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My
father, Bill Clapp Sr., was a MAF (Mission
Aviation Fellowship ) pilot for many years in
Central and South America. You can
read a bit of our history in the "Bill's World"
section. Since he retired in 1982 from
the mission field as a full term pilot he has been
given the opportunity from time to time to travel
to various countries to help different flight
programs with some of their maintenance
needs. For example, in 2001, he traveled to
Pakistan to repair a damaged Cessna 210 that a
fuel tanker truck had backed into. He
carried some parts and tools with him and made the
repairs to the damaged wing there in
Peshwar.
Long
story short, over Christmas my dad asked me if I
wanted to start coming with him on some of these
trips around the world on these
projects..........how could I say no?
The chance came for me to help out on this trip to
Africa so I had to shut stuff down at home and
prepared for an interesting trip...here are the
details....
The
Mission
Dave LePoidevin is a
single family pilot/mechanic based in Nampula,
Mozambique with MAF. He fly's a Cessna 206 and
a Cessna 210R there helping various mission
groups, help Aids. and community development
projects as the needs arise. Apparently the
210 suffered an engine failure due to lack of oil
pressure and he performed an emergency landing on
an abandoned runway. Roads and runways being
in the shape they are out here it was not
surprising that on the landing the nose gear
collapsed and major damaged happened to the forward
section of the fuselage and to both wing
tips. Being a retract gear means more
complexity to the damage. The plane was
disassemble and trucked back to Nampula where the
engine was removed and damage assessed for
repair. Parts were ordered and collected and
then the call came in that it was time for my dad
and I to travel to Nampula to begin the repair
job. Another adventure
begins.....
Here we
go....
After
spending a couple weeks tying up loose ends around
the shop and home I boarded a Delta Connection
flight from Valdosta, Georgia to Atlanta at 5
am Sunday morning for the first leg of a long
trip. A few hours later I was on a flight to
Dulles, Virginia (Washington D.C.) where I met up
with my dad who had flown in from Missouri.
There we boarded a South African Airlines Airbus
A340-600 for the long flight to Johannesburg,
South Africa. This flight is about 16 hours
with a one hour stop in Senegal for
fuel. I wont go into the details of
the flight other than it is very tiring and
boring. Only the excitement of the days to
come made it tolerable. My dad and I
spent time talking, sleeping and watching a couple
movies to make the time pass. Finally, we
arrived in Johannesburg at 6 pm
Monday.
After making
it through customs we got a ride from a MAF
acquired "cab" and headed for Lanseria (about
an hour away) to a small Bed and Breakfast called
"A Touch of Africa". This was a unique
lodge with thatched roofs and nice clean rooms and
good service. We ate and cleaned up and got
some sleep. Tomorrow will be a very
interesting day.....
Joining the
Caravan....
A 5 am ride
from "A Touch of Africa" took us to the
MAF (International) facilities at the Lanseria
airport. There we met up with Andy and
Caroline Gillies who were running the program
there. Andy was to be our pilot of a Cessna
Caravan that would take us to Mozambique.
After weigh in and meeting a couple other
passengers we finally loaded up and took off at
daybreak for Beira, Mozambique, a four hour
flight. This was the first time we got to
see Africa in the sunlight. The trip to
Beira went smoothly and we enjoyed the sights of
the mountain ranges as they dropped down to the
coastal flatlands on the Eastern side of
Africa. We landed in Beira and went
through customs again and refueled the
Caravan. At noon we departed for a small
strip north called Macuba over an hour away.
This is a rough dirt strip and typical of third
world countries and the types of villages that MAF
serves on a continual basis. After a
low approach over the strip to clear and check it
we made our landing. We were instantly
surrounded by a hundred or so locals wanting to
see the goings on. We unloaded one passenger
there, a radio engineer for a local Christian
broadcasting station that was being
installed. We loaded up the Caravan
and left for a coastal city called Pembani about an
hour and a half away. This unique strip is
also an unimproved rough strip right on the edge
of the ocean. The reception there was
similar to that in Macuba. We made this trip
to leave a drop off a missionary's wife with a new
adopted daughter. Her husband and two boys
were there to pick her up. Back into the air
for another hour on the last leg to
Nampula. It has been a real good
experience to see Mozambique from the air and to
see a little bit of the Operations of South Africa
MAF in the process. Thanks to Andy and his
wife for their dedication and skills as
an MAF pilot
family.
NAMPULA!
Nampula is
the third largest city in Mozambique and will
be our home for the next few weeks.
We arrived about 5pm and started to unload
the Caravan. Dave LePoideven and Joe (
a pilot for "Flying for Jesus" -a lay missionary) soon
came over with a Land Rover to meet us
and take our stuff and parts to the hangar.
We got a tour of the hangar and
got to see the project airplane 9Q-CMQ. After
a quick overview knew we were going to be busy
on repairs for the next few weeks. Dave loaded
us up in the Land Rover again and took us
through the bumpy roads through town and showed us
our lodging facilities at SIL's (Summer Institute
of Linguistics) compound. We are
staying in a nice 2 room 1 bath guest house and
have use of the Land Rover while we are
here.
Driving on the
left side of the road proved not to be too
difficult...just getting used to the fact that
there are so many people crowded beside the road
makes you be more careful but they seem used to
it. The roads are really bad - hence the
reason for MAF. Most of the roads were made
by the Portuguese 40 years ago and have not
been maintained so they are more potholes than
anything else.
The
language issue is not so bad since they speak
Portuguese here and Spanish is similar enough that
we can get by since my dad and I speak fluent
Spanish.
Wednesday
will be the first full day at work...Check the
next update for all the new
news......
AFRICA PART
2 (CLICK HERE)
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