Last month MAF pilot Sean Cannon (Palangkaraya base – Kalimantan, Indonesia) was busy training pilot Isaac Rogers who had just transferred from Tarakan. This is the first of two posts about Sean and Isaac’s adventures in training.

After Isaac completed his first solo flight, we still needed to work at some of our more challenging places together. We revisited the village of Naan right on the equator and practiced takeoffs and landings. After Isaac proved that he was ready to handle the takeoff and landing challenges by himself, I had him drop me off at the dock and turned him loose to practice a few more without me while I took pictures and video. Here Isaac has just landed and is coming around the “S” turn in Naan. Float plane flying is awesome!

Negotiating the “S” turn with the right amount of engine power and rudder control takes some practice and finesse.

Check out the water trails coming off of the floats as Isaac goes airborne! Sweet! Driving the float-plane through the “S” turn takes a lot of concentration to be done correctly. If you do it wrong, you lose too much energy for a successful takeoff and you have to abort around the second turn and return to the bottom of the river for a second takeoff attempt.

After several reps by himself, Isaac and I were going to head to the village of Naan in boats to eat lunch with the guys we serve there.

Taking the boat ride to the village of Naan from the airplane dock is always a thrill. I always just sit there in awe and remind myself that I call this my “job.” The forest is huge and the river is full of all kinds of fun kinks, bends, and obstacles.

Stay tuned for more of the story and photos in Part 2 tomorrow.