saving the world one lift at a time

[maudlin]

I've been watching PPrune and this forum for years and never posted but what the heck...

Let's say you were the kind of helo pilot that had always wanted to do more than just fly tourists around a rock or roustabouts to a rig. Let's say you wanted to get out and make a tiny contribution to this mad planet through your skids and the thought of domestic EMS seemed a bit too gentrified and tame. Let's say you had this idea about flying for International Red Cross or the UN or something somewhere that might someday make a jot of difference. Let's say your eyeseight prohibited you from joining the defence so civilian flying was the only way.

What company would you fly for? What requirements would you need?

[CYHeli]

I thought that UN pilots were peace keepers on secondment from the various armed forces.

The other most common activity is disaster relief and aid agencies. Again, the largest supplier of aircraft is the miliatry, eg the helicopter (Sea King??) that crashed in Aceh whilst assisting with the tsunami relief was from the Australian Navy. If eye sight is a problem, I think these options are out, pity though, because it sounds exactly what you are looking for.

An often missed option is working with the various church bodies. One that I know of is Mission Aviation Fellowship (M.A.F.) MAF USA has helicopters, but MAF Oz does not. An associated company is Jungle Aviation and radio Service (JAARS).
http://www.maf.org/ is the US link.
http://www.jaars.org/aviation04/avia_home.shtml is the JAARS aviation link. Most of their work is done under the banner of assisting missionaries and bible translators, but they also do jungle EMS stuff, simply because they are there. JAARS run a longranger. I don't know what MAF are using. MAF looks for 1000 hours for the plane drivers, I don't know what the hours are for helicopter, other than I didn't have them last time I looked!

If you do a search on Google you may find something.

These agencies use CPL holders only, no private pilots, so you will still have to pass the class one med.

Using this site is a great way to get more info.
(Edited to add web links)

[170']

Maudlin


You don't get employed as a UN pilot....Mil or civilian. You just end up getting a job somewhere (mil/civ) that ends up being UN or NGO work.

You apply for a job with an operator, and then you're told it's gonna be in place X...Now you're a UN or NGO pilot.

When the contract, emergency or whatever is over. You're likely to find yourself back on seismic, fires or unemployed..Just the facts!..

When I say the emergency is over. It means when the money allocated has run out. Or the agency has found a sexier gig, with more media exposure. This gives them another run at the donors..

Typically the program will be at it's most important phase, right about the time they pull the plug on it!

The NGO/UN/WHO deal, is a business, period...Typically achieving nothing but keeping us in work.. Us being everyone from the pilots to the logisticians on site, and the immense infrastructure supported by the agencies..

Basically, and with few exceptions. The people who benefit most from Aid work, are the Charities, organizations and contractors...

I have been involved in helo/FW aid work since 1978 on and off. I didn't look for it. Just the way it played out...I can honestly say in the many, many hours I've flown on aid operations around the world. The feel good times, have been outnumbered 100:1 by the sense of frustration,shame and guilt you feel as the program winds down ...

I'm not a bleeding heart. No way, Never!...But even the hardest heart gets a going over, when you witness the sh*t one human puts on another around the world..Throw in 'acts of god' and it's not a real pretty place.

I suppose I have to make a concession here. And that's to the religious front...MAF and their like...Those guys for the most part, seem to have slightly better results sometimes. But only after many years in location.

But the result is at a price..That price is religion! Take it or take it!

So to get back to your question...If you still want to assist this planet, and think that aviation is a way to do it. I'd say good luck to you!

No operator outside the Church groups gives a sh*t about your personal objectives. But you can tailor your training to suit the machines utilized by operators that try to specialize in aid work.

If 'service' is a priority, you'd be better flying FW...Programs are longer, get streamlined with time, and offer more stability to you as pilot..

If you take this route, get as much tailwheel time as possible, still some 185's and Porters around on aid work. Which is where you'd start.

I can't remember their name, and I'm too lazy to chase it up. But there's a church outfit in Indon that used to take "non committed" on a demand basis, flying C185 and Porters..(that's 3 years old so could have changed) They had plans to get a couple of jetrangers...(no idea of your religious stance? ergo I state the non committed bit)

If you are in fact a committed Christian, the Church groups would be the way to go. But make sure your committment is the real thing. I know a lot of these guys well, and they reluctantly accept my agnosticism. but will spot the 'convenient' Christian every time...No offence intended by this.
It's only human nature that a borderline situation can go either way, depending on what's up for grabs! :O

Follow the UN website, also WHO, MSF etc to find out what's cooking and where. Plus they give a guesstimate from time to time, on upcoming areas of interest....Interpolate the info and approach likely operators.

A word of caution though. The 'new age' hasn't always caught up to commercial operators, and anything about service to the world community. Or anything "fashionably sensitive" could get you left on the shelf...Keep it simple !...........Show me the money :E

http://www.who.int/research/en/...http://www.msf.org/

Good luck...170'

[maudlin]

All interesting, thanks. I didn't mention I was an ATPL(H) pilot with twin turbine time mostly b/c I didn't think it was too relevant to the discussion and also b/c, whatever requirements are needed, I'd make it happen.

