Matt and Becki Dillingham

Training and Preparation

Good news! Its taken 4 months but my Chadian Pilot's Licence Validation was finally issued this week! I haven't flown since my test flights when we first arrived in Chad and its been much longer since I was flying regularly so I'm feeling a little rusty. Aviation rules state that I must have completed 3 take-offs and landings in the last 90 days to be allowed to carry passengers, so it was time to get some practice and become current again!

Having not yet flown to the South of Chad, Andrew (MAF Chad's supervisory pilot) and I devised a plan to fly down to Baili to practice some landings and then come back. Next week a medical safari is planned and Baili will be one of the stops so it was a good chance for us to check out the condition of the airstrip before it needs to be used in earnest next week. We will also need extra fuel in a nearby town of Tchaguine so we planned a stop there as well. Tchaguine is home to a long term missionary family who have been serving in the village for 26 years! Knowing how remote Tchaguine is and how little fresh food is available we offered to bring some vegetables down. This offer was gladly accepted and 39kgs of fresh vegetables, salad, meat, new plates and toys for the local children also came on the flight.

Near to Baili, just north of the river is another town called Boudamasa, where another missionary family are looking to open up a new airstrip. A team will travel down this weekend to assess the site but as it was almost en-route, we also took the opportunity to see how the land lies. Apparently we caused quite a stir as the sight of the MAF plane caused people to knock on the door of the missionary family's house to tell them that we were coming!

Planned location of the airstrip - not much to see yet!

Baili is just over an hour from N'Djamena in the Cessna 182. We did a low pass to check the condition of the airstrip before landing and noted a couple of people stood to the side. Locals had obviously been preparing for next weeks visit as the strip was in excellent condition. As we didn't need to drop anything at Baili we kept the engine running, taxied to the end of the runway and turned around to takeoff again. In the time it took from landing to being ready to be airborne again everyone who lived in the surrounding area had decided to come and see what was going on and the runway was filled by a swarm of people coming down to see the aircraft. We had to sit for 10 minutes waiting for them all to make their way down to our end, where a few guys with sticks took it upon themselves to provide crowd control and keep them away from the aircraft.

Waiting to take off at Baili

Next stop was Tchaguine to meet the family there, unload the vegetables and de-fuel 100 litres of Jet A1 into a fuel drum ready for next week. Again the whole village came to see what was going on, but in a more controlled manner! The missionaries there came prepared with a rope that everyone had to hold and stand behind (although the goats weren't so well behaved and did run across the runway as we were approaching).

On the way back we practised an instrument approach at N'Djamena as one of the biggest challenges of flying in Chad is low visibility due to dust. It was great to be up in the air again and it was good to combine the training with a delivery of fuel and food.

Crowd control at Tchaguine

Finally get to fly a MAF plane again!

Spot the plane!