Last weekend Brian drove with a truck full of tools and construction supplies to the tribe where our airplane is still tied down and guarded. It has sat in the jungle for over a month. He arrived just as it was getting dark and hiked down to the village in the rain on a slippery red clay trail. For those of you who have ever hiked the steep route on Bishop’s Peak in San Luis Obispo it’s a lot like that…only on “ice…and in the dark…and in the jungle.”
He arrived safely, got a good night’s rest and an early start on the inspection the next day. He needed to determine that the airplane would be safe to fly after installing just a new propeller. The hope is to fly the plane 35 minutes away to a location where more thorough repairs can be performed. While in the tribe, Brian removed the damaged prop and performed an inspection on the crankshaft and engine. It was determined that the engine is in excellent condition so the next step can now be taken and Brian and Garry can hike an airworthy propeller into the tribe next week.
It sounds simple, but getting a propeller in means trucking it in via 4×4 and then hiking it down that same trail without damaging it. WooHoo! Please pray for wisdom and safety as we as a team continue to work at getting our plane repaired in an efficient and safe manner.
[…] an effort to speed the process of getting the airplane back in the air, we determined it would be safe to fly the airplane out of the tribal airstrip where it has been sitting if we could borrow and install an airworthy […]