CYHeli, my health's fine for Class 1 Medicals, just not good enough for Army.

170, you talk about frustration/guilt ratios of 100:1. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Sad that even aid is distributed according to the rule of best media exposure. It's just after years of flying people around rigs and watching poor countries get poorer while me and the multi-nationals gets richer, I was trying to figure out some way to give something back...it's not that I think aviation is necessarily the way to do it, it's just that all I know how to do is turn a blade. My current frustration ratio is 100:0, so, all things being equal, I'd still be having a win...:hmm:

Am I a Christian? Yep. No worries there. But MAF are notorious in PNG for shoddy maintenance, gross mismanagement and flying over-loaded (don't know about their other areas of operation). So how can it be that MAF get better results? Can you expand on that a bit?

Anyhow, while the church thing might be the way to go, I can't see the spouse sharing my sense of adventure about permanently relocating to jungleville. It'd have to be a touring position, I guess.

Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to give a bit of a picture of what's out there. I'm off to look up those links you provided. :8
Cheers.

[Geoffersincornwall]

My 18 months flying for the UN left me totally depressed at the waste and corruption. If you don't want to be disillusioned suggest you give the UN a wide berth,

G

:uhoh:

[170']

Maudlin

Sorry guy!

Your original post sounded like you were just getting your feet wet. I suspect there's not much I can tell you about the big bad world!

Yeah! PNG's a bit of a lost cause I admit.

An example you'll relate to:

Over the PNG border in Jayawijaya province, we had a XXX project during one of the malaria epidemics...(mortality/morbidity 65% in a couple of places) where Malaria was taken up to really high villages, with no local malaria resistance.

El Nino effect changing the vector, falciparum malaria, swine flu,and a few cases of haemorrhagic fever..

They (named witheld to protect me) delivered 400 tons of Rice for distribution to the high villages by slingload. We told the country desk, that they don't eat rice, have never seen it..Have no pots suitable for boiling rice, and live 6000' above the nearest reliable watersource.

We took it out and distributed it, even the kampong buzzards wouldn't eat it...Next they sent thousands of shovels (ex russian army) which fell apart in the nets on delivery ..irreparable

Next we flew an XXX medical team out to a really remote village...High Mortality..Epidemiologist narrowed it down to around 50 possible causes..

Found a really sick girl, maybe 9 years old with high temp,rigors etc..Kin all dead....Typical scene with the arse grass cord buried into the flesh and then healed over. suffering from major scabies...In fact a typical scene from any remote village anywhere in the region, except the high fever.

Called base on HF and explained situation...Was told:

"Under no circumstance must you transport the patient"

"We would be obliged to return her to the village if she survives, and we don't know if that will be possible, economics, availability etc..."

I transported the kid anyway, the Doctor on site said she was gonna die if we didn't...

Got torn a new one when we got back, all the base crew were on a CYA exercise, and the whole thing got blown out of proportion...

I was accused of not seeing the big picture, and of overstepping my authority..."You're not a Doctor, and not part of the medical team"
your job is to transport the medical team..Period..em tasol

The Doctor was read the riot act, and suitable notes would have been made in her file somewhere.....BTW the kid died, but that's not the point.

When you've wasted thousands of dollars, flying lots of hours in a medium helo..delivering rice to people who don't eat it, don't want it, and can't trade it..

What's the drama in flying 1.3 and maybe saving a little kids life?...

Big Picture my ass!

Ok, It's a very simplistic small story. But consistant with my experience of Aid work...

This particular program ended up with not enough money to continue. But they flew off every last dime on BS missions prior to bailing out.

A more interesting gig had attracted donor attention...if there's a surplus at the end of any program, you obviously asked for too much money..So next go-round...It'll be harder to get the donor money...

MAF don't normally take on emergency work, unless it's co-incidentally
in-theatre.

A typical Missionary aviation set-up (not just MAF) is that they work from a fixed base, servicing outlying communities, which either have or had a fixed Church presence.

They've been involved in everything from education; eg: helping the community build and man a schoolhouse. Providing grass roots medical services..through to providing transport for Agricultural aid agencies..pretty expansive programs around the world if you consider how many similar agencies exist...I've never done this kind of work, but just observation from seeing them around..

I not religious, but admire some of the progress these guys have made in their longer term programs..in terms of health and wellbeing issues.

Lets face it, the majority of people in the world need all the help they can get!

170

[maudlin]

Stories of wasted aid funds like yours make me wonder why the hell anyone bothers at all. Heard a similar one where a container load of wheelchairs was delivered to a village that didn't have sealed roads let alone any wheelchair friendly facilities. It's so bloody ironic. Sorry to hear the little kid died, BTW, those kind of things really make me want to thump someone. Don't you have any stories with happy endings? Throw me a frickin' bone here! :{

Ahh, maybe I just wori-wori tumas samting nating.

Or maybe it's time to switch from pilot to politician - move over Johnny Howard...:}

BTW, I'm not religious either, can't stand the idea. I just reckon JC had the balls to get it right.

Maudlin.