Trip to Loki

Dear Family and Friends,
I will driving up to Lokichogio today (and tomorrow) with the AIM Pilot that lives there. He and his family just came back from the US and his wife and son have already flown home. He has been working on his truck and doing paperwork so he can fly here again. He asked if I wanted to drive with him since it is a long trip and it is nice to have someone else with you. I eagerly agreed and we leave in an hour or so. I will check out Loki and analyze what work needs to be done to the pilot house (where the visiting pilots stay when they fly through to Sudan). I will probably fly back late Friday or Saturday on one of the AIM AIR flights coming back to Wilson (the airport we operate at in Nairobi).

You can pray for a good trip with no mechanical breakdowns or accidents. There has been a lot or rain and the roads are poor in many areas. I will take my camera along and share the pictures when I get back.

Thanks for your prayers,
Caleb

June 14-25

• Thursday June 14: Worked on the DC 3 tires and wheels.

• Friday: Worked on lots of small things.

• Saturday June 16: Did laundry, went grocery shopping. Played 6 games of volley ball in the afternoon.

• Monday 18: Started the 100 hour inspection on 6MS.

• Tuesday: Continued the inspection. Went to Rose Ave in the evening for Bible study. Dwight and Dorothy arrived back from the US.

• Wednesday: finished up the inspection and most of the paperwork.

• Thursday 21: We had the AIMAIR picture at 7am. Flew down to Malindi in the DC3 for the men’s retreat.

• Friday- Sunday: Retreat at Turtle Bay in Malindi. Ate lots of good food, swam and snorkeled in the Indian Ocean. Also played beach volley ball and water polo in the pool. We had five main sessions looking at the life of Joseph. The trip was a lot of fun and good time to get to know the other guys better. We flew back Sunday afternoon.

• Monday June 25: Started by working on the spare DC 3 main tire and brakes. CMA came back from a flight with a few minor squawks, so spent part of the afternoon fixing them.

June 07 Newsletter

June 07 Newsletter

June 5-13

• Tuesday June 5, 07: Installed the other new battery I built in CMA. Disassembled a magneto that was removed from a plane in Loki because it was not working. Could not find anything wrong with it so put it back together and tested it on the test bench. It worked fine, guess the boss will decide what to do with it now. I led bible study on the SIM compound this evening. Met Karen, an new Sim short termer that will be working in Karen (suburb of Nairobi).

• June 6: Worked on the big airplane rebuild project.

• Thursday: Changed the propeller governor on CMA because it was leaking. Installing an overhauled one. Performed a ground run up to check if the rigging was still ok and it was so do not have to adjust anything.

• Friday June 8: Had to fix a door handle on the rear door of CMA first thing before the pilot left (it worked fine the night before after installing the governor but was somehow broken this morning). Helped set up for the party at lunch. Had the computer department set my laptop up on the intranet so I can access all the maintenance folders and programs.

• Saturday: Went to Pneuma church at 7:30am to help run sound for a Christian music seminar. It was supposed to start at 8:00, we finally go going a few minutes before 10:00. Luckily it was not that long and we were finished with the main program by noon. There was a church group from Portland visiting and a couple of the guys were setting up a basketball hoop in the parking lot so I helped them a little with that after lunch. Came home, went grocery shopping and bought some fruit. Went over to Rose Ave for a little while to pick up some stuff. Came back and helped Ryan and Frank doing some shrub removal and pruning and trimming.

• Monday 11: Worked on the Landing gear of the DC3. Changed a main gear tire. Learned about Wingman(our big scheduling program).  BLG came back at 16:30 with a bent and cracked bracket for the nose gear squat switch.  Did not have a new one in stock so cleaned and welded the crack and installed a small doubler to help reinforce it because it was flying again early tommorow.

• Tuesday: Came in a 6:00 to check the plane over again before it left.  Helped with the General Inspection on the DC3. Bible study in the evening. Met a few new girls here for a couple months to work in Kisumu (about 8-10 hour drive from here).

• Wednesday 13 June: Getting my computer all set up on the network to access programs and folders.

May 25- June 4th

• Friday 25, May 07: Worked on paperwork.

• Saturday: Got the Volleyball net from Rose ave and fixed it and set it up on Muringa compound. Played volleyball in the afternoon. Had pizza with the DeHaan’s after.

• Monday 28: Not a holiday here but Friday is. Worked on parts prices and organization. Worked on toolbox in the evening for a while.

• Tuesday:Relatively uneventful day. Had Bible study in the evening like normal.

• Wednesday: Worked on hangar projects.

• Thursday 31, May 07: Felt like Friday since tomorrow is a holiday. Worked on hangar projects some more. Changed light bulbs and starters on the florescent lights. Pressure washed the main doors so they are shiny again. Worked on cleaning up and organizing the batter charging room.

• Friday June 1st: Public holiday so no work. Came in and worked on my tool box some more and got quite a bit done. Went to Olivia’s (one of the Mks on our compound) graduation party in the afternoon.

• Saturday: Came in at 6am to fix a plane that came back last evening with a charging problem and needs to fly at noon. Found the battery boiled over and caused a “runaway alternator” situation. Luckily the pilot shut it down before any damage was done to the new alternator and we put a loner battery in the plane and checked it after checking the alternator and regulator.

• Sunday 3rd: Visiting with one of the girls on the worship team and found out her parents are missionaries from Nigeria and that was where she was born although she grew up here in Kenya. She has graduated from RVA 2 years ago and has been attending a local university but is now transferring to Portland University in OR. There was a special part of the service for her leaving and Olivia leaving.

• Monday June 4, 07: finished the work on the battery room and built up a new battery for the 5Y-CMA (the plane that had battery problems on the weekend). Around noon, N756MS flew in with a a dying battery so put the new on in that plane and built up another battery for CMA in the afternoon.