Getting here...

Well, for those of you who don't know, this is really the second of two blogs that Alysa and I are writing about our time in Africa. The first is more general and we talk a bit more about the missionary side of what we are doing here (www.jonandalysa.blogspot.com) but I also wanted to publish something that dealt in a much more focused manner on the realities of flying airplanes in Africa. For those who aren't familiar with Alysa and I and what we are doing, I'll give a brief update. In March of this past year we decided to come of Botswana to work with an organization called Flying Mission. Flying Mission is a Christian organization that works in both Botswana and Zambia. It orginally started as a medical mission that used aircraft to get to the remote regions of Botswana to provide much needed medical care. As the years have gone by and the infrastructure of Botswana has improved the need for aircraft in this role has decreased and Flying Mission has changed with the times. Now, the greater organization deals much more with HIV/AIDS care, prevention, and orphan care. However, they still operate the aviation side under the name Flying Mission Services. FMS provides air ambulance service for the government of Botswana and on demand charter operations out of the capitol city of Gaborone and Maun, the center of the booming wildlife tourism industry. FMS is operated as a for profit company but the proceeds of the commercial flying go to subsidize whatever church flying comes up and ultimately the ministries of the greater Flying Mission organization. Flying Mission currently operates 2 King Air 90s out of Gaborone primarily for the Air Ambulance flying and a single Cessna 206 out of Maun for the charter flying to safari camps in the Okavanga River Delta. They are actively looking to aquire at least another 206 and possibly a Cessna Caravan to further meet their needs in the Delta. I was invited to Botswana primarly to fly the King Air for the medical contract. My most recent experience was flying and training other pilots in the Beechcraft 1900. Being that the 1900 is simply a very large King Air one would hope the transition would be fairly simple. I guess we are going to find out.