Humanitarian Flying.

[LUCKY-1]

G'day people, just wondering if anyone knows where hamanitarian organisations such as the UNHCR, MSF, Red Cross and similar, source their pilots from?

Or if anyone has done this kind of thing before and know who i can talk to i'd love to hear from ya.

Thanks. Jarv

[Rapide1]

Hi there Lucky1, a quick answer for you;
There are many South African companies, some good, some bad, that make up the bulk of this type of flying these days...plus a lot of former "Eastern European" aircraft too:)
Because a lot of the SA companies seem to close(and re open!) regularly, I can't give you a list of the currently operating ones...try researching on the African forum.
Others include AirServ (US), Zimex (CH), if you have a JAR licence try Zimex (although the only humanitarian flying they do is 1 DHC6 in Sudan these days I think) As I mentioned before, try searching the African forum, lots of info there.
Good luck,it can be a lot of fun,lots of hard work,rewarding,frustrating...you name it:}...don't do it for the money:)

Cheers

[kestrel539]

Hi,
I used to work with MSF, they did not ( 10 years ago) have their own pilots, just used to hire any local who they thought knew what he was doing.

Red Cross would only use Swiss nationals, but this may have changed.
There is also an organisation called Pilots without Borders that may still be around.
Very very stressfull, you can end up seeing things you rather wish you had not, but on the other hand, very rewarding at times.

[neville_nobody]

Alot of humanitarian flying is done by the military as they are the only guys that have the equipment. Often the UN draft military operators to assist in their aid relief programs. In reality you ain't going to be of much assistance in a humanitarian crisis with a bugsmasher.

[LUCKY-1]

Ta, was on the RAF Herc force for 7 yrs, into/out of angola, congo, rwanda and somalia, but actually saw lots of non military ops, just never got the chance to find out more from them at the time.

Have done further research and turns out theres a few around... Aviation Sans Frontiere, a french NGO, Air Serv, contracted by MSF, Red Cross/Crescent and Zim...they operate mainly vans, twotters, king airs and 1900's...looks like the go!

Getting a bit jaded/bored with the hum-drum...non appresiative SLF bull crap...time to move on i recon!

Ta guys. :ok:

[Oz_TB10]

Hey there,

I'm keen on doing this for a while. If anyone has any contacts, please to put it up for all.

Thanks

[LUCKY-1]

Air Serv international (http://www.airserv.org)

Pilots - Zimex Aviation Ltd. (http://www.zimex.ch/home/career/pilots.aspx)

www.asf.org ...or something like that...it's aviation sans frontieres, whack that in google and it'll come up with the site.

:ok:

[B190]

Regarding South African Operators

Balmoral Operate B200,B190 C&D models and Helos from Kabul

Saafair operate C130s in Afghanistan and Africa.

Other SA operators that I think are still running are Naturelink, Solenta, NAC,
Air Aquarius (Jets and Turboprops)

Their websites etc should be freely available.

[ga_trojan]

Wow Zimex have some ridiculously low minimums to be flying oil people around!! In Australia you'd need almost 4 times those hours.

[j3pipercub]

Thought that all looked like fun until they stipulate JAR licenses, a lot of work to convert it across