Jim's Film, Jim Le Huray Bush Pilot, just the thing to inspire little people into the world of aviation!

There is nothing, absolutly nothing quite like the whine of a PT-6 turbine coming to life, propellor spooling up,  a whiff of turbine fuel & exhaust carried through the vents, a couple of Ugandan Cranes (national bird) pause their courtship as the prop noise distracts them but for a moment. My eyes are fixed on engine instruments, poised to disable the start-up if all is not well but all is well...So let's go fly. I'm Jim Le Huray Bush Pilot.

Why not share my tweaked version of Jim Le Huray Bush Pilot to some of the young people you know. It might help inspire them to become the Bush Pilots, Engineers, Managers, Learning Technology and IT staff of the future for MAF or for many of the other amazing flying and mission organisations operating around the world.
So why not give them a glimpse of my world.  

I  have been flying in Uganda and working alongside the MAF Congo programe as well as flying into South Sudan, as well as in Chad since I joined MAF at the start of 2011. I am one of the newer MAF pilots and certainly the lightest. I am based in the Island of Guernsey (land of the Guernsey Cow and the book Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Society) and I generally end up flying alongside another MAF pilot Capt Bryan Pill. 

I am very popular pilot  mainly as I only weigh about 3kg so there is room for an extra 80kg on any flight that I fly!'

So if you want to know more about MAF whay not E -mail me on jim.lehuray@maf.org

This is  a lovely story Fred van Gorkum told me.
Alas I call Fred, Frank!
                                              .

A few reports from 12°6′N 15°2′E. Mentioned in dispatches No 2

Here are a few more notes from my knee board from my last flying assignment in Chad. It was my 9th assignment there but my first time during the rainy season and this year it seemed to be a really wet one.

Incredible, after several hundred miles of desert I spot some 8000ft below me fresh water,  no plant life visible. Amazing!

I land in Faya Largeau, a desert out post, an oasis of greens and golden roads, it has an old and very large tarmac runway built by the military once upon a time, laid forever on the on desert lands. The French military occupy an amazing fort that looks like a Beau Geste film set, with the possibility of Gary Cooper about to enter screen right at any moment!  The deserts sands are so so beautiful, so soft and the aureolus grains tumble through the fingers like water. The date palms know where the life giving water  is and it is they that have helped establish this rocky green Island in the desert ocean where the crystal clear liquid freely breaks through to the surface providing a safe haven for all and sundry from the crippling effects of the fierce sun but the sandy tide is eager to swamp and engulf the town. Probably half the buildings are already submerged under tons of sand and many a 30ft palm has only the top 15ft showing! The old prison, guillotine block stands as a reminder of days past, I reluctantly use this old photo of myself in 2007 below (all the rest are from a few months ago) but the arch  makes the point rather well ...

In another oasis we find some amazing carvings on the sandstone showing Ostriches, cattle, elephants and a Cheetah. Just below FC's hand. None of which can be found probably within over 400 miles of here. The desert has claimed much territory for it's own. As an aside there  is a story about the bearded bod, so you best see slightly earlier blogg.

Gateau de Semoule, Salmon riz legumes and Tajine d'agneau, the french military rations are tres bon. Cooking a Le Bistro meal under the milky way in Simon and Anju's small rough court-yard was alot of fun. These are two amazing young Swiss folk who are running a langauge centre just down the road from Le bistro! A mere 6 nights & 7 days drive from the capital or about 1700km, though only 5 hours by Caravan, when I say Caravan I mean 208 rather than Camel!

Their job description must be very varied as we 
brought up a simple but rather clever life saving 
device that passes an electric current through a snake
or scorpion bite. Here Simon is treating a delightful 
localman who was stung by a scorpion that he had 
thought was a mouse! These guys are incredibly 
tough by  our standards and so to say this sting 
hurts is an understatement. The treatment made a 
dramatic  difference and it was the fourth person in 
the one week they had had the device that 
they had treated. The sting often reduces people to 
unconscious and in Faya will often kill their victims.

Flew some folk down to Moundu and overnighted at the TEAM Guest House. Went into a shop in that was quite well stocked, to look for supper,  though if you count the number of actual different items available it is food for thought.
It reminded me of a previous trip in Chad when I had an unexpected night stop and I was able to buy a 1.5 litre bottle of water and a pack of sour cream pringles for my evening meal, a balanced diet!

David Ott 

Here is one of our smaller pilots Jim Le Huray with David, his wife a medical Dr and small girls and their home school teacher and a nurse. They have work for Cooperation Service International have been in Ati 4 years. They are typical of the sort of people we fly, enthusiastic warm hearted and eager to make a difference to the people they work alongside. Rather like this quote David made “MAF has been a huge blessing to us, it’s been a life line to our work out here. Especially during the rains when they are the only way to get food and medicine and to get us in and out of our home and for work, we are thankful for the partnership. We have worked with about 6 different pilots over this period and just want to thank-you as they have been a huge blessing to our work both professionally and personally”

Whilst waiting for the weather to clear in N'djamena I had a chance to do a spot of weeding! I have pounded grain, dug ditches, shot bows and arrows, seldom can one call 'Flying for Life' with MAF dull! 

