Feeding the planes

One of our ongoing tasks is keeping up with our fuel supply for the planes. For years, we had an underground tank (the one pictured above) that we filled up with Avgas (Aviation Gas). The fuel guys at the airport would deliver Avgas with a tractor to our hangar and pump it into this tank. We then had an electric pump to pump the fuel from the tank into our planes. A few years back, the pump and hose starting leaking quite a bit and we had lots of power cuts which made the electric pump unpractical. About the same time, we discovered that the fuel guys were emptying drums of Avgas into their tractor to deliver the fuel to us. They would then keep the empty drums and sell them. At that point, we decided to simply have them deliver the sealed drums to us with the Avgas inside. We bought a good hand drum pump and began refueling straight from the drums. We decommissioned the underground tank, dug it up and sold it. In the picture you can see the engineering feat of safely loading this large heavy tank into a trailer after we sold it.
When the 1st diesel plane arrived, we had another fueling dilemma. It uses Jet fuel, which is stored in huge tanks at the airport fuel depot and piped underground to refueling points on the ramp. The fuel guys can't deliver Jet fuel to us at our hangar. In order to keep a stock of Jet fuel on hand at our hangar, we converted some empty drums to use for Jet fuel. To get the fuel, we had to load 3 drums at a time into our van and take them to get filled up on the ramp. Unloading those full drums from the van at the hangar afterwards was always a risky proposition for our legs and toes. Only getting 3 drums at a time also meant that we had to get fuel quite often. The fuel guys didn't really like this system either as it was difficult to fill the drums in our van and they often spilled fuel in doing so.



After lots of brainstorming about a better solution, we finally decided on getting a fuel trailer for Jet fuel. Thanks to the sale of the underground tank and some donations from churches, we had enough funds to buy this fuel trailer. (The full costs of the trailer aren't covered yet, so if you'd like to donate towards the trailer let us know.) It arrived on a container in January and we've put it to work right away. The timing was great as we had friends visiting at the time who made trailer hitches for two of our SIMAIR vehicles to pull the new trailer. We can now pull the trailer to the ramp to get filled up. We're very thankful for this new tool. It has a battery operated pump and a 50 ft hose to easily reach our plane from where the trailer is parked.

Snow?

I've never seen snow in our part of Africa and am pretty sure that there's not much chance of seeing it here. In fact the temperature today in our hangar was 110 deg F. But, I did take this picture today near our hangar. It sure looks like snow. Let me explain...

Today we picked up our passengers, drove to the airport, went through the formalities with the police, checked weather and filed the flight plan. Then we headed to our hangar, pre-flighted the plane, loaded the bags and passengers and prayed before the flight... all pretty routine for a normal flight day... that was about to change. After shutting the plane doors, Dave (our maintenance specialist) and I stepped back away from the plane. We waited for Ed to start the plane. As he prepared to start the plane, I watched one of the airport fire trucks driving back toward the fire station not far from our hangar. They had the water cannon on top spraying water towards the bushes near their station. Once again, pretty routine stuff as they practice spraying water almost every day. It's a good way to practice and water their bushes at the same time. Suddenly, the "water" seemed a lot thicker coming out of the cannon. They have foam in the trucks that they can spray on the runway in case a plane has to make an emergency landing. I've seen them spray the foam a few times here just for practice, but this time was different. The taxiway coming from our hangar was coated with the foam.

We couldn't send the plane taxiing through the foam, so we headed over there with squeegees to clear the foam off as much as possible. It sure looked like snow as we pushed it to the sides. After we cleared a path, we sent the plane through. We then talked with the firemen, with whom we have a good relationship. They apologized for the inconvenience and assured us they wouldn't practice on the taxiway again. We appreciate the job they do and are grateful for the many times they've helped us over the years around the airport and with tours for kids of their trucks and fire station.

Nurses training program

Our internet connection has been spotty and nonexistent for much of the past 3 months, making it difficult to put any posts on our blog. The internet reaches our part of Africa via an undersea fiber optic cable. Sometimes a ship drops an anchor that damages the cable. Sometimes the cable is damaged coming from the coast through one of our neighboring countries. The internet for our whole region is knocked out when this main line is damaged. It seems to be working for the moment, so I'll try to post some updates. (As I wrote this sentence, the internet stopped working again... go figure.)

Our hospital in Galmi is implementing several new strategic programs. In a few months, they will be starting a surgical residency program training Christian surgeons from this part of Africa. This vision has been a dream for many years, but the pieces are finally in place to begin. A while back, I flew a member of the accrediting board (PAACS - Pan African Academy of Christian Surgeons) to Galmi for the final approval process. They've now received approval to start the program with their first two residents scheduled to arrive in July. New housing is under construction to house these future residents.

Galmi hospital also has a vision to start a program to train local Christian nurses. This vision is in the very beginning stages. A hospital run by another organization in southern Togo already has a viable nurses training program. So, we flew to southern Togo to pick up the hospital director and another lady involved in the program to come consult with the folks at Galmi. The trip by road would have taken them 3 days each way. It was a full day of flying for us to get them from their hospital in Togo to Galmi. I took off at sunrise and flew 2 hrs to an airport in northern Togo where I checked into the country. Then, I continued flying another 1 1/2 hrs to their hospital.


Here are the two ladies we flew. They have an airstrip right at the hospital. They also have a plane based there at the hospital but no pilot currently. You can see their hangar behind us in the picture. Several pilots are raising support to go there. One of these pilots was a student in the aviation program when I was flight instructing at Piedmont.


The airstrip is sloped slightly, rough, and one way in and out. As you can see, it's a lot greener in Togo than here where we are. I was greeted by about 10 military officers who were waiting in the shade of the trees in this picture. They were there to make sure I wasn't doing anything illegal. After greeting the officials, I refueled the plane with fuel that I brought with me.

Here's their hospital compound next to the airstrip. It's tucked right up in the corner at the base of two ridges. We took off and flew 1 1/2 hrs to the airport in northern Togo again to exit the country and then 2 hrs back to our base. There, we refueled, did the immigration formalities for here and switched pilots. Ian flew them 1hr 45 min to Galmi hospital, landing a little before sunset. They spent 3 full days consulting with our team in Galmi and then we did the trip in reverse to take them back to their hospital in Togo.

We're grateful for the spirit of collaboration that will benefit both hospitals.