In The Hanger

Today was incredible! It was long, but worth every minute. I woke up at 7:00 and got dressed and to the table (half asleep). My dad and I dropped off the three little kids at their schools (their schools start at 7:55) and he took me to the old airport. Traffic was crazy, there were three lanes of minibus taxis turning into one lane of traffic, and they all wanted to be first. We were three minibuses across at one point in time.

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When we finally arrived at the airport we parked and walked around to the front of the hanger. I saw Tim Vannell, whom I had met in December when I was here, walking from one of the planes to the hanger. He was on duty, he and another pilot were making several flights in and out all day long. They have five planes, one was getting an engine overhaul, one was getting a 500 hour check up, and the others were running all day. I met Brad Westom, my dad had pointed him out to me at church on yesterday. He introduced me to Mike Shutts and Bob Dontje that I would be helping out. Mike is the head mechanic and the first order of business was to get a propeller onto a venture to take it for painting. I helped Bob move a pallet under the chain wench in the hanger to put an old engine on, they had just replaced an engine in one of the Cessna 206s, and we wheeled the old engine over to the wench and eventually got it off its post and onto the pallet. Our hands were covered in oil. I helped install several air hoses and some odd jobs around the hanger. I didn't have any lunch because I didn't know how long I would be there. But that was ok because in the afternoon Bob and I did a full inspection of one of the planes that called Mike Hotel, because is number is 7P-CMH. We had to wait around for quite a while because the power was off, and some of the tests for the plane's inspection needed electricity. Bob tried to get Brad to let us take Mike Hotel out to warm it up for it's inspection and just as we were getting ready Brad came and said that we needed to take a corpse to Nohana. I was picturing a body laying next to me strapped in while Brad and Bob flew. It turned out the corpse was a very small child in a coffin and he fit in the compartment under the plane, and I sat next to his father who was very much alive. We packed two bags of charcoal and a bag of wood in the tail of the plane. I learned earlier about the weight calculations and fuel calculations, so everyone had to be weighed. I got an extra headset so I could listen in and talk to the pilots while we flew. It was amazing. We said a prayer before leaving, and I watched excitedly as the went through the pre-fight check. Bob was called to Lesotho out of retirement, he worked for MAF in Indonesia for 14 years, and had retired 9 years ago, due to scheduling mix-ups MAF Lesotho was short handed. Bob had been in the country only two weeks and was still learning about each of the airstrips, so Brad had to come with us. It was an awesomely beautiful day, the sun was breaking through the clouds in bright patches and the rivers were sparkling in the sunlight. Lesotho has some incredible mountains and flying around them was breathtaking. We had a smooth landing in Nohana and dropped off the Basotho man and his son, they were picked up by the ambulance from the local health center. We then headed to Nkau, just a few minutes north east of Nohana, to drop off the charcoal and wood. Both landing strips were gravel and perched on top of some of the flat-topped sotho mountains. On our way back to Maseru we flew by Semongkong falls. I wish I had a camera, but I found an older picture.

I will have a camera next time I go up. Anywho we landed in Maseru 2 hours after we left, and started to complete the inspection we had started earlier. there was an oil leak out the right front cylinder and they continued to work on that awhile. It was 4:15 and I hadn't had lunch yet I was a little peckish and called my parents to come and get me. I got home and all the kids were back and running around my mom had fixed me late lunch while she was working on dinner. well... it's late now, just after ten! and I need to rest for tomorrow...