Jim Manley claims two professional passions - flying and writing. He flew instruction, air taxi and air-attack for the US Forest Service before joining MAF. Then he served 17 years in Ecuador as a pilot, radio tech and program manager. He’s also published numerous articles and his first book, Call For News, came off the presses in Dec 2010.
Epiphany came to 37-year-old British cabinet-maker Edward Mote one morning in 1834. Fresh words circled his mind, repeating a chorus. Finally they tumbled out and by evening he had penned most of the hymn, The Solid Rock. When we sang his hymn at MAF’s recent Day-of-Prayer, the end of the third verse caught my eye, […]
I inhabited the sky that day. Jesus let me play with clouds, soar with eagles and race the wind. He showed me sights that multitudes dreamt of, many yearned for, but few realized. Clearly He cared enough to grant my deepest desires.
So why was I angry?
A few minutes before, I was cruising west, high in […]
Professional flight training creates confident pessimists. We fly confident that our skill brings us safely to our destination. But we practice for calamity as well. Instructors demand we repeat, with neither hesitation nor doubt, the steps for situations like aborted takeoff, fire in-flight, electrical failure, or landing with a flat tire. We inscribe the six […]
That Christmas morning I was off duty. Mike listened to the radio for emergency calls. I sat across the road, adorned tree behind me, front window view before me. In the distance a towering storm moved slowly across the Amazon Jungle. Wind lashed treetops. Rain drenched leaf, ground and animal. Monolithic, powerful, and oblivious to […]
Airplane that flew the generator into Zappallo Grande
As the small pickup backed towards the plane, my confidence wavered. The truck’s rear springs compressed completely. The tires rubbed wheel wells at every bump in our grass ramp. In its bed a diesel powered generator hunched like a docile beast whose size and weight substituted […]