New Ground Power Unit
When we landed in Mt Hagen, we were greeted by our old friends and neighbours, Paul (pictured, front), the Fuels Coordinator, and Nawi (pictured, back), the Ground Ops Trainer, who were ready and waiting to plug the new Ground Power Unit (GPU) into our aircraft and help with the loading. What awesome team work, helping out when things get busy at the MAF PNG HQ!
Pilots’ Meeting
Around the start of November each year we have our annual 3-day Pilots’ Meeting, when all the MAF PNG pilots get together to update some of their training knowledge and refresh themselves about safety before the busy Christmas flying begins...
Chicken for Dinner?
Ryan transported 60kg of frozen chickens to Telefomin last week to help celebrate the Graduation of the High School students.
Unfortunately, the boxes the chickens came in broke when Ryan picked them up, so he borrowed some eskis (cool boxes) so that he didn’t end up with chicken juice all over the aircraft!
The Newspaper Pilot
Ryan was featured on Wantok newspaper's Facebook page last week!
This is a great partnership we have with Wantok. Each week our pilots take 100 papers to rural places to keep these communities engaged in what's happening in PNG. Regularly, MAF articles get translated and printed in the paper too!
Ryan flew these newspapers to Mougulu, in the North Fly district of Western Province whilst he was dropping off building materials for some new dormitories for their High School.
Sunset in the Min Valley!
Our home, Telefomin, is nestled in the middle of the Min valley. We’ve had a lot of rain lately, but when it clears up we can have some beautiful sunsets, this is the first one since we’ve returned!
We are home in Telefomin!
More than 8 months after we left, and more than twice as long as we expected to be away for, finally we have returned to our little cabin in the mountains!
We were greeted as we landed on Thursday afternoon, with flower petals thrown over us and flower necklaces draped over us. It was such a welcome reception, we felt so blessed…
Ryan’s First Day Solo Ops!
Friday was Ryan’s first day flying solo ops out of Mt Hagen! No more training pilots checking up on him, at least for now…
On Wednesday he will have training in how to do Airstrip surveys, then, if all is as we expect, we should be able to return home to Telefomin on Thursday!
Flying for Life!
On Ryan’s first operational flying day on Monday he was able to do a Medical Evacuation (Medevac) Flight to get a teenage boy with an infected foot from Fuma to Rumginae Hospital. He was also in the right place at the right time to do another Medevac on Tuesday to help a woman having birthing difficulties to get from Suabi to Daru.
Almost 8 months after we left PNG to go on Home Assignment, Ryan is really grateful to get back in the cockpit and be useful for the people of PNG!
Ryan’s First Day of Operational Flying!
Today Ryan is off to the Western Province with training pilot, Mathias for 2 overnights. They will be taking someone from the Rural Airstrip Agency (RAA) to do minor repairs on lawn mowers, deliver fuel for those mowers and pay the locals who work for them at various bush airstrips which they support.
As a part of this routine operational flying, Mathias will be checking Ryan into some of the airstrips in the North Fly part of Western Province, and conducting Ryan’s Line Check. Once Ryan passes his Line Check he will then be clear to fly solo on the C208 Caravan again. After that he will only need one more day of training on the ground next week then we can go home to Telefomin!
Ryan Passed his Base Check!
I (Ryan) did quite a lot of flying on Monday. The picture was taken from v2track, our aircraft tracking software, which showed everywhere I flew in P2-MAK in the morning, only half the day! This is not a normal route for MAF PNG aircraft, it’s all over the place because I had to do lots of drills to prove I can fly safely and deal with any situation which might arise during normal operations. Flying in PNG is some of the most challenging flying in the world, so ensuring all our pilots are safe and know all their procedures is extremely important and prioritized by Operations.
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.