Why We're Here

Well, the reason we're down here is to get some additional flight training in the kind of airplane we'll be using in Zambia, the Cessna 206. The airplane we're using here, N120MS is actually owned by a man in Chicago who leaves it here specifically for this purpose - training missionary pilots. My instructor is Ron Royce, a retired Moody Aviation instructor for 40+ years. In fact, the airport here, Elizabethton Municipal Airport (0A9) was the home of Moody Aviation until about 3 years ago when they moved to Spokane, WA.

So far, we've had about 3 lessons. The day usually starts pretty early with going over the lesson plan, doing the preflight inspection, and then going at it. A big emphasis on these early lessons is controlling the airplane in all flight configurations. For example, flying at a constant airpseed, altitude, and heading, while adding or removing flaps. Or, putting the airplane in a 30 degree bank to the right or left, at a constant speed, altitude, and bank, and adding/removing flaps. After the flight is done, comes the post-flight briefing - going over what went well and what didn't. Then we usually spend some time looking at the next days lesson.

This is really an incredible opportunity to get this kind of one-on-one training from an instructor of this expertise. Most pilots who go into missionary aviation get their specialized training from their flight schools, such as MAF, Moody, and JAARS. So this has been good for me to get this specialized training that doesn't necessarily always come from the common, run-of-the-mill pilot program. I can only praise God for his provision in all this!!