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Say for example, our mission for today is to
transport ministry workers to a location 60 nautical
miles (NM) from our base in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala; a
flight duration of about 30 minutes. In this
country, driving to the same location could take hours,
depending on the condition of the mountain roads that
are winding and steep. Many hold the image that
everybody and everything is just piled into the airplane
and away we go; good imagery, but that's Hollywood.
In reality, the flying part is the end result of many
hours of painstaking preparation. The terrain here
in the western highlands of Guatemala is unforgiving to
say the least. Mountain, volcano, narrow steep
valley, and of course unpredictable weather, are all
factors that are left out of the movie version of the
mission. The pilot must be well trained,
experienced, level headed, emotionally, and physically
prepared; but that's another story. Given that
these and other factors are met, let's look at what it
takes for the aircraft to be up to the task.
Airplanes are constantly being inspected by pilot and
mechanic to ensure all systems are operating safely.
The idea being: fix it before it is worn to the point of
failure. This means special tools and equipment
are needed to determine if a part is still useable.
In addition, special records are kept to determine when
it is time to replace life-limited items. All this
and more go into making sure the 30 minute flight
operation saves and not costs lives.
Click on the links below,
there you can read about some of the routine, and not so
routine maintenance occurrences.
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