Over the Hump!

I reached an exciting milestone today: I logged my 2400th hour at MMS Aviation! That means I have reached the halfway point in my apprenticeship! The FAA requires 30 months before I can take the tests for my airframe and powerplant certificate, and MMS adds the additional requirement of 4800 hours of logged experience. I've still got a lot to do between now and next summer, but I have a feeling that the time will pass quickly.

As I get closer to the end of my time at MMS, Missionary Air Group is preparing for our family to arrive in Burlington, NC next fall. Sean Donnely and the other MAG staff are finalizing the flight curriculum, upgrading their fleet, preparing to move to a new location on the airport property, and bringing on the instructors necessary to provide quality training to future missionary pilots like me. You may remember that I am the first person to be accepted into this new partnership program between MMS and MAG, and it's exciting to see the details coming together!

Hangar Update

Since my last post, I've spent quite a bit of time working on the Cessna 206 for Mission Aviation Fellowship. Much of that time was devoted to the interior, and specifically installing the headliner. Aircraft interiors (at least the ones that we install) tend to require a lot of custom fitting and trimming, and this was no exception! After a lot of effort, I was pretty happy with the final product.

Putting some finishing touches on the interior of MAF's Cessna 206.

After the interior was mostly complete, we took the airplane out for some ground runs. The engine has not run since this airplane arrived at MMS more than two years ago, so it was exciting to fire it up!

The first engine run on MAF's 206.

After the runup, we had a few problems to troubleshoot. I got those taken care of, and then moved into the engine shop for my first engine project. It's a Lycoming IO-320 engine for a ministry in South America. This video shows the teardown of the engine, and I plan to document my progress on this overhaul.

Thanks for following our updates, and I'll try not to wait so long to post the next one!