at ridge tops around 40kts/50mph. Put those close to mountains and you end up with interesting swirls, eddies and downdrafts. Shortly before I was due to fly Dave and Todd back to Hagen, the Twin Otter arrived back and the pilots reported that the winds and turbulence were so strong that they couldn’t continue. Then one of the base staff spoke to his sister who lives a short distance to the south of Goroka and she reported that the wind was so strong that it was threatening to tear roofs off houses, that there was strong rain and that they were covered by cloud. A report from Hagen said that the winds were wild there too.

Decision made! We stayed in Goroka overnight, even though it messed up Dave’s schedule. Dave and Todd are both pilots and there’s never an issue with a weather decision like that – we all know it’s better to be on the ground wishing you could be in the air, rather than the other way around.

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While CRMF have had problems with break-ins, this week MAF Goroka staff have had problems with sickness. A pleasant consequence of handing over my FOM duties to Brad is that I am now more available to fly, hence also why I was able to fly Dave and Todd to Goroka. On Tuesday I covered for one of the Goroka pilots by flying the Otter to Hagen, leaving the C172 in Goroka for one of them to use as a shuttle later in the week, and then flying a programme from Hagen. 

The last flight on Tuesday was one of the Otter’s sword swallowing exercises. Occasionally we are asked to carry portable sawmills, used for milling timber. The main frame and engine weighs getting on for 100kg, so is very heavy to lift in and out of the aircraft, but the main beam along which the saw runs is 6 metres long. Being long and thin we can fit it in, with the front end over the flight compartment floor, and the rear end up against the rear cabin wall. I took some video as it was unloaded at Simbai and the beam just keeps on coming!

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CASA PNG is insisting on carrying out more initial instrument flight tests and type rating checks, rather than delegating them to Authorised Flight Examiners like myself. There is a positive side to this in that it means that the regulator is more involved in maintaining industry standards; the negative side is that it can be difficult to book a Flying Operations Inspector as CASA is not highly staffed.

Anyway, an FOI came to Hagen over Wednesday and Thursday to check Brad Venter doing my periodic instrument rating proficiency check, so that Brad can have checking approval in the future. On Thursday the FOI did a type rating check for Glenys Watson, whom I’ve been training as an FO on the Twin Otter, and for another pilot who has been trained on the Caravan.

My periodic check proved interesting! I mentioned the winds earlier, and conducting an instrument landing system approach into Komo, an aerodrome 30 minutes flight time west of Mount Hagen was very hard work. Crosswinds of about 35 knots and associated turbulence made the flight uncomfortable and technically challenging! I did OK, keeping within the necessary tolerances, but I wouldn’t normally have inflicted a flight like that on anybody else.

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I was caught completely off-guard on Tuesday. Once back in Hagen I left Dave and Todd to get on with their day while I went flying. After my first round I had a message that I was needed at HQ where I knew there was an awards presentation, but as the years of our length of service doesn’t end in a 5 or 0 I knew we weren’t due for anything. 

However, when I arrived I was presented with a very nice acrylic block acknowledging the years I’ve been on the Leadership Team as Crew Training Manager and Flight Operations Manager. It is very much appreciated and something which I will always value.

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There we are, another week over, and after yesterday you can add some weeded flower beds and the sides of the next crate completed to the list of tasks accomplished. This morning we intended to go to church, but as we entered the building the volume from the worship band was cranked up so loud that we turned round and went home! 

Noise is an issue; last night we moved over to an empty house on the other side of the compound because the club was noisy and our next door neighbours were having a bit of a party. By the morning everywhere was quiet, but some nights this week the club has remained noisy right through to daybreak. The stamina of the drinkers and revellers is remarkable and much greater than Nicki’s and my stamina to endure the thumping bass.

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A warning to daughters-in-law who don’t like spiders: Beware my Facebook post this week! I intend to put up a photo of a beast that has taken up residence under our house that, without its legs extended, is 6 inches across. Its web is about 30 inches in diameter.