A day in the life...

...of a missionary aviation mechanic is not always as glamorous as one might think.  But that doesn't stop me from loving what I do.

The day begins at various times for various people...for me, I'm trying to make the hangar by 7:45 to 8:00am.  With three small children getting up around 7:00am, it's nice to play with them in the morning for a few minutes and also help get them going for the day.  Heading to the hangar involves about 15 minutes of shear terror as I navigate the roads of Nairobi on my Haro mountain bike.  Once safely in the hangar, the day pretty much goes and goes and goes...much like it would in a normal aircraft maintenance operation would in the United States...or does it?

We have a fairly diverse fleet of airplanes.  It includes five Cessna 206s, a Cessna 210, three Cessna 208Bs, a Super King Air 200, and a turbine DC-3.  There is also a supercharged Cessna 206 on amphibious floats that is being prepped in the US to come out soon and operate in Tanzania.  There are a handful of expatriate missionaries and a handful of Kenyan nationals who work alongside each other doing the task of aircraft maintenance.  There is such a diverse crowd, ranging from over 15 years of experience to guys just beginning their aviation careers.  We work on these different airplanes as best as we can with the talents that the Lord has given us; and it is truly amazing to see how different each mechanic's talents are.  One might be gifted with a detailed eye for inspection; one might know more about piston engines than anyone else; one might be able to detect a crack with his naked eye from a mile away; one might be honing his hands for sheetmetal work.  It's a variety of guys that have been brought together to do certain tasks on airplanes that are doing more than just flying people and cargo.

AIM AIR is dedicated to flying missionaries and their cargo, national pastors, short term mission groups, medical supplies, and a host of other things.  We are utilizing the gifts and abilities that the Lord has given us to serve His work all throughout East Africa.  On a daily basis, pilots head out to carry servants of the Lord, to see the work that God is doing, while we in the maintenance hangar only watch and wonder about those strange places that we hear about.  We hear stories about different tribes of people in different countries, and how the Lord is working through the missionaries and the local pastors in those areas, and that people are coming to Christ!  But it is not something that we get to experience first hand.

We are left behind, waiting for the report that our pilot got to his destination safely, that all is well with both our friend and the airplane.  We wait anxiously when we don't hear anything, or when something seems to be a bit out of sync.  Every time an airplane flies past our hangar doors on final approach to Runway 07, we look up to see if it's one of ours.  When it is one of our planes, we watch as the pilot gently puts the airplane down on the runway, with our quiet comments coaching him from afar off.  We smile and run out to greet him when the plane arrives at the hangar, eager to hear how the flight went and what all happened, and why is the airplane covered in mud?!

The AIM AIR hangar is just another concrete and steel hangar on a busy airport in a busy African city.  But what we do inside that hangar is different than what they do in the hangar next to us...or the next hangar...or the next.  We are working to keep these airplanes in the air, so that we can be an avenue of taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth.  It involves routine maintenance...100hr inspections, phase checks, and scheduled down times.  It also involves non-scheduled maintenance; this is usually when something goes a little out of sync and we rush to resolve the issue, whether it might be an electrical problem, changing a leaky fuel drain, repairing a collapsed landing gear strut, or perhaps even an entire engine change.  When our airplanes are not flying, then the Gospel is not going out...when our airplanes are gone, then we are always praying that the Lord will use them to further His kingdom.

Time and time again, we work hard and long to keep our airplanes going.  The maintenance staff at AIM AIR is a dedicated team of individuals that seek to follow the Lord's will for our lives.  We are all just simple men that God has taken and put in this hangar for this time and we are serving Him to the best of our ability, because we know that we honor Him when we do our job well.

Do I miss working on the airplanes I was working on back in the United States?  Sure I do...there isn't a day that goes by that I don't see one of Air Kenya's Twin Otters flying by the hangar and I just wish that I could turn a wrench on one of those again.  But you know what?  God used the skills that I learned rebuilding and refurbing Twin Otters and CASA 212s and brought me here to serve with Samaritan's Purse and AIM AIR.  I've had the privilege to be a part of the team that rebuilt two Cessna 206s that are now serving the Lord all over East Africa, and we're working on the the third one right now.  I've been able to help change some PT6A-65AR engines on the DC-3, which not many people get to do.  I've even been able to fly a little bit (emphasis on little bit) in the areas around Nairobi and see the land that the Lord has brought us here to serve.

To be a part of AIM AIR is like a dream come true for me...and God knew that all along.  I had always thought that I wanted to be a part of the missionary aviation community, but never knew how or in what capacity.  I thought I wanted to be a pilot, but God had different plans for my life.  I love what I do as a grease monkey, and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.  God took my love for airplanes and used it for His glory when He brought me and my family out to serve Him in Kenya.

So...is life out here in the AIM AIR hangar the same as it would be working at a aircraft maintenance shop in the United States?  Yes...and no.  Aircraft maintenance is aircraft maintenance.  Inspections need to be completed, paperwork done, logbooks signed off.  But the underlying reason why we do what we do is fundamentally different.  We are here to serve the Lord.  Each day, as we turn wrenches, torque fuel injector nozzles, clean and re-pack wheel bearings, change fuel and oil filters, and otherwise do normal aircraft maintenance, we do it with the knowledge that God has us in His hands and we are working to honor Him, because as Christians our sole purpose is to glorify God.

