Back Country Trip

 This first picture is of Allison Ranch's airstrip, which is 1475' ish long.  It was fairly flat in the touch down zone 1-2% and 10% in the last 150' or so.  It was also a blind approach which meant that you couldn't see the runway until you were turning to line up for the runway which was about 10 seconds or so before you landed.  Which gave very little time to decide to land or go around.  This was also a Go Critical strip which means that a go around must be decided prior to landing because once past the abort point one had to land regardless because the airplane could no longer out climb terrain and obstructions.  So for here the abort point was just over the river which was just after the runway comes into view one has to either commit to land or go around.

 This is the cabin we stayed in.  There were four of us being introduced to Idaho's back-country and we enjoyed a very comfortable cabin together with a beautiful view of the Salmon river.

This was a very common view mornings and evenings, we also found a herd of elk on the runway the last morning we were at Allison.

This picture and the next one are of one of the simpler runways we worked.  "Reed Ranch"  It is a US Forest service strip 2200' long and fairly flat only about 1% slope up both sides to the middle.  It had almost a typical pattern to landing and takeoff but there where still a couple mountains in the way to make it a standard pattern that we would find at a typical NA airport.

This was just a neat picture I thought of the airplane's shadow on the rock next to us as we approached Mackey Bar for landing.

Enjoying Lunch, the tail makes a pretty good dinner table and flight planning table when out in the wilderness.

This and the next couple pictures are of probably what could be the most difficult runway we used.  "White Water" was 1050' long 10% slope.  Normally 1050' would be to short for us to operate out of and maintain MAF's margins that we have been learning.  However with a 10% slope it drastically helps with slowing down on the landing and acceleration for take off which allows us to adjust the performance numbers and gives us the margins we need to operate safely.  The pictures don't really do a very good job as showing the slope but if you have ever drove in the mountains I think most of those steep sections of roads only get up to 6-7%.  Basically the touch down end of the runway is 100' lower then the top of the strip.

We landed at a number of other strips as well along the Salmon and South Fork rivers.  Reed Ranch, Mackey Bar, Allison Ranch, Yellow Pine Bar, Wilson Bar, and White Water.  At many of these places we were met by those that live and here year round and it was very encouraging to meet and greet these individuals that receive their mail by airplane once a week.  On our trip home we also had the privilege of visiting with Ray Arnold a back country pilot legend who also is the mail man for the back country of central Idaho.  It was something to sit and listen to the stories and hardships Ray faced and lived through over the 50+ years as he has been and continues to fly serving the people in these remote parts of Idaho.

The day after my return home we where granted permission to barrow the plane I had been training in and I took the whole family together to Murphy, ID for a Murphy Burger for lunch.  The nice thing about a Cessna  206 is that we all fit in at once. This was the first time in our family's history that we all got to go flying together.  Lord willing it won't be the last time, it was a lot of fun even with the rough ride with convective and mechanical turbulence.

At the end of the day I ended with my debriefing from the flight portion of standardization and was presented with a safety plaque that for every year of safe flight operations I will add a decal to as a reminder of God's blessings in the area of safety.  And I also had to get one more picture of the standardization mustache and beard before it came off later that night to my wife's excitement.

PS: For the scenery pictures the detail is easier to see if you click on the picture to in large them.

Packing/Paperwork Update

Update on the paperwork first, yesterday marked a day for celebration.  Our long awaited day of turning in our visa applications was completed.  We had been waiting since January for a couple passports that praise the Lord finally came this past week which allowed us to finish up our Indonesia visa paperwork.  The best part is now we can rest in God's timing as we no longer play a personal role in acquiring these needed documents for travel.  Hopefully come August I can still remain at rest if they have not arrived and continue to trust in God's timing.

Crate # 2

The packing is going, ahead I think?  We still are living in what seems kaos but that is okay.  We are making progress.  Crate 1 is almost full and crate 2 has a start.  Crate 3 remains un-assembled and crate 4 has been disassembled and the mods are in progress to attach and secure our tool box in place for the journey.  Hopefully next week the final mods can be completed and crate 4 can be reassembled and maybe crate 3 will be needed and assembled as well.

Quality Control Manager

Assessing Mod Progress

Crate # 1

Report Time

Not to Far off Now!

Pics from day 4 of flying

Working on Aborts and Airdrops at an old abandoned DC3 WWII training strip on an old lava bed in eastern Oregon.

Owyhee Reservoir Looking North

Owyhee Reservoir Looking South

Day 3 of Flight Training

This first picture was taken during the last portion of the maintenance standardization which went pretty good.  We were working through phase 3 of MAF's inspections for this particular aircraft.  Each aircraft is inspected every 50 hours and each time we focus on a different area of the aircraft so that in a cycle of 200 hours the plane has been gone through from front to back.  This inspection's focus was landing gear and wings with a light inspection on the rest of the aircraft as well.  Phase 2 which I helped with just before Christmas on this particular plane was  focused on the engine and tail with light inspection on the rest.  So it seems to work well having this inspection system in place allowing us to inspect the aircraft thoroughly with in the 200 hours yet while breaking the heavy inspection items allows for a quicker turn around.

