This email to Simon and myself contains the first information that Trevor has discovered regarding the Vanimo area as a possibility for relocation of MSA.  Perhaps this is the area God has in mind for our fledgling ministry. So much needs to be resolved regarding the Air Operators Certificate, hangars, housing and workers. We are watching and praying to see what God has in mind. Vanimo is the town I have been dreaming of for an Air ministry since we left PNG 10 years ago. There is so much need in the Sepik area and Vanimo is the best place to serve that area from.  Located in the Northwest corner of PNG, close to the Irian Jaya border, it is a little jewel on the coast with the only road access from a PNG town to a foreign country. Tipas, the village my family served through AFM is only a 50 minute flight from Vanimo. We are praying and hoping that this will become reality. ... Jack

Glossary of terms and abbreviations:

AAS - Adventist Aviation Services
DD - District Director
Omaura - Bible College in the Highlands
ADRA - Adventist Development and Relief Agency
MSA - Mission Support Aviation  - That is us!
AOC - Air Operators Certificate - needed for commercial operations
CAA - Civil Aeronautics Administration
MAF - Mission Aviation Fellowship

November 14, 2006

Hi Simon,
I am copying this email to Jack Sample who has worked with me for a couple of
years now to help get MSA off the ground. He is in the US and knows of some
missionary minded pilot engineers there from whom we might find a suitable
person to help us meet AOC "Senior person" requirements.

You guys sure get around. Yea it’s a real busy time packing up house and
moving on. Hope all goes well up at Kowanyama. Will be a change of pace for
you and give you heaps of time to spend with little Eli. –Half your luck aye.

I feel convicted that God is working out a plan He has. While I don’t know
what ultimately will happen I am satisfied that He will open the right doors
at the right time. I am not sure if this is the answer yet and need to find
out more info. I just had an interesting phone conversation with the
quarantine guy in Vanimo. He is an elder in our church and seemed pretty
knowledgeable about what was going on in the aviation scene there. Roger
spent a lot of time in the Sepik and he has told me in the past that a
normally aspirated plane is all one needs down there. I know they do some
flights up into the mountains. If it was dropping stuff off that would be ok.
You would have to be careful where you picked stuff up and how much weight you
put on at some of the strips.

He told me that there is only one operator now in Vanimo and that is Dove air.
Garamut who had a caravan, islander and I think a 206 have moved out of
aviation and are concentrating on shipping now. I think they have a chain of
trade stores. MAF come in now and again if they have bookings. They had an
incident at Nuku where people mobbed the plane and all tried to get on because
services are so few and far between. There was a bit of an unpleasant scene
apparently with one guy really going off his nut because he had been booked to
go for so long and there was no room for him. Francis (the elder) reckons
that is one reason why MAF do not spend as much time in the area. Probably
Vanimo is affected by the same staffing issues that are affecting MAFs ops
country wide.

Francis says that Dove air has one small 6 seater. They have always had a 206
as long as I have been around. He tells me that it is flat out every day and
there lots of people waiting to get on the plane most of the time.

There was another operator there for a little while called Sundaun Air
Services. They have stopped operating and the facilities they were using are
vacant and he thinks available. There is an office, cargo storage and open
hangar and there is living quarters up stairs with cooking and showering
facilities.

One of the things I was told about Vanimo when I visited there a few years
back, was that there was no rascal activity there. No roads to any other
major centre in PNG for them to come in on. There is a road through to
Jaiyapura now. He said it is not problem to go over there with a truck to
pick up Avgas. It’s a 3 hour run. They charge 2 cents per litre duty which
is not bad really. He has given me the phone number and name of the PNG
consul in Jayapura and indicated the guy would be able to find out where to
get info on fuel availability and prices.

Dove air does apparently do minor maintenance there in Vanimo. Possibly we
could arrange to do it there. The other possibility is that in Jayapura the
church has an aviation base. We could maybe arrange to head over there and do
it. The guy there is American licensed so he probably could not do stuff for
me on an Australian registered aircraft. Is there a way?? Maybe we could
make a deal with Dove air.

