Today I ate blue noodles for the first time in my life, and landed on an airstrip the majority of which is at a 23% incline.
It was a long day, not too unusual when flying in one of the programmes.
The weather delayed us a bit at the beginning. The pilots checked how things stood at the numerous destinations we were heading to, as there’s no point even making a start until they can be fairly sure they can touch down there. Once we received confirmation it was OK the pilot, Dave Forney, and I climbed into a C206 and headed off to collect our first passengers.
Some snippets of info from the day:
• As you take off from Tarakan you immediately fly over a whole load of shrimp ponds along the coast, shrimp being the main export from here. The general effect of the ponds, with the brown rivers snaking between them, is quite artistic from the air. Note to self – must get aerial shot of plane over artistic shrimp ponds!
• Once over the interior the terrain is rugged mountains completely covered in dense jungle which stretches into the distance as far as you can see. Absolutely stunning! As you look down it’s very clear why MAF is flying here – overland travel would take ages (our first passengers flew for just over an hour – it would have taken them 2-3 months overland by foot and boat, a journey which wouldn’t even be considered)
• Landing and taking off from Metun airstrip which is mostly at a 23% incline is pretty cool! You touch down on a short section which is at a 5-6% incline, which then quickly increases to a 23% incline, then there’s another more level bit, and then the final sharp incline before coming over the top of a ridge where the plane parks. The view from the top is stunning – across lush dense green vegetation to blue mountains in the distance….but I’m meant to be talking about planes, rather than getting distracted by scenery! The take off from there was fast, the airstrip being only 365 metres, so Dave gave the plane plenty of kick (not sure if the proper word is throttle, but hopefully you get the idea) before we popped over the top ridge and rushed down the sharp incline. I momentarily had that roller-coaster experience when you hold your breath having not quite expected what you’re experiencing.
• Has anyone seen ‘Airmen and Headhunters’? If so, we flew straight over the place where the airmen had to bail out during World War II – dense jungle of course.
I spoke with Pastor Henry, one of our passengers, who is working in Data Dian. He shared: ‘We’re the smallest of villages in the area and without MAF no one else would care for us. As a servant of God ministering here it would probably be impossible to be here without MAF’ – his enthusiasm was visibly evident.
More flying planned for Thursday.
That’s all for now, except to say that the blue noodles were for lunch – I was advised not to ask why they were blue, so I didn’t!
Stephanie
