Nev's News: November 2008

Well I have some really wonderful news. Last week I heard that the guy in charge of the MAF Technical Evaluations (TE's) was to leave for the next 3-4 weeks. That's not the good news by the way, read on. My original plan was to do the commercial flight test and then the TE while I was proficient especially as the flying would be in the Cessna 206, a great workhorse of a plane but you must keep ahead of it. Well with the possibility of having to wait around for a few weeks for the return of the MAF guy it was decided that I would give it a try BEFORE he left. And so it was, with just a day's notice I jumped into the 206 for my 5th flight in the high performance Cessna. It was a 'scenario' based test and I had 2 passengers who needed to do a runway inspection at a remote location. We had simulated bad weather with low ceilings causing me to fly low along valleys, cross mountain ridges and do lots of dead reckoning pilotage to try to find an obscure airstrip. I was given simulated engine failures, various maneuvers to do and also a runway inspection a short strip with an up-slope landing. It was really great to put some recent off strip runway analysis into practice doing things like timing runs over the strip and then working out mathematically from the air how long the strip actually is. Up to now I had only ever seen airstrips in video clips that had a one way in and the same way back out. But now I was finally flying this typical mission style ... what a blessing.

Anyway, after a long day of flight planning, testing and debriefing I finally heard the words, "congratulations you have passed the TE". Praise the Lord! Now the only remaining task I have is to finish out the commercial conversion and then head up north to Arnhem Land to begin serving the Aboriginal people. I don't want to rush the training