The final week of my internship at MAF came faster than I had anticipated. I think that was true for me as well as the people around me. Now and then someone would come up and ask how many more weeks I would hang around and when I answered that was leaving on Saturday most people were amazed I had been there my committed time already except for a few days. I guess it is always a bit hard to engage with coworkers, host families and new friends when you know you only have a little time left with them left, but even though our time together was short it is mostly the people that I remember. I might not mention them all by name here, but here are some of the highlights of the many experiences I had the last week of my internship with MAF.
As you can see in the picture, this Cessna 208 Caravan is equipped with pontoons, or floats, as they commonly are referred. It is getting ready to be ferried to Indonesia where it will be able to reach many communities in the interior of the jungle by landing on rivers and waterways. Since the floats and the new avionics that the MAF technicians had installed were not part of the original design of the aircraft, the Caravan needed to get new weight and balance data. To do this the aircraft must be weighed at specific points designated by the manufacturer with all equipment installed. I got to construct the front jack pad, which is depicted on the pictures below. It was a simple project, but there was still some of that satisfaction of accomplishment of making something functional out of metal. We actually jacked the aircraft later that week, but that adventure is described in a paragraph below.
As mentioned before, all equipment had to be installed before the event of the weighing. That meant that we finally got to see the floor boards that I was working on during my second week were finally installed. It was nice to see them in place.
So, what was on the aircraft before the floats were installed? Well, the original factory made landing gear was there with us in the hangar. One of the mechanics had the task to pull the landing gear parts apart with an MAF designed pulling tool. (I didn’t see this tool in action, but I am amazed by the fact that many of the machinists and mechanics that come and volunteer are actually masters in what they do. They come up with and design specialized tools that then other companies purchase from them, which speaks volumes about the kind of service and expertise these people come with.) Once the landing gear was all apart it was the intern’s job to clean off all the sealant and primer that was used on the mating parts to glue the parts together and keep them from corroding. The tricky thing with this project was to remove the sealing element, but not the paint it was applied on top of. After experimenting with various scrapers, wheel grinders and various chemicals I got most of it off with not too much paint removed. After that I got to label the parts, as many as I could find part numbers for.
Towards the end of the week we finally got to weigh the Caravan! I got to be part of this procedure during the weighing process itself, which was interesting to say the least. The trick when weighing an aircraft at specific points is to get it level laterally and longitudinally, and this is specified by the manufacturer when the aircraft is level. Due to the construction of the float structure, we had to improvise how to jack the front of the aircraft. Located below the jack point was a bar that held the floats together which would interfere with any normal aircraft jack. Therefore a rig of a table, wooden blocks and a floor jack as shown in the picture. Not exactly standard procedure maybe, but it worked for our purposes. I had never before jacked an aircraft this big before, so I was a bit nervous in the beginning that the aircraft would come off the jacks and that the skin would be damaged. But as we began jacking, the contraption seemed stable enough to level the aircraft and we got a good reading. When the Caravan was set back on the ground I think we all could take a sigh of relief, but again I was laughing a bit internally about the simple and genius ingenuity of the mechanics I was working with.
My stay in Idaho has not all been in the maintenance hangar and with airplanes. Ministry would probably not mean very much if it was not also combined with engaging on some level with people and relationships. I got the opportunity to be part of some events during my internship. One of them was a bible study group that my host family had in their home one evening. I got to join the group and it was fun to see both old and young, new and old people to the faith come together and discover the word of God. Another opportunity I had was to go with a friend who is working in the member care department and primarily with the children of the MAF staff. I was invited to hang out with some missionary kid teenagers, which was very fun for me. Being a missionary kid myself it was awesome listening to their stories, allowing us all to be a little weird in a culture we do not always feel very home in. It moved me listening to this one boy’s story who had lived in a third world country all his life and now by the age of 16 moved to the country where he was citizen and where his parents were from. I remember too some of the sadness of leaving what was familiar and move to a place that supposedly is the place you originally belong to. If anything I hope I could at least be of any encouragement to these kids and I hope they see how they are all unique and valuable even though they may feel lost or confused in a world that seem like many.
Finally Friday came around and some of my new found friends took me out for pizza. Looking up to them as they are on their way to move to different parts of the world it was very honoring to me that they took the time for me to be part of their fellowship even to the last day. My experience would not have been as good as it was without them. I hope to see you all again and to hear about the adventures you’ve had.
The next day I packed up my bags and drove off to Spokane. There my wife was waiting with great anticipation. She had made me some Swedish bullar. Now life could start again, getting into new routines as a married couple. She is working teaching English to newcomers to the USA, I was on Monday back at Moody Aviation to finish my Commercial Pilot License.
Consider Adventure 
Proud of you
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