Anyway it is food for thought. A bit more finding out needed. But there is
plenty of scope for missionary activity there. It is a nice place to live.
Beautiful beaches nearby. It’s a bit cleaner and quieter and safer than some
PNG towns. Jayapura is 3 hour drive away for major shopping needs. If this
option was to work out, we would not need to turbo Echo. The tanks will be
very helpful though. But I would suggest we wait until we are able to make a
firm decision about the future before investing in the Flint tanks. Not
having to do major mods to the engine would help us both get ahead a bit
quicker to where a second plane would be an option sooner. It is only a short
flight to Jayapura too for taking the aircraft out of the country every 3
months to comply with Regs for foreign aircraft. That would be a saving too.
I will need another experienced person to have an AOC unless I work out a back
scratching deal with Dove air. They may not be too keen to help a
new “competitor” either. We will have to see what their attitude is.
Employing two expats with one aircraft is a bit frightening. Jack suggests we
may be able to get a missionary minded American pilot / Engineer on a
glorified volunteers wage to start with. Then give him more money as he
becomes productive. Full wages when we have 2 planes and are earning a
comfortable margin above his costs.

The fact that there is a vacant facility there that CAA has already approved
for commercial ops is a big advantage. It takes a fair bit of time and money
to establish something like that. At this stage of development for me, that
would make going there a lot more attractive than somewhere where I would have
to spend lots of time and lots of cash flow building a terminal etc.

Yes AEE is parked outside. I have put a reflective sunshade in it to keep the
sun out of the cockpit when it is not being used eg the weekend. I noticed on
Sunday that some water is getting in during heaving rain. It is dripping off
the scat hoses just above the pilots rudder pedals. I got a torch and tried
to find where it was coming in but was not successful there. Not a lot of
water. The padding up behind the pedestal in the centre was wet. It could be
coming from the center somewhere. I don’t get any bubbling at the bottom of
the windscreen when flying through rain, so I am assuming that the leak would
be elsewhere other than the windscreen. Anyhow I guess we can have someone
squirt a hose around the cowls when you are up here next and see if we can
make the leak recur. My main concern is that we keep the radio stack dry. No
evidence I can see of any water in that area.

Sorry I forgot to get those serial numbers today. Will try to do that
tomorrow. There are a lot of people praying here too. I have some good
national friends who really want me to stay but they understand that if AAS
has the Goroka area covered, I need to move to where I can provide a service
to other missionaries. I was out at Maimafu today. Took a bit of time and
walked up my house. They have done a lot of work in the last couple of
weeks. The gardens are looking lovely and I could not help feeling a lump in
my throat as I looked out over the pristine wilderness surrounding me. I will
hate to have to leave this area. But God’s work comes first and it will always
be there for me to come back to. I reckon when God took the Garden of Eden
back to heaven, a little piece of it fell off and landed on that mountain
range. Its just beautiful. I picked up a poor lady there on the second run in
there today who was barely conscious. They had brought her up to the airport
on a bush stretcher made from tree branches and coffee bags. I think she has
a bleeding ulcer. She could not stand and we had to lift her into the plane.
Roger drove the triton out onto the tarmac to put her in for the ride to the
hospital. She rode the plane free because she had no money. But I felt good
about it. I picked up another couple of guys from Kapi today who are coming
to town to arrange for getting a coffin back down there. Poor things. I have
kept a load of peanuts down near where the coffin has to go so that I have a
load both ways when we take the coffin in for them. That halves the price of
the charter for them and they are pretty poor that side of the river. I get a
real buzz out of trying to find ways of helping people in these situations.
They have been using the radio Greg installed last week to tee things up.

I have been working on an exposition for the AOC. I am trying to find out if
Sundaun Air Services had one of the new AOCs or not. A lot of operators went
broke trying to get into the new system. It was too hard and too expensive
for a number of them. If they had a new one it would be very valuable and
would save a lot of time and effort. At the moment I am doing an adaptation
of the one here. I am praying that the Lord helps me chose the right time to
ask Roger about adapting the paper work. I would be happy to pay for the copy
rights etc.

In the meantime, I seem to be busy still. God is blessing. Work seems to
come in unexpectedly some days.

Will look forward to getting your contact numbers for the new location.

God bless
Regards
Trevor.

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