Washing the Balus

Even when he’s on the ground and not flying, Ryan is busy.

As he is the only pilot currently in Telefomin his weeks follow the same routine. Monday is his “office” day and he flies Tuesday - Friday. Of course he’s on standby in case of a Medevac every day that he’s not flying, including Christmas day and every weekend. Only flying 4 days per week gives him time for paperwork and other responsibilities, but mainly it’s due to international law about how many hours a pilot can work and fly. His flying days are generally at least 10 hours long.

Although Mondays are his “office” day, he doesn’t usually spend more than a few hours sitting as 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. We don’t want to cut it down completely because we like trees, but we need to keep this tree short because it drops leaves onto our roof which clogs the gutters and stops water from getting into our tanks. That’s the only water we have!