Hi Folks,
Below this brief bit of text is an article which I recently wrote. I am no professional writer by any means...but if any of YOU can think of an avenue which may publish this small article I would be very grateful. Thanks in advance....here is the article.
Edgy Aviation
Greetings fellow aviators,
When we think of the “edge” of aviation what comes to mind? Is it the new Adam Aircraft plant at Centennial airfield in Colorado, or the mélange of new arriving compact jets, or the military’s newest and finest hardware such as the predator and its derivations? Let’s keep in mind that along with the leading edges of aviations frontiers mentioned previously, come trailing edges, those places that we must endeavor to never forget. Those incipient days are memorable and we are beholden deeply to the pioneers that often joyfully gave their very existence to further this pursuit which many of us are afforded the opportunity to take advantage of. The “edges” of aviations whole encompass yesterday, and tomorrow and forever. Today’s student pilot, the Airline Transport Pilot and all skill levels in between owe a debt of gratitude and homage to both the pioneers and the experimentalists of aviations “whole”. It is the many pathways and byways of aviation that keep so many diversely oriented individuals enthralled with this sport…to me, the defining sport of the last millennium AND THE NEXT. These pathways diverge from the forefront of aviations history like the scattering of visible electricity from the interior of a thunderstorm. I like to think of these pathways and byways as the “side edges” of aviation, they are the edges between the leading and trailing edge that serve to fix the whole of aviation together.
There is a byway in aviation that serves to elevate the whole of the art of flying to the stature of philosophical and religious crusade. This “byway”, a backwater of sorts, is the pursuit of missionary aviation. Where else in the fields of aviation can one combine a deep sense of religious conviction with the utilization of aviation to save lives? Flying is an intensely personal experience for most of us. It is hard to describe the depths of satisfaction which we as pilots encounter to the uninitiated. These mere mortals that have yet to experience the magical and transcendent experience which we call “flying” do not understand the magnificence of shooting an ILS to minimums and breaking out on centerline, correctly oriented for landing. How can we explain to these ignorant persons the depth of satisfaction we experience when our craft breaks earth’s bonds at precisely the point which we calculated beforehand that it WOULD liftoff?
How even more difficult is it to describe to them how time-machines are now in everyday use in the field of aviation? Do you know that missionary aviation uses time-machines on a daily basis? That is correct, missionary aviation uses TIME MACHINES, every day. These time machines come in various configurations. They are concealed inside the frames of Cessnas, and Maules, and Pipers, and many more types of “little airplanes”. These little airplanes can convert an arduous five or six (or more) hour journey into a twenty minute hop in most cases.
My experience with missionary aviation is wholly in the region of Central America, so by necessity this is the area which I will help you to learn about. A lot of the villages and towns and pueblos served by these little miracles of technology are impossible to get to by any means other than via a canoe on the river. During the wet season visits to most of these villages can be accomplished in a matter of hours, four, or five and in some lucky cases three hours. You may easily double that amount of time during the dry season. Let me take a moment or two of your time to describe what a trip on one of these canoes is like. As you make the walk down to the river to embark upon your journey you carry everything you foresee that will be required upon arrival. It is sometimes a longish walk and you are very much looking forward to getting to the river bank by the time you actually arrive. You arrive to the sight of a forty-foot long canoe, which has been carved by native means from a felled tree.
Can I just suffice it to say that the trip is extremely uncomfortable? A person riding in this canoe is sitting out in the open and subjected to the generally bright Central American sun which is bouncing off the water like knives of pain onto your tender “gringo” skin. You are actually sitting on a piece of a branch which the boat “master” has trimmed from a nearby shrub with his machete…about an inch around and it sits like a bicycle handlebar. The trip on the river is bad for us able-bodied souls, but put yourself in the position of an injured person for a second or two as you try to imagine the pain and sacrifice of a ride on the river with a broken leg, or in need of dialysis. Now jump in our little aircraft and we have the ability to get you to or from this little village in about twenty minutes, wet or dry season! Anyone ever forced to make one of these trips will surely proclaim that a small airplane is a miraculous time machine! How else could this little “miracle machine” convert an arduous five or six hour journey into a reasonably comfortable twenty minute “hop”! We will be landing on a soccer field, and taking off towards a mountain…but that is just flying, huh?
Missionary aviation gives us an opportunity to go back to a time when the most important skills in aviation were field selection, short field takeoffs and landings and soft field takeoffs and landings. Back to a time when physical hands-on skills are what counted most. Much like bush flying in Alaska and the Canadian wildernesses, missionary aviation is about flying…not technology in the cockpit. Don’t get me wrong folks; there is something in the soul of most pilots, myself included, which feels a certain kinship with those fretful little ions captured inside of our navigational “gizmos” which make our aviation encounters more pleasurable. And of course the latest “toys” in aviation will certainly have most of us anticipating Christmas like we haven’t done since we were seven years old. I too share this technological addiction! There is however, something about launching a bare-bones aircraft from a soccer field in the village of Krautara (in Honduras) to bring a gentle old man to the village of Puerto Lempira for dialysis that is deeply satisfying. It goes beyond our technological skill-set and reminds us that in essence we are ALL stick and rudder pilots. We must control the three axis of flight, always keeping in mind the limitations which our environment and the physical real estate available to us demand. To me there is no such thing as “real” flying…all realms of flight are equally enthralling to one or the bunch of us. But this particular type of flying is what makes life worthwhile to ME.
Flying aircraft in challenging environments, and saving lives…this is what does it for me. Would any of YOU care to join us in this pursuit? Please contact our organization at the following address if you may be interested in supporting our efforts, or joining us in a trip to the wilds of Eastern Honduras or Nicaragua. We eagerly seek your participation because we, like you, deeply feel a debt of gratitude to those aviators who came before us…and we want to pass this legacy along to some deserving people. People who greatly need and appreciate what aviation can do for them TODAY. Merely sixty years ago, our fathers and grandfathers stood in fields amazed by those little machines as they crisscrossed the skies of their farms and fields. TODAY the same can be said of these humans in far-flung communities in Central America. Join us as we use aviation, and these little “time machines” to enrich their lives…today and forever.
Dios le bendiga grandemente en a su familia y ministerio.
Casa de Servicio, International
Emergency Missionary Medical Evacuation
Richard Becton, President
308 Waterville Dr SE
Cleveland, TN 37323
210 392-9574
flight@flash.nethttp://www.casadeservicio.org/blog/http://www.casadeservicio.orghttps://www.cogwm.org/donate/index.cfm?pid=0650497
