Busy June

Busy, yes that is definitely the word to describe the month of June! We headed back down to Jupiter twice, once to put the tail back on the R44 (I even helped turn a few wrenches this time!) and a second time to drop Ben off ahead of a ferry flight to Omaha, Nebraska. Ben finished up the Rotorcraft ground school and has started working on his CFI binder. Ben turned 30 and we had a visitor from YWAM come through on his way to dropping a truck load of Haiti aid to the port in West Palm. Here are some highlights:

Ferry Flight

Ben flew an R44 up to Omaha, Nebraska where it will be crop spraying. The flight was a wonderful opportunity to build time on a new type of helicopter. To meet the special requirements to fly the R44 he first had to take 5hrs of instruction and receive a sign-off for his logbook. These were the first instruction flights in quite a while and were great to have before flying the aircraft cross-country 1,300+ miles! A second pilot named Jack also went on the flight and Ben enjoyed the company. With the 5hrs of instruction and the ferry flight Ben has about 11 hours in the R44. Hopefully timing will work out and he can fly the aircraft back down to Florida in August and add a few more hours. If he wants to instruct in a R44 he'll need 25hrs total.

Ben's 30^th birthday!

Amid the absolute chaos of June Ben turned 30! He's been asking to go jet-skiing for years so with some good friends we headed out to Merritt Island and splashed around the Indian River at 55 miles an hour. It was great fun! Afterward we headed to the beach then out to lunch at Tiajuana Flats. In the evening our friend Chris put on a fabulous murder mystery dinner. Ben “Bo Jalais” turned out to be the killer!

Visit from James

The YWAM visitor with Haiti relief was James Ferrett one of Ben's school friends. James and his wife Kelly serve on the YWAM base in Madison, Wisconsin. James drove a truck with a 25ft box filled with medical supplies, food and clothing down from Wisconsin to drop at the port in West Palm. A long trip for a truck with air conditioning that only worked when the truck was at idle!

So that's it for June. July is already shaping up to be another busy month, but promises to have lots of fun in store for us! Ben will continue working on his CFI binder and on the 11^th we'll get the first of our 5 UK visitors. I hope they all bring chocolate! :)

Next Steps

Finally something new to report! It has been a shamefully long time since I wrote last and I am pleased to be able to give an update of progress. This last month has been both exciting and scary all at the same time. Ben quite his job at Bristow Academy maintenance after more than four years there. Thursday April 1 was his last day in the hanger and the team gave him a nice farewell complete with cake.

Being unemployed Ben spent the following week at home organizing and cleaning the vehicles. You could have eaten off of the Maxima's hood! But being a house husband wasn't to last long and on Friday we both drove down to Jupiter to help Brian Parker (runs Samaritan Air) take the tail boom off of an Robinson 44 helicopter and get it packed up for shipping to the factory. Helimission introduced us to Brian via e-mail back in January and about a month ago we visited Jupiter to meet him face to face. Ben will be flying and doing maintenance with Brian to get some "real world" experience to better prepare him for work with Helimission.

Ben worked on the R44 with a New Tribes Aviation guy, Justin Wallhoff, who is also flying with Brian to build experience. Justin and his wife Courtney are at the end of their training (10 years of training!) and will be heading to Sulawesi, Indonesia in a couple months. We hope to be able to see them on the field one day and maybe we really will get the chance to - they will be operating a Helimission aircraft!



In addition to meeting and spending time with some really great people we were absolutely spoiled rotten by the Parkers! They cooked us breakfast and fed us like royalty. Robin spent Saturday morning showing me the sights, I relaxed by the pool in the afternoon and occasionally wandered out see how the boys were doing with the helicopter. Sunday morning we went to church (Christ Fellowship), out for brunch and then headed back up to Titusville. What a weekend!

So the plan is now that Ben will head back down on Monday for a week of flying and I'll stay here in Titusville and continue working. He'll come home on the weekend and then look at re-sitting through some of the ground school classes at Bristow Academy. The weeks he isn't in class he'll be down in Jupiter. And sometime in the coming months he'll look at doing his Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) rating and attending the pilot safety course at the Robinson factory in California. I'm sure things will be crazy, but we are very much excited about what lies ahead!

Samaritan Air is a a helicopter ministry that trains and equips pilots for the mission field. Samaritan Air is also currently operating an R44 down in Haiti.
They do some pretty amazing work, please take the time to check out their site http://samair.org

Justin and Courtney Wallhoff are missionaries serving with New Tribes Aviation. Justin is both a fixed wing and helicopter pilot as well as an A&P mechanic and Courtney is a counselor. They are headed for Sulawesi, Indonesia in July. Check out their blog http://wallhoffs.wordpress.com