It was hot, the ground was thirsty despite the rain, the people grinned. Mother seemed happy to have 5 mins break as I snapped the weeds and we laughed together. For me it was fun and a photo, for them it was a lively hood and a full stomach. 

Practice may not make you Perfect but you sure get better at it

I was once invited to play a game of Golf, in fact my first, when I think about also my last. So we are ready to tee off, I remember listening to every word of my partners, heart pounding, watching, waiting, thinking this could be embarrassing. Wisdom said I should go last, I took note of their every movement, imagining melding into their posture, raised eyebrow, twitch of the forfinger, then it was my turn. Feet apart, balanced, poised, tense like a coiled spring, so with eye on the ball, I untwisted and the swing... the swing, surely it would have been the envy of any professional. The ball was hit to perfection,  it could only be described as a beautiful shot, probably still talked about  in Golf Clubs throughout  the British Isles... well may of been, had it been repeated it sadly never was, not even near. Politely it was best described as a fluke, from then on I did not have a clue, though previous time spent crazy putting at Beau Sejour came into its own when eventually any ball condescended to join me on the green.  Despite the obvious excellent start, it was a game that just did not catch my imagination and I have  never played or been invited again. 

As a pilot one thing I am quite good at is landings, in fact I have done about 10, 000, according to my log books into several hundred airstrips.  As it happens I have a similar number of take-offs, some would say based on 'alleged' bounces I have substantially more of the former than the latter! However the only  reasons I am good at landing is practice, also is there is a standard of landing and I practice to achieve that standard, anything less really is a poor show. The most demanding landings are to be had on water, certainly less forgiving if you get them wrong  but on land or river it is fun, challenging and at times quite exciting. 

This week I have been in Johanesburg in South Africa doing an Instrument flying course on the Cessna 208 Caravan. I have an Instrument rating already but  I do not use it for the type of bush flying I have been doing this last 20 years - as of July 2012. It is almost a year since I have practiced instrument flying seriously, as a result I would describe myself as a qualified Instrument pilot but not a proficient one and there is a difference. I have got out of practice and when out of practice you can think yourself competant until like a club rower who finds he has to go against Steve Redgrave you suddenly realise you are well and truly out of your depth. 
One way of practicing instrument flying and emergencies, is using a simulator, I am sitting happily in this machine in the picture above. The beauty of it is you can repeat an exercise, almost instantly with a tap of a computer key. Whilst I hated it for the first few days, as it had a mind of it's own and it did not feel at all like the real thing.  By day three when unexpectedly we simulated flying into a flock of birds, the engine stopped with a mighty bang and the glass on my windscreen fractured and the engine went quiet it seemed pretty real as I glided for an emergency landing. I was getting the hang of it, things practiced before kicked in and I landed the 'aircraft' safely.

So now as I look back over the first week it was interesting seeing how practice had made such a difference, next week flying is in the real aircraft - we will skip flying into a flock of birds! I can say I have loved the training, as things I should have known but had perhaps forgotten have been repeated, checked and repeated, the standard is being raised and experience is starting to come back into play. This course will cost MAF thousands of pounds, yet it is an essential part of training if I am to work in an Instrument programme where there is a shortage of pilots. Plus as pilots we are required to practice, that is a fact. The course is hard, long hrs, fun, challenging and exciting. 

My wife and I are doing a Kingdom Theology course with New Wine Training Partnership and it is brilliant. I am learning new ideas, challenging old ones, finding the Old testament is a remarkable book as is the New in more ways than I had thought, finding things I should have known before, remembering great truths. Plus there is a real practical side to this Theology  - is there any point in Theology that has no practical application? The work/study is hard, long hrs, fun, challenging and yet exciting.

I love going to the gym and kayaking, funny really that we put all our effort and at times funds into training, practicing, and becoming good at our work, our hobby, our sport perhaps all three even when it is hard, involves long hrs, yet we do it because we love the fun, challenge and excitement.

You know it is the same with being a disciple of Jesus to be any good at it* involves practice. You need to practice prayer, you need to practice reading the Bible, you need to practice loving people, you need to practice being generous, you need to practice being a servant, being a disciple, being different and wholehearted. It is hard, long hrs, fun, challenging and exciting. It's a mans calling...**

Christopher Bergland wrote recently in The Athlete's way: Sweat and the Biology of Bliss pub in Oct 2011 that essentially  'practice, practice, practice anything that you want to become world-class at.' 

Jim Le Huray our intrepid Bush Pilot joined me in the simulator. Check out Jim's films on youtube bigglesgsy

* Wholehearted - think about Caleb in Joshua 14:10-11

* *  Ladies, girls boys it is also a calling for you