Editor’s note: While MAF aircraft land on hundreds of airstrips around the world, each airstrip has a unique story. This is the story of the Long Metun airstrip in east Kalimantan and was written in 1994 by former MAF pilot Dan Lenz. It chronicles the way that one determined village found just the right spot […]
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At cruise power, a Cessna 206 engine piston races the length of its cylinder 75 times a second. An hour’s flight slams it through 276 thousand cycles, each stroke pealing a few atoms off […]
Flying in remote places like the rain forests of Ecuador present pilots with plenty of challenges. One of the biggest challenges is the weather, and the swift way it changes. Navigating through poor weather is never easy.
One day I was flying with the president of the Ecuadorian Evangelical Missionary Association (AMEE). We had been […]
As the wife of an MAF pilot, I often get asked the question “What do you do all day?”
Here’s a typical day…
4:30 a.m. – The morning call to prayer sounds from several Mosques around our neighborhood, waking me up.
6:00 a.m. – Get up, make breakfast, and pack Chris’s lunch.
7:00 a.m. – Say “good-bye” […]
When I joined MAF in 1977, the training department was teaching pilots how to execute a “flap pop-off.” This technique allowed the airplane to “unstick” itself and get flying at a very slow speed when trying to take-off from an extremely muddy airstrip…a trick that became quite useful when I flew in Ecuador.
The Amazon […]
“The weather is still quite good here and I’d like to pick up the patient,” I relay my intensions to home base, nearly 60 miles away in much poorer weather. “Send fuel when the weather clears,” I add, not being thrilled at the thought of spending the night away from home, but willing if it […]