Yakona - The Joy in the Airplane’s First Landing
We both had the privilege of taking part in a first landing at Yakona airstrip. The community have been building this airstrip for over 30 years and finally they saw the plane come in and bring God’s Word to this remote community!
A Pilots’ Start to the Day
It’s 5.45am on a flying day, before he even has breakfast Ryan has logged on to check the weather forecast for the day ahead. Koda is also trying to make the most of Ryan being at home wanting snuggles and to play. But Ryan only has a few minutes to spare whilst he gets ready to fly through some of the most challenging terrain in the world…
Unexpected weekend in Australia
We enjoyed some luxuries in Australia, like shopping at a supermarket and brunch! It was a great opportunity to get away.
The MAF Mareeba Engineers did a great job on P2-MAF!
Welcoming friends home
When we visited Goroka last week we were fortunate to be there when 2 MAF families returned to PNG.
They were flown home by a Mt Hagen based plane, we had one of the Telefomin planes and Goroka has 2 planes of their own, so we had 4 MAF Caravans in Goroka at the same time (for about 30 mins), a very rare sight.
Tari Base Visit
On a recent visit to Tari base, Henry, our night guard who had a serious motorbike accident back in August, popped in to say hello!
Kiunga Base Visit
Recently I (Shiv) popped down to visit our 2 members of staff at Kinga Base to check on them. I was pleased that the team there have made a few improvements to their base recently. Way to go team!
Ryan flew the American Ambassador
After we got back from our holiday in East New Britain Province, Ryan’s first flight on his first day back was to fly the American Ambassador!
Munbil
Munbil is a village with its own airstrip and some Missionaries who work for “New Tribes Mission” on a Bible Translation and literacy project. Ryan recently has a flight in there where he took in a new Community Health Worker (CHW) and brought out a couple of people who had to go to hospital, they were unwell but not emergencies…
More Telefomin Rainbows!
Ok, so I (Shiv) do a lot of blog posts about rainbows, but they really are quite spectacular here in our home of Telefomin!
Sadly, our cameras will never fully capture for you, the beauty that our eyes can see. You will just have to come visit us and see for yourselves! Or click on this blog post for a peek…
Books for Bak Primary School
In our Easter Newsletter, we included a story about Mr Donifry, the Principle of Bak Primary School. Ryan also took a video of his short interview with Mr Donifrey, so we thought we’d upload it for anyone who may be interested to “meet” this bush-man who has a vision to improve his community at the grass-roots level through education of the children!
By supporting our work with MAF you are enabling books and teachers to reach some of the world’s most isolated communities so their children have a chance at a decent education! Thank you.
2021 Marks 70 Years of MAF in PNG!
The first flight of an MAF aircraft happened in May 1951, 70 years ago next month! We had planned many celebrations to mark such a milestone, but sadly COVID has gotten in the way. But we will still be doing some celebrations via social media and news outlets in PNG to remind this country, which we are privileged to serve, just how long we have been here for…
Happy Easter Newsletter!
Our Easter Newsletter went straight to inboxes just before Easter. If you would like to receive our Quarterly Personal Newsletters direct to your inbox, please sign up using the form at the very bottom of the page!
Washing the Balus
Even when he’s on the ground and not flying, Ryan is busy.
Although Mondays are his “office” day, he doesn’t usually spend more than a few hours sitting at his desk doing paperwork and emails. His aircraft (Balus) has to have its engine washed once a week to keep it in good working order. This takes about an hour or so, with the help of our trusty Traffic Officer, Steven, pictured.
Today he also climbed up the tree next to our water tanks to chop its top off again.
Last flying before Christmas…
On their last flying day before Christmas, Ryan and his fellow pilot Mathias, stopped to pose for us in front of their airplanes!
Rainbow over Telefomin
On one of my (Ryan’s) last flying days before Christmas, I was on a turn-around, having just dropped off a load of passengers in Telefomin and about to take another load out again, when I spotted this rainbow hanging over our home!
Wewak Aircraft Visiting
Although we have our own aircraft in Telefomin, our colleagues based in Wewak, on the north coast of PNG, fly passengers and cargo down to us on a weekly basis.
Here they are taking off with a full load of passengers, heading north, back home to the ocean breeze.
Ryan is just about to load his passengers to head south-west to Kiunga to drop off passengers and bring fuel back to Telefomin.
It’s hot work!
Whilst you, in the northern hemisphere, are all pulling on your gloves and woolly hats, here in the tropics the weather hasn’t changed much!
In Telefomin it often gets up to around 28 degrees C in the middle of the day, but we’re almost a mile high in the mountains. Our local friends call Telefomin “cold place”. Ryan daily flies to airstrips lower in altitude, the lower he gets, the hotter it gets, and sadly he rarely gets the pleasure of landing by the ocean and enjoying a nice sea breeze.
In the picture you can see him chugging back water, with a very sweaty back. This is the same for him all-year-round in PNG!
Advanced Airstrip Training
There are only 2 training pilots currently in PNG and, thanks to COVID, it is really hard to get any others in country. As such, we didn’t think Ryan would be able to get his Advanced Airstrip Training (AAT) done this year. However, Ryan’s boss, Brad (pictured), the Flight Operations Manager, decided that getting Ryan through this training and able to fly into a few more airstrips was high priority.
Brad kindly left his family in Goroka and came to Telefomin for 2 nights to train Ryan towards the end of Nov. So now Ryan is able to fly to more locations and help more remote & isolated people. Thanks Brad!
Unexpected Guests
Last month, we had Fiona, our Finance Manager, plan to pay us a visit in Telefomin for 2 nights. As we had 2 members of our Maintenance Team staying in the MAF transit house, I arranged for Fiona to stay in one of my absent neighbours’ houses. We like to provide a meal to our MAF visitors, and as Fiona is Gluten intolerant, I made Pumpkin Soup & Gluten Free bread. Then, mid-afternoon, Ryan called me over the radio (the mobile reception was out!) to tell me that the Wewak pilots (Brad & Andy, pictured) were stuck on the ground in Eliptamin waiting for the weather to clear up. Their flying programme had them coming to Telefomin next and as they had been on the ground for so long, it was likely they would run out of daylight and not be able to make it home to Wewak…
Click on the picture, left, to watch a video of our friend, Nurse Rhema, one of the local health care workers who MAF supports and we fly out of Telefomin.