Flying the Kodiak

I had a great surprise opportunity during a trip to our Arizona home office for meetings. While we were there the NTMA Kodiak was getting a final inspection by it’s destination country’s government officials. It was cleared to head overseas and part of that process was helping our International Chief Pilot get some practice instructing in it. He asked Garry Barkman and I if we’d be interested in being his “new students” in the Kodiak. Of course, we were willing to do anything to help the cause, so we agreed.

Garry and I each flew it for about an hour and were able to do several takeoffs and landings in it. It was really cool to see first hand that the Kodiak can do what it was designed to do – carry a lot of people and/or stuff into inhospitable airstrips, day in and day out. I was impressed by how solid the airplane felt and how easy it was to fly once you got past the overwhelming feeling of having your instrument panel condensed into three LCD panels. Going from our Cessna 185 to the Kodiak felt a lot like going from a late 70’s Toyota pickup to a Cadillac Escalade in almost every sense of the analogy.

It was fun to think that in a short time that very plane, the Kodiak Kids’ Plane, would be flying over the jungles of the Asia Pacific to help speed and extend the reach of the church planting efforts of NTM.