These two pictures are from our stop over at Owyhee Reservoir State Airport as the sign indicates.  En-route we practiced working in terrain and then practiced the MAF airstrip evaluation procedure.  This procedure is not to different from that used for a precautionary landing, but it does a few variations and specifics to what we are looking for.  High pass looking for general slope of the area, obstructions, wind direction and then need to confirm that we have earned the right to go lower.  This is done between 500'-1000'.  The mid pass is next which is again to look for obstructions that may have been missed the first pass, then as well an estimation of touch down elevation and the other main thing we look for is length of the field which is done by timing the length and then converting ground speed and time into a length. Thankfully I have wiz wheel flight calculator to help with that.  This pass is done at 50'-100' and then the final pass if it is safe to go lower is done at 5'-10' off the deck,  We are checking the slope of the runway by taking readings off the altimeter at both ends of the runway, as well we are looking at the surface condition, and again looking for obstructions.  Lots going on and it has been a challenge to keep it all together these first couple times doing a full eval.  Once on the field we probably won't need to preform all the above passes but we do need to answer all the questions that where asked for every landing.  It's our Wind LASSO check that is part of our pre-landing checklist.
Wind - Direction and Strength
Length - Length and width of the strip
Altitude - Altitude at the touch down point
Slope - What is the slope we are dealing with
Surface - Pavement, grass, gravel, wet, dry ect...
Obstructions - What if any are the obstructions on the approach path or departure path.
A lot of things to pack in but once I'm more familiar with the aircraft and the procedure it will become second nature.

The family is doing well and we had a wonderful Easter weekend.  The kids were able to participate in a couple  Easter egg hunts one on Saturday with our fellow MAF families here working through standardization as well. And then again on Sunday where we were invited to a retired MAF families home for Easter dinner and fellowship.  All in all a wonderful weekend of celebrating Christ's death and resurrection to bring the free gift of salvation to His creation.

Fast Cars, Lean Mean Driving Machines, Playoff Beards, & a Garage Disaster.

 A couple weeks back the kids were able to participate in a pine car derby.  Isaac and Jaclynn were competing against some pretty tough competitors as they both had pretty fast cars.  Jaclynn won most of her heats but still failed to place.   They had fun despite the tough competition.  Franklin on the other hand had fewer competitors which allowed him to place 3rd which was exciting for him.  At the end of the evening they also had an option for the track to have a loop to loop installed which the kids had the option to risk their cars on.  Their cars didn't make it through the loop but they did survive the crash.

 Our lean mean driving machines showing off after their last basket ball game for the season.  They both had a great time playing basketball.  They both were able to learn about sportsmanship, gained new skills, how to be apart of a team while having fun.  We are so thankful that it worked out for them to participate like this.

On average I think the boys score 1-2 baskets each game and a couple times more.  It was also very encouraging as a parent to watch them improve over the course of the season.  Not only our boys but each of their teammates as well.  Their coaches did an excellent job!

Then there is me, sporting my sad 2 week old beard.  I was thinking that MAF's standardization is kind of the last big preparation time, so as a fun thing on the side to mark the occasion, I decided to adopt the hockey playoff traditional beard until it's all over.  Now being that a pilot needs to maintain some sort of professional look,  I have taken the liberty to modified it slightly with an occasional trimming as needed.

On the more serious side of things, the course is actually going pretty good even thou it may not look like it from the pictures.  I have just finished up a couple written exams over the weekend.  Which are nice to have out of the way.  This week and next we will be working on different projects in the hanger as we get familiar with the PT6 (Turbine engine for the Caravan and Kodiak) as well as the Caravan and Kodiak themselves.

The 27th is when I get to start the flying part which I'm also looking forward to.  Some may wonder why all the training, well let me say it has been well worth the time and effort.  There is lots I have forgotten over the past few years and lots of new info as well.  When I stop learning I should also stop flying.

And Julie's hard-work   and no not everything in the picture is ours.  The house we are renting is owned by missionaries that are overseas and some of the stuff is theirs that they have stored in the garage.  Anyway Julie has been faithfully working at home.  Her and the kids are plugging away at homeschooling still.  Mixed in with that Julie has also begun the sorting process of what goes in the crates, storage and give away pile.  So while I have been having fun at the airport, I'm so thankful for my wonderful wife that has been working diligently behind the scenes at home.

Fun Times

Since the middle of January our boys have enjoyed being a part of a basketball league hosted by our church.   This is a very neat outreach as every practice has a devotional time lead by the coaches and then during halftime of the games our pastor shares a little and has a short prayer time. And of course the boys are having a blast as this is their first time every being apart of a team.  My favorite part is watching the boys reactions when they actually make a basket during the game.  They are just so surprised when it goes in that they look like they are in complete shock every time it  happens.  The following are a few pictures of the boys playing ball.