Nothing more...nothing less.

AIM AIR - Serving those who serve

Sheetmetal!

The past couple weeks we have been working hard on getting out the floor and the belly skins of 5Y-CMA.  The belly especially had a lot of corrosion and we are just going to replace the skins totally.  The floor we are going to replace with a 0.040" floor, along with some structural reinforcements on the bulkheads and stringers in the cargo area.  Once you load two full drums of fuel into the back of a 206, you really appreciate those reinforcements!  It's been a fun time taking all the skins out and we're in the process of cleaning out the dirt and yucky in what's left of the belly area, along with making new skins.  We're also doing some other work as well. 

Caleb, working on getting gear fittings out of the belly. 

Here I am, drilling out some of the belly skins...not exactly the most fun job, especially with metal shavings falling into your clothes and face (sput, sput, sput!). 

This is the doubler where the right side gear leg enters the airplane...

...and this is what was underneath...gross!

So we got the floor and the belly skins pretty much out of the airplane. 

It makes for some easier work...

...since you don't have to be on your knees on the floor...you can just stand inside the airplane!  Tim Carpenter (right) and I (left, in the short pants) working on gear fittings. 

Tim Carpenter working on getting the forward belly skin out. 

Ahhh, the prize!  We lost count at over 490 rivets to get this piece of skin out.  Tim sure is patient!

It's like a fish skeleton...

We've begun making new skins. 

This is Jeremy Hamilton, a great asset to AIM AIR.  I think this is Jeremy's third time or something to come out and serve short term with AIM AIR.  He really is a blessing to have in the shop.  Thanks to him for coming and we will definitely be looking forward to having him out full time. 

Caleb and his veterinary pose...no sound effects, please.

Jeremy and Caleb were replacing a doubler for the tail tie down. 

Caleb decided to buck the rivets with his fingers...at least, that's what it looks like!!  OUCH!

5Y-CMA

I found this older picture of 5Y-CMA on my computer and thought it would be neat to show it to you guys.  It is an interesting picture because you can see how the HF antenna (wire from the left wing to the tail) really sags back during flight.  On the ground it looks taut, but not in the air!

Anyway, I do have some more pictures of how the project is going, but I forgot my camera at work, so I will have to put them on the blog next week.  It's really been going well, though, and we have a lot of the belly skins out and almost the entire floor.  You can see right through the airplane!

Hope you all have a good weekend...I will post new pictures next week.

N341EA

For those of you interested, our new floatplane is just a few months from coming out here to Kenya/Tanzania.  You can see a few recent pictures of it here while it is being worked on in Ohio.  It is a 1984 Cessna TU206G.

Paint stripping and fuselage jigging...

The following is a picture sequence of the fuselage of 5Y-CMA being paint stripped, cleaned, and then placed into the fuselage jig. 

We put the fuselage onto some sawhorses and took the main landing gear legs off so that we wouldn't get paint stripper on them. 

Me and Caleb...I sorta look scared or something. 

The paint stripping crew.  L to R is Andy Keller, Tim Carpenter (other side of the plane), David Akivega, and Caleb.  This was a neat picture due to the "half paint" scheme. 

Carpenter and Akivega.

They laid the whole thing over onto it's side to facilitate easier paint stripping on the belly and roof. 

It sorta looked like a fish swimming sideways. 

Drying outside the hangar after a good pressure wash.  DC-3 and King Air 200 in the back. 

Now the dance...we had a fun time getting it into the jig.  It was sorta like parallel parking an airplane. 

We stuck the tail in first as far as possible and then side-walked the fuselage into the jig.  It actually worked pretty good and saved a lot of time because the jig was already built and we didn't have to wait until after paint stripping to build it around the airplane. 

Ahhhh, got it in.  (sigh of relief)

There she sits...now we can start diving into some of the work. 

Carpenter...the master of the jig. 

Silver Bullet rebuild...Part 3

We have officially begun our third "Silver Bullet Rebuild" here at the AIM AIR hangar in Nairobi.  Since I got back from the States, we have done a few inspections and routine maintenance on the active planes, while also getting things ready for the Check 3 inspection and major airframe overhaul of the airplane shown below, 5Y-CMA.  It is a 1979 Cessna U206G, with a serial number that is just over 300 below N4790U.  It seems like those two planes are sisters...N827DG and N342EA are the other two that are close together.  

Anyhow, we have taken the wings off, the tail feathers off, and the engine off.  Actually, this past week, we took almost everything off of the fuselage, including the paint.  Right now, the bare aluminum fuselage sits in the airframe jig, where it will be mounted on Monday.  From there...the work begins!  

Keep your eyes open now, because the transformation is underway of 5Y-CMA from silver bullet to another beautiful product of the AIM AIR maintenance hangar!  

Welcome back...

...to AIM AIR.  Below is the link to my buddy's blog, where he wrote a wonderful account of one of his flights a week ago.  I was blessed to be a part of the whole situation on my second day back in the shop.  It was really exciting to see things falling into place and I hope that through his account and more like it, we can help to encourage the Wings of the Dawn project that AIM AIR has begun.

Hope you enjoy reading it here.

AIM AIR - Serving those who serve.