Mercy Air Finished

Last Saturday brought the maintenance part  of the Mercy Air helicopter project to a close.  After several test flights the aircraft was deemed ready for giving rides.

The kids absolutely loved their time in the copter.  

 Matthias flew us out over our house, made a few laps around our farm and headed on.

 It was also my first ride in a helicopter and I was very surprised at how much different  the flight felt as compared to that of a small plane.  It was much smoother and more quiet.  All around just a better ride.

 That is one happy kid!  Hannah is in the background.

 Monday morning we started taking the copter apart for shipment.  The tail boom had to be removed, the rotor, blades and gear box needed to be pulled.  Rear horizontal and vertical also had to be removed.  Everything either had a custom crate fabricated or was wrapped in bubble wrap and stretch wrap.

The whole helicopter was the wrapped in stretch wrap, tarped and cargo netted.  A flat bed trailer will be in to pick it up later today and take it to Columbus. The whole thing will be shipped by air to South Africa on a 747 tomorrow.  So sometime next week the reassembly will start with its first mission scheduled for the end of this month.

Through the use of this tool lives will be saved, the gospel preached and the kingdom advanced.  One day in heaven you will meet someone who will share their testimony and this helicopter will be part of that story and all of us will have a hand in that story.  I don not mean us the pilots and mechanics only but us being anyone who worked on this project, prayed for this project or supported this project financially either directly or by giving to those who did the work.  There are quite possible thousands upon thousands of people who each played some part in the work this tool will do.