Wantok

The Wantok is a weekly Tok Pisin newspaper. Each week, MAF is donated around 100 copies to take to bush communities. Recently the Wantok asked if we could send them pictures of people reading the paper, so on a trip to Hesalibi, I did...

The coronation of King Charles clearly puts a date on this photograph!

Wantok was so happy with the photo that they published it on the front page!

Wantok i kamap long Hesalibi!
(Wantok arrives at Hesalibi)

Last week I had another trip to Hesalibi and I made sure to take copies of the paper.

I attempted to recreate the original photograph...

Everyone wanted to have a look...

One man was a little perturbed though. He looked at all the newspapers I had brought and said, 'Can you bring other newspapers? These are all the same...'

Party time

It was my birthday recently and my compound neighbours helped celebrate. There was also a Big Surprise planned, although it didn't quite come together in time so we had to re-stage it after the event. But it was worth it!

Jess had sent me a message earlier in the week: 'Will you fly over the house this afternoon? If yes I'll try listen out and we will come wave at you!' Little did I know, she had prepared a big sign (a painted message on a bedsheet acquired from one of the many local second-hand stores) and in the three days leading up to my birthday had been laying it out on the grass. However, my flight routes were all in the opposite direction, so she had to resort to Plan B, which was to ask other pilots to take a picture when they flew overhead. A couple of them tried but the pictures were blurry or from the wrong angle. So then she resorted to Plan C, which meant that I was greeted on the morning of my birthday with this view:

That day we got the compound ready for an ice cream sundae bar karaoke evening!

Kids and adults alike are excited about ice cream

Al fresco karaoke

 

On the Monday I was flying a route that would definitely take me over town. So Jess put the sign out one more time...

It was worth the wait!

Timber!

Recently I was scheduled to fly 950 kg of building supplies from Hagen to Wanikipa airstrip. It sounds pretty straightforward - after all, I regularly fly over 1000 kg of 2-minute noodles to Simbai and 1000 kg of coffee back to Hagen. However, it turned out not to be that simple, because the building supplies were long lengths of timber that filled the cabin.

The ground staff had nearly finished loading the plane and I noticed it seemed to be sitting quite tail low. I quickly calculated the weight and balance and sure enough, the centre of gravity was outside the aft limit.

If the centre of gravity is too far aft, the pilot can lose control of the aircraft. I didn't want that to happen! Since there wasn't any way of redistributing the weight, the only way to move the centre of gravity forward was to put ballast in the front pod and offload an equivalent weight of timber. 80 kg was enough.

During and immediately after the take-off I tested the control effectiveness. It was less than usual (no surprise) but enough to continue safely.

The wood will be used to build an extension to the health centre in Wanikipa. Lots of people pitched in to help unload the plane and carry the timber to the village.

Offloading the timber

Everyone joined in to help - even the kids!