Above: Joe Ficker is all smiles as he flies through the Coshocton sky behind the newly overhauled engine on their ministry’s Cessna 182.
The Maule Haul to Haiti
Since the massive earthquake in Haiti, many relief organizations have been flying food, hygiene products, and medical supplies into the island nation. An airplane that was just in our hangar a few months ago made its maiden voyage to Haiti this week. It was packed to the ceiling with food and medical supplies. This Maule M5 was purchased by Flights for Christ because it can land and take-off in short distances and on unimproved surfaces, making it perfect to deliver supplies to remote areas where paved runways are unavailable. It’s especially useful now because after natural disasters, such as the recent earthquake, traveling with a lot of supplies through the country on ground is really dangerous. Opportunistic bandits set up roadblocks with burning tires and plunder relief workers. The police are overwhelmed with rescue efforts. It’s a bad situation. This Maule can safely fly over all the unrest, landing supplies in soccer fields, dry river beds, or pastures and deliver the goods quickly to wherever there is a legitimate need. At MMS Aviation, we helped outfit it for service like this. I didn’t help much with the project but I did get to help install those huge Alaskan Bushwheel tires. It’s fun seeing projects that were in the hangar out in the world making a difference!
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The Maule in MMS Aviation’s Hangar
Related: Click here to watch a video about the Maule M5 project when it was at MMS Aviation.
The Maule’s Maiden Flight to Haiti
Cessna 182 Transporting Medical Teams in Rural Guatemala
I recently got a video from Joseph Ficker who serves in Guatemala at a medical clinic. This is a Cessna 182 that was here at MMS Aviation a few months ago. I actually overhauled the engine on this plane last year. A few weeks ago it was in Guatemala hauling medical teams into rural areas to perform some dental work. Joe said that the plane cuts a trip over the mountain from eight or more hours to a mere fifteen minutes! They figured out it’s just as cheap to fly the airplane as it is to maintain vehicles that bounce around for hours on the rough, winding roads.
The Engine Overhaul at MMS Aviation
Above: Performing an oil consumption run after overhauling the Texas Skyways modified Continental O-520 F/TS.
The First Service Flight in Guatemala After the Engine Overhaul
Everyone at MMS Aviation (even the staff, admin team, and the CEO) are 100% faith supported. This means that we can donate our labor to mission organizations like those mentioned above for free. This saves over a million Kingdom dollars each year and enables organizations to use aircraft that would otherwise be scrapped.
Thank you supporters for helping us to get these planes back to work on the mission field!
Dennis Garretson
It is great seeing that what God has enabled you to do is now brining a blessing and His love to others.