My room

Some people have been curious and have been asking for a peak inside my room at home. Nothing special here, but you can see the new air conditioner that was installed this past week! We had the initial test trial by have a bunch of people over and watching a movie in there with a projector.

You might also note there are some airplane pictures on the wall, those are some pics. that I took and then had printed out in 12x18. I went to a glass worker and he framed them for me.

A view outside my window shows a lot of green. Where I live there are 6 houses connected with an large outer wall but the yards are all shared. A nice place for the kids to play and run around.

Found!

About 4 weeks ago, I was on a two day check out flight with my Chief pilot. We stopped in at 15 different places in the float plane so that I could see them first hand. I had my camera along with me during the trip but after about ten shots, the batteries died. Then on the second day I lost my camera all together.


I had just about committed it's electronic circuits it to the vast jungle of Peru, and finally come to peace with loosing my digital camera of 3 years, when it made an amazing appearance! Off all places, it was found in amongst my Chief pilot's laundry! Well, it somehow grew some type of jungle virus legs and wondered into the survival gear of my fellow pilot. There is stayed for the last 4 months contemplating it's next fiendish move when unexpectedly his daughter found the offending camera and asked me if I knew whose it was.


So now I have a camera again and maybe can post some current pictures instead of digging through the archives. Maybe the camera knew it would be best not to have pictures of my motorcycle incident because it would just scare my mom...

Motorcycle accident!

Good, now that I have you attention with the vital of this post, I can let you know that my motorcycle is just fine and only came away with a few scraps. Still 100% ridable and no worse for the incident, the Yellow noise machine is still going.

I was returning from the SAM AIR hanger, as I do every day on a dirt and gravel road. I was going about 40 mph when all of a sudden I found myself sliding along the ground wondering what had just happend. I remember the distinct feeling of rocks underneath my chest slowed down and finally came to a stop. I sat up, moving my arms and legs to check for damage. No sharp shooting pain and nothing sticking out of my long pants or riding jersey. Somehow gravel hand managed to get inside of my gloves as I was sliding backwards along the road but none of my clothing was ripped. Pulled my bike out the of ditch, which had somehow managed to get turn around and was standing up right as if mocking me and wondering why I had taken a tumble. Upon returning home, I accessed the damages further and found a few scratches on my right leg along with a 4 inch scrap on my right fore arm. Thankfully I was still able to play soccer twice last week and one week after the accident, I am almost back all healed.

I was very thankful for my pants, long sleeve jersey, gloves, and helmet which kept me from any serious injuries. Also since the road was private, there was no traffic which could have compounded the situation. Thanks for your prayers for safety, they are being answered.

Cookies at Twelve-Five

On a recent flight in our wheel plane Cessna 206. I was trying to find some tailwind and since I was light and had a 3 hour flight, I went up to 12,500 feet. I did find some still air which was better than 20 knots on the nose down low. It was cold up there, around 50 degrees but I did have some snacks with me to pass the time. So I enjoyed a cookie that my family sent me all the way from Michigan. Cheers!

Mr. Popular

For all those people who were never popular in school, here is the answer. Create instant crowd presence and popularity with an airplane! Add one part airplane, 2 parts of sunshine, 3 parts of really loud engine noise and mix together until creamy. Next, carefully fold in 1 Indian village and bake at 100 degrees for 30 seconds. When finished, look around and see who is Mr. Popular. For 30 minutes you will be the most popular thing around!

Granola

One month ago, one of the missionaries down here introduced me to homemade granola. It was quite tasty and an instant breakfast hit. Unfortunately I ran out last week and had not where to go to get more! Then it occured to me that I could try to make more. I weighed this against all the other options that I had. 1) Could not buy granola because they don't sell it here. 2) Could not steal from the other missionary because they might kick me out of the mission. 3) Find some way to magically fabricate more granola.
Well, I decided that option 3 would be the best and so I set out to "whip up" some granola. Now anyone who tells you that cooking is easy or relaxing is either not telling to truth or has a morbid sense of humor. As I slaved away for 2 hours carefully measuring out ingredients, turning random oven knobs hoping for a fire to ignite in the proper place, burning all the good hair that I had left on my knuckles, and finally setting of 2 of the 3 smoke alarms in the house... I finally had my granola!
So rest assured that I will be just fine for the next few weeks. Breakfast will be a peacefully and filling affair, but I;m sure of one thing. Next time I'm just gona save myself all the hassle go with option #2!

Tarapoto

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to put two motorcycles and their riders into the back of our Cessna 206 and fly them off to a motorcycle race in the city of Tarapoto. The riders are both missionaries with SAM but they both enjoy motocross and use it as a tool for sharing the love of Jesus Christ with the other racers. The trip encompassed 3 days and my responsibilities included, pilot, baggage handler/loader, motorcycle mechanic, and race spotter.

It was a challenge to put the bikes in the airplane, but thanks to the large cargo doors on the 206, we were able to fit both bikes inside. It was a gross weight (3800 pounds) takeoff with a center of gravity (balance point of the airplane) right on the aft limit, but the cargo pod was a great help as all the heavy things went forward to keep the C.G. within allowable limits.

Todd took home second place in his category and Julio flew through the air landing the 1st place trophy in the 450cc class. I was just happy that nothing I fixed or worked on broke during the race...

Tarapoto is in foothills of the Andes mountains so the change in climate was a very welcome break. This was also grape country and for 3 days straight we sampled wonderful grape juice, a local specialty, with every meal.

From the Logbook

I just got back on Monday from a 4 day trip to the city of Tarapoto. I was there with two of our SAM missionaries who were racing in a motocross event. More on that along with pictures in the next post, but I did want to mention that we took both motorcycles along with the 3 of us to and from Tarapoto in our Cessna 206. It was another 3 hours of flight time for me and I thought I would give a quick update from my pilot logbook.

Total time logged flying in Peru: 82.8 hours
Total Cross country (more than 50 miles away) 45.0
Total float plane time: 65.9

For being in Pucallpa for around 5 months, I am starting to fly more and more. On a busy month, a fully checked out pilot can log up to 80 flight hours! I´m not there yet, but I am getting more and more experience.