UNICEF etc Flying

[mustflywillfly]

Dear All,

Any of you fine peeps know if there are any operators out there specifically concentrating on Aid / Medical flights in Africa et al. Also do they offer any training in return for unpaid volunteer employment?

Coming from the Armed Forces I dearly want to get back in the air but doing something for the greater good. I know, sounds a little sad but if all else fails then I would still be happy landing my first job doing Air Taxi if needs be for a faceless profit making organisation. Beggars can't be choosers and all that.

Thanks for any help or direction.

MFWF:ok:

[welliewanger]

Hi MFWF
There's loads of flying to be done in Africa etc. If you want to do the aid type flying the biggest organization I know of is MAF (mission aviation fellowship) but a lot of people begrudge them for being a Christian organization so there's certain "barriers to entry"! They fly Pilatus PC12 I think. Apart from that there's loads of air charter / air taxi companies in Africa, but I think that you generally have to be there to get the jobs. I've looked into this myself and a place called Maun in Botswana kept on popping up. If you can get yourself down there, license in hand it sounds like there's loads of potential.

HTH
Welliewanger

[mustflywillfly]

Cheers Wellie!

[JONNY99]

Its maybe the same organisation that wellie mentioned but ther was a large article in July's Pilot mag about "Missionary Flights International" - missionaryflights.org. They were flying aid from Florida to Haiti in DC3s. Dunno if you can get an old article from their website or not.

[Jelly Doughnut]

MFWF, most of the so-called humanitarian flying (UN, Red Cross) is sub-contracted to commercial operators, so you need to find employment wiith one of them... I've been out of that scene a few years now, but a lot of these companies are (were?) based in South Africa, to name a few King Air Services, NorseAir, Naturelink, AirQuarius. Also Transafrik in Angola and Zimex, based in Switzerland. Don't have any contact details to hand but do a search on the Africa forum, should be helpful. Good luck and enjoy, it is some of the best flying you will ever do.
JD

[angelorange]

Also have a look at Flying Mission in Botswana and Zambia, AirServ, believe Save the Children also have their own Cessna Caravan in Kenya, AIM and Samartitans Purse also there.

Many of these groups have church sponsorship but MAF is most established. MAF has 3 main regional HQs : Americas, Africa/EU and Asia/Australia.All the best

[PPRuNeUser0215]

It is not unsual for pilots working for this type of organisation to be self supported. You need to raise funds from your community so a fair bit of devotion/commitment is normally necessary.
Being an engineer is often a must too.

UN work is different and one should definitely turns himelf towards commercial operators.
Flying Mission in Bots used to be made up by North American only. It was a few years ago so perhaps it has changed. Of course there was a rumour going round as to why US citizens only needed to apply...

[angelorange]

Whilst true that FM Bots had quite a few US aviators this was mostly down to good netwrok of support from US Sponsors. In fact teh Bots CAA is ore like UK CAA with regards licences.

Other than that FM has no preference for US, EU, Asian or African pilots.

It was started by a Scottish doctor / MBE in the early 1970s with a single C185 when Bots had just 10 miles of tarmac roads in a country the size of France or Texas. Now they have 6 machines from C206 C210 C421 and King Air with Kodiak on order.

Best

[Snakecharmer]

Try www.solenta.com

I've just finished working for them - they do a number of contracts for the aid agencies etc.

I'm also ex-Armed Forces and went to Africa with an open mind... although I didn't do any flying for 'the greater good' (mine was purely commercial) I gained the firm impression from those colleagues who did that it's a bit of a lost cause and that most of the agencies know that they're not doing the things that'll make a real difference so you could end up disappointed... unless facilitating continent-level cultural change happens to be your speciality in life!