Idaho Backcountry Trip

It's difficult to describe the jaw-dropping beauty along the Salmon River, and the pictures below certainly don't do it justice.  I honestly don't know what I enjoyed more... physically flying into the airstrips, or riding in the backseat with my camera!  I definitely enjoyed the cameraderie of the pilots, the top-notch training from the instructors, the hospitality of Jim and Gloria at the Ranch (I'm sure I put on 3-4 pounds over the 4 days!), and of course God's beautiful and majestic creation.

The purpose of this trip was to expose us to some of the most difficult mountain airstrips that Idaho has to offer.  These airstrips are representative of the types of challenges we will face while flying overseas.  We are continually grateful to those of you who through prayer and through financial support make this possible.  I literally can't wait to put these skills to use in Indonesia...to impact lives through providing medical help, access to education, and hope, as we physically demonstrate God's love to all people. 

Allison Ranch (where we stayed the 3 nights) in the morning.  The fog lifted each morning by the time we had had breakfast and were ready to go.

The view from the hill above Allison Ranch

The mighty Salmon River

Morning sun from the deck of the lodge at Allison Ranch

Did anybody notice the yellow spider on the flower?

Flying over Whitewater Ranch, one of the more challenging strips

Parked at the top of Whitewater Ranch.  This airstrip has a 10% slope and is very narrow.  To give you some perspective most highways in the United States don't go much over 7% slope.  When you start getting around 5% on a highway you'll see all the warning signs for truckers, run-away truck ramps, etc.  We have some airstrips overseas that have portions at 24% slope!

On one of our lunch breaks we suddenly saw this Bald Eagle cruising down the river looking for fish.  I just happened to have the right lens on the camera to get the shot!

Wilson Bar.  One of many airstrips with a "blind approach."  You fly upriver a mile or two and then descend towards where you know the airstrip to be.  You don't actually see the airstrip until you are 100 feet above landing as you make a 90 degree turn to line up with it.  While we were measuring the airstrip here we saw a large herd of elk a few hundred yards up the mountainside.

Idaho Backcountry Pit-Stop

I found myself wondering if this amazing cornice would fall if we buzzed it with the airplane!  Needless to say we didn't try it.

Luke making a picture-perfect touchdown at Allison Ranch after flying the "blind approach"

 

Take-off out of Allison Ranch

We were privileged to see many herds of Elk on the slopes above us.  We even had some on the runway at Allison on our last day.

Training at the MAF Headquarters

Matt did an earlier post describing some of his training at the MAF headquarters and I thought I'd post some pictures of what the whole family has been up to for the last two months. The kids have had a blast playing with the other kids here, and we've really enjoyed the sense of community. Some of the pictures include the visit from Matt's family, Easter, and random pictures with the kids.

 

Looking ahead, we start orientation training on Friday, which both Matt and I will be a part of, and leave for Bellevue the first weekend in May. We'll continue packing and plan to leave from there for Indonesia. Two major prayer requests are that our visas will come through, and for adequate funding. We're still waiting on some donor amounts and are unsure of our exact funding status. Please join us in prayer for these two things so that we can leave in June as planned.

 

Front of MAF headquarters (view from our apartment)

 

Blake just loves his baby sister, and she loves him! He makes her laugh all the time

 





 

 

Here is the caravan, fixed up and ready for service in Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa. There was a dedication service here for this beautiful airplane.

 



Sitting in the back of the caravan

 



Callie and her cousin Abby, enjoying the hot tub at the hotel

 



Matt and Grandpa Gary went to the Birds of Prey Exhibit

 

Blake and Callie looking at the Condor

 



I took a "cooking from scratch" class for one afternoon, put on by MAF. Here is our amazing meal!

 

All the cousins (from Matt's side) together in the hot tub

 



Callie's first Easter egg hunt! 

Cousins together on Easter

 



Callie and Eva, such pretty little girlies!

 





Blake, Callie, and Judah

 



Eva spending time with Grandma Laurie

All the missionary kids at our St. Patty's Day party 

Blake loves pretending to be Batman. In fact, Grandma Barb made him his very own Batman cape!

Advanced Flight Training

I have heard Flight Standardization described as "the most fun you can legally have in a Cessna 206."  So far I have to agree, although the fun doesn't come free.  The workload is intense, the learning curve is steep, and the environments we fly into are demanding.  I credit the amazing training I received at Moody Aviation in Spokane for setting a firm foundation on which I can build and stretch myself.  The instructors here have certainly stretched me to my limits and shown me the limits of the airplane I will be flying overseas. 

 

 

My first class 3 airstrip (airstrips are classified 1-3 with 3 being the most challenging).  This one is only 12 feet wide (2 feet wider than the landing gear), and is 1200 feet long.  This is the minimum size airstrip that a 206 can safely handle with a decent load onboard.  If you don't touch down in a 100 foot box you have to add power (abort the landing) and try again.

 

The airstrip diagram for Owyhee Bend, the airstrip in the first picture.

Enroute to an airstrip in the mountains.  The Kevlar helmets look uncomfortable but are actually not bad.  The sun visor is really nice!  Because of the type of operations we do MAF requires these helmets for 206 pilots.

Beautiful Idaho backcountry.

 

Seeing the rocks flying up in this picture makes it clear as to why we added rock guards behind the tires, and a "beefed up" leading edge on the horizontal stabilizer.  At this airstrip we were practicing aborted takeoffs at different points in the takeoff roll, as well as aborts after liftoff.  We also practiced airdrops (dropping different sized objects into a 50ft box).

 

This was my second class 3 airstrip.  I am standing at the "top" of the strip on the flat part.  The strip drops away to the left (my right in the picture) and is a 10% downslope.  On this type of sloped strip you are committed to land 50 feet before touchdown because if something happened after that point the 206 can't outclimb the terrain.  The measuring wheel next to me is an integral part of our training.  We walk down every new airstrip and mark critical points like where we expect to liftoff, where is the last point we can safely abort the takeoff, where we expect to be at a certain speed, etc.

 

So that's a small picture of the types of things I am learning here.  Each of these tools I am learning will be vital to a successful and safe flying ministry overseas.  Next week the training culminates in a 4 day backcountry trip where we "camp out" at a strip up in the mountains and each day put the skills we have learned to the test at various backcountry airstrips.  I will be sure to post lots of pictures! 

Eva's Newborn Portraits

While here in Nampa at the MAF headquarters, I'm trying to get as much done as possible in the evenings when Matt gets home. After five months, I'm finally finished editing the photos I took of Eva when she was two weeks old! Similar photos of Callie were taken by my friend Jen Schwab when she was about two weeks old and she was kind enough to let me watch and learn some of her tricks. Since Jen was out of the country when Eva was born, I decided to try it myself. Here they are!