The Jonah

For those of you who have seen the movie Master and Commander you will remember that "the Jonah" was the term used to describe someone who brought bad luck. In the case of the movie the bad luck was a spell of no wind, which is important for a large vessel that only has sails as its form of locomotion, which lasted until the "Jonah" jumped overboard with a cannon ball in his back pocket. While I neither endorse "luck" or swimming with cannon balls in your back pocket, I will take this opportunity to thank a volunteer named Terry who worked at SAMAIR for 3 weeks and at the same poke fun at the weather which coincided with his visit.

Terry came to us from Atlanta, Georgia. A pilot and mechanic, he spent his whole time working on the wiring and instrument panel of our rebuild aircraft. A master electron chaser, Terry was able to install all of the radios, instruments, and wiring in our panel without letting any of the smoke out of the wires!

Being rainy season, there was plenty of rain just about every day. I had the chance to take Terry on two flights where he got to see first hand what a day in the life of a missionary pilot was like. We saw a fair amount of rain, the inside of clouds, rain showers not 1 mile from our jungle landing sites, rain, soak-your-tennis-shoes-wet airstrips, more rain, and even a little blue sky.

Of course the moment that Terry left not only did the rain stop, but nothing else got done on the airplane because he was the only person who was not being interrupted all of the time by phone calls, meetings, or flights. Terry, thanks for coming and working along side us in Peru! You are welcome anytime, just don't bring the rain.

Cracked Bulkhead

One of the major problems we found during the rebuild project was a cracked landing gear bulkhead. Its hard to say how long this had been cracked, but given its location, hidden behind the landing gear, it would have been close to impossible spotting it during an inspection. Here is a close up picture.

This is the new bulkhead after trial fitting it and back drilling the holes for the bolts and rivets that hold it in place.

Mechanic Dave uses a "specialty tool" to install the bulkhead in place.

Any guess at how much this part cost? $1000!

Dave is all smiles despite the fact that this was a two week setback.

Monkey Meat

Over the weekend, I had the chance to bring some elderly missionaries back to the village where they had lived and worked for 10 years back in the 60's. Yes, that would be the 1960's! There has been an evangelical church for many years in the village of Caimito, but this was a special occasion as we were attending the dedication of a new church building.

As these types of things seem to go, there was plenty of pomp as prayers of dedication were held, ribbins were cut and we all filled in to sit on wood benchs in the first row while scores of villagers stood in the back listening to the Word preached for the first time in their new church building. After the service, as guests of honor (pilots are always included even though all we do is fly the airplane) we were served the first portions of a late lunch. Noodles with monkey meat!

The elder missionary that was with us made sure that I received the good parts, like the hand, to pick at. What did it taste like? Beef. Really salty beef. Since there is no refrigeration in the village, salt is used to help preserve the meat. It was like chewing on a dear lick. In the words of an old time JAARS pilot, "where He leads me I will follow, what He feeds me I will swallow."

High flying and jammed controls

Right now Peru is in the middle of rainy season. We have been getting some pretty good rains off and on the past few weeks. This has made flying a challenge, to the point where flights have been postponed or we have sat around for a few hours waiting for the rains to stop or the weather to improve. I was coming back form a flight at a location 2 hours away. There were many rain shower in the area so I climbed up to 14'500 feet, turned on the oxygen and enjoyed the increased airspeed! In pilot school we learn that the higher you go, the colder it is.

This was very true as it was 80 degrees on the ground and below 40 up at altitude. Also as you go higher up there is less oxygen. This is both good and bad for flying. Its good because there is lest resistance or drag on the airplane so you can fly faster (given the same engine horsepower) at a higher altitude.

The bad part is that unless you have a turbo charged engine, the result of having less air means not being able to produce as much horsepower and you also have to wear this funny oxygen canula which is like a colonoscopy for your nose!

While taxing out for takeoff, I felt limited rudder travel in the foot pedals. I shut down the engine, got out and found a static wick stuck in a hole which was preventing the rudder from moving! I'm pretty sure one of the village kids did that while I was not paying attention. Good thing it was found before takeoff! Thank you Lord!

Wing Work

The last couple of week have found the SAMAIR team busy working on the wings of our Cessna 206. Not only have we resealed both wings tanks, but we have also been replacing rivets that have loosened up. We also accomplished some minor sheet metal repairs to cracks in the wing skin. The load bearing portions (spars) were A-OK!

Some places are VERY difficult to get to, so the person with long and skinny arms is the one who usually gets the job of bucking rivets.

In the last two weeks I have stayed late three times and worked until 10pm. Its amazing how much more you can accomplish without interruptions!

I prefer to say the the airplane leaves its mark on us... not the other way around.

Do you have your tickets... to the GUN SHOW! Bonus points for telling who has the "massive muscles".

One wing completed and ready to begin paint stripping. Dave K. really enjoys this part of the job!

Hot Springs

A few weeks ago, on a Saturday, I had the chance to visit some hot springs near Pucallpa. My friends from the Swiss Mission were the organizers of the outing.

Half the group drove 90 minutes and then took a 20 minute boat ride to arrive at the mouth of the river where the hot springs mixed in with the main river. I flew the other part of the group in the float plane 18 minutes and landed on the river where we all met up.

It was then an hour hike to arrive at the place where the water came out of the mountain side. Yes, I realize the irony of visiting a hot spring when its already 90 degrees out... but in Pucallpa there is not a whole lot to do.

I particular enjoyed swimming back and forth between the hot and cold water at the mouth of the big river. Its definitely a unique experience to swim in a river that becomes part of the Amazon!

Interior pieces

On Friday I finished a mini-milestone on the 206 rebuild project. I have been working for the past two week off and on trying to fit the new interior. The new beige plastic pieces needed to be trimmed and installed. One would think that this process would be easy, but many pieced needed some "persuasion" to fit well around windows and where they mated up with adjoining pieces. I made judicious use of a heat gun that helped me to mold the plastics so a good fit could be obtained.

My friend Nathan finished repairing the horizontal stablizer. There were numerous dents that needed to be filled and then sanded down. The protective rubber boot on the leading edge was also coming unglued so some industrial super glue was used to keep it attached for the next 10,000 hours of flight time.

Project update.

One of the big jobs for the re-build project is resealing the wing tanks. This model of Cessna 206 has "wet wings", basically a section of the wing is put together with sealant and is used to hold the fuel inside of the wing. This is different than a car which has the fuel in a separate purpose built tank. Other options on airplanes are "bladder" tanks made of rubber.

Almost all airplanes, including airliners, have the fuel tanks in the wings. Really small airplanes like Aeronca 7AC Champs have a tank right behind the instrument planel. But those airplanes don't have a second engine, flaps, a nose wheel, starter, or an electrical system... that is why they are much fun to fly.

After cleaning out all the fuel tank sealant, new sealant must be applied along every seam and over every rivet. (Its the dark grey stuff) Let me tell you, this stuff is SUPER sticky! Once we get done with this wing, there is one more to go!

Dave and Nathan have been painting control surfaces. Hot and humid weather can make it a challenge to get the paint to come out right. It takes a full day just to spray the primer and then the white top coat after that. Having worked in a paint shop, I know that prep work is 95% of a good paint job... but the last 5% can still ruin a good paint job.