Anybody familiar with these guys? BRD posted a shot of an MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) C208 at Redlands, where their training base is. Kinda brought this back up on my radar... what a cool job.

http://www.maf.org/

They operate all sorts of singles into the deep jungle, and have a staff that covers everything from pilots to technology specialists. Anyway, kinda cool. Reminds me a little of that movie Air America.

Z

Photo of a Cessna 206 (zero.one.victor pointed out that my post makes it sound like below is BRD's photo but it's just one I found on the website, I wanted to natives in there.)

Zane, I believe the aircraft pictured is a Cessna 207, the 208 is the Caravan. Notice the PT tailnumber, that's a brazilian registration. The people hanging around look like Central or South American Indians aka aboriginal or native people, to be politically correct. Maybe a missionary situation in the Amazon country? Hope nobody was eaten......
Don't laugh. I read about a missionary pilot , Nate Saint, who flew a Piper PA12. He lowered some food & other goodies to a bunch of jungle dwellers by originating the "bucket drop", he thought he made friends with them but when he landed later instead of receiving a hearty welcome he was killed & eaten. Guess they never heard the expression "don't bite the hand that feeds you".

Eric

This would be a 206. MAF pretty much got rid of all their 185's and have standardized on the 206 and 208. They will be also using the Kodiak Qwest in the future. The only mission group in South America using the 207 is New Tribes I believe. I think JAARS uses Helios and 206's.

Nate Saint flew a PA-14 in the situation described. His son Steve and a friend of mine, Bill Clapp, recently bought a PA-14 from another friend of mine here in Brainerd and had it rebuilt to look like his Dad's airplane. It was displayed at OSH 2 years ago. They just finished up a movie about it that should be out soon. The original airplane was found in the mid-90's when the river changed course and that airframe is now in the lobby of MAF's HQ in Redlands.

Brad

I know my Cessnas, I just wanted to paste any old picture in there. The 208 I mentioned was a photo thatr BRD posted at Redlands.

207s are actually pretty cool, very stretched looking.

MAF had a fly-in at Johnson Creek the weekend we were at Lands Inn. They all flew out before we arrived at 3U2 on Sunday evening.

Unfortunately, New Tribes no longer has a 207. The pilot tried scud running in low visability and turned up the wrong valley. When he realized his mistake and tried to turn around, he was out of room and hit the mountain. The A/c burned and 5 or 6 perished.

Yep, that's a 206 I put the first 1000 hours on that plane. I think it is still based in Boa Vista in North Brazil. That was in about 1977, it has lots more hours on it now. I think the photo is taken at a place called Marari. Which you probably won't find on any map. It is just to the south of the Brazil/Venezuela border on the Marari River.

Sounds like there might some interesting stories about her. What were you doing down there?