 On Thursday Greg brought home our four crates that we will use to ship all our belongings to Papua.  The one on the left that is put together already actually came from MAF as they had one we could take off their hands.  This will be the crate that Greg will use to put his tool box and all his tools inside for the ship ride over.




These next two pictures are the remaining of our crates that Greg will have to assemble with the help of the children.  As you can imagine our family is very excited about the fact of the crates arriving as this means we are getting that much closer to heading to Indonesia.  This is just such a exciting and stressful time as we are in the middle of visa paperwork and know we can begin sorting and packing for life in Indonesia.  (Julie)

On the technical front, last week the Cessna 182 bound for Mexico got to a point where it was no longer necessary for extra help.  So this week I've had the privilege of working on MAF's newest Grand Caravan that is bound for East DRC.  If you look closely at the engine there are some pieces of green tape covering the holes I left behind by removing the fuel nozzles   They wanted to photograph the inside of the engine to document the current condition and the best way to access the turbine wheel is through the nozzle ports. I have no experience yet on turbine engines to speak of so this was a treat from me to get the chance to smell like jet fuel.  Something that I'm sure will get old pretty quick but for now I will enjoy every chance I get to learn more about turbine engines.  The picture to the right is one of the fuel nozzles that fit into the holes mentioned above.  The last couple days however with the distraction of our crates arriving and standardization right around the corner and the need to start inventorying things for our crates, I pulled myself away from the project.  Distractions and working with critical systems like the fuel system don't mix well.  Next week however I hope to jump back into the project briefly to re-install the nozzles under the direction of a very experience Caravan Mechanic.  

This Caravan also has an interesting story.  It is S/N 2000 build in 2008.  It was privately owned and was configured as a luxury executive aircraft.  It's paint scheme had an African Zebra look to it and the interior was covered with Zebra skin.  Then 2 years ago at Sun & Fun a tornado flipped it on it's back on top of a JAAR's Helio I believe.  The owner sold it to a Christian company that does major repair work to Caravans and then sells them to mission organizations like ourselves   So here it now sits once looking like it came from Africa and now it gets to go to Africa and serve the people of East DRC.  (Greg)

Blessings from the Dole clan.

Which way is up?

As you can tell from the lack of blog posts life has been a little heck-tic to say the least.

We have started to research a bit of our up and coming home and the needed paperwork that goes along with that.  The paperwork has started out with some challenges as we struggle to get passport photo's for Isaac and Jaclynn. We have discovered that the Canadian pictures requirements are hard to acquire down here south of the 49th.  Hopefully by the end of the week we will have a couple different choices of pictures that we can send and hopefully they will pass the requirements this time.  Once their new passports arrive we can begin the visa application.  Julie has also been tracking down applications forms to apply for additional birth-certificate copies for everyone.  Along with arranging doctor visits for shoots and what knots.  Julie in her free time which isn't much these days has been enjoying reading from her fancy flat screened library of books.  Her fancy electronic library has some study aids for learning Indonesian as well.  At bed time I usually run through a couple different short language lessons.  So far, not to much head way.

The children keep trucking along with their school work.  They have been motivated to get some extra school work done these past couple weeks as they look forward to a visit from Grandpa and Grandma, and there uncle.  The boys have also been playing basket ball with a league that the church here puts on.  They have been having lots of fun with a practice and game per week.  Jaclynn the little sweet heart has been getting up early several days a week to give me a hug and kiss as I head of to the hanger for the day.  Special memories as I'm thinking that her getting up early won't last into her teenage years?  I think I might still get some hugs and kisses from her tho just not at 6:30am.


I have been working back in the hanger for the most part since candidacy ended.  I have been working with Juan Carlos on the Cessna 182 that will be heading to Mexico hopefully by the week's end.  Last weekend I had the privileged of joining the men's retreat put on by our church here in Nampa.  We stayed at Twin Pines up in Cascade ID.  Had a great time of fellowship, getting to know some of the guys better.  It was also a very challenging weekend as Pastor Jim brought 5 talks on being a man.  Which tied in great with the Wednesday night bible study that I'm also working through called the "Quest for Authentic Manhood".  Which defines a man as someone who is to; "Resist Passivity", "Accept Responsibility , "Lead Courageously , and "Expect the Greater reward, God's Reward".

What else is there to mention oh ya we haven't started yet but we have the fun challenge of planning what our family will need for the next four years.  Things like deodorant,  printer cartridges,  toothpaste, and brushes.  Just to name a few.  In the next month or so I think we get to go on a big shopping spree to purchase items that are difficult or impossible to get in Papua Indonesia.  Should be a fun day for some of our family, I won't mention any names ;-).

We haven't done much of any packing or sorting yet but I think that will start next week.  I'm planning on putting my tools down for a bit once the 182 is done and south bound.  Then Julie and I can work together gathering and sorting our stuff into our crates.  Woohoo!  That will be a lot of work but I'm looking forward to it as it marks the beginning of the next phase for our family.

This is just a quick sample of the life and times of the Dole clan.