(The only electronic copy available was an early draft. The paper copy will be transcribed, someday.)
Breakfast Saturday, May 1st. at our hangar at Mt. Hawley Airport, around 8:00 AM. See you there!
May Meeting on Wednesday, the 12th. at 7:00 p.m. at our Chapter Hangar at Mt. Hawley Airport.
Our program for May is still unknown at this time. We were going to have Ray Lahood as our speaker, but he will be in session in Washington. We'll try to get him another time.
Last Month We met for a pot luck supper on Wednesday,April 14th at 7:00 p.m. in our Chapter Hangar at Mt. Hawley Airport. We had about 30 people there. I think we discovered the secret to good attendance, food!
Our guest speaker was Mark Borland, a missionary with the Wycliffe Bible Translators,and they are affilliated with the well known JAARS. They are the group that puts on the demonstration with the Helio Couriers at Osh Kosh every year.
Mark grew up around Peoria in the Farmington Road area. Went to school at Moody Aviation in Elizabethtown Tennessee where he learned to fly and work on airplanes. At intervals he came back to Peoria and worked at Mt. Hawley, Byerly Aviation, and at the Pekin airport doing flight instruction and aircraft maintenance.
Mark and his family has spent several years in Columbia flying the bible translators all over the country. When they translate the bible into a native language it takes about twelve years, aand in some cases they literally build a written language from scratch.While doing this they will provide a dictionary, grammar, and other tools of language for the host government. Imagine trying to learn a language without anything written down.
As a missionary pilot mark has hauled pigs, goats, cows, and on one particular flight he carried about 600 chickens in a Cessna 206, that would do something for your concentration. In some cases they have even had the passenger count increase inflight.
Several years ago they acquired GPS's as part of their navigation equipment and this has taken a lot of work and uncertainy out of their cross country trips. Before, Mark said, it was not unlike your first student crosscountry every time you took off.
His flying has been almost uneventful except for a time he landed on a very rough and short strip (240 meters) and broke a gear leg off, which also damaged the prop and a flap. Two days later, with repairs made, he continued on his journey.
Another time, while bringing a Navaho back to the states and just at the point of no return an engine started acting up. They finally had to feather it just short of their destination, Montego Bay. Four days later and repairs made they continued on to the U.S.
Mark and his family will be moving to Tennessee so he can teach at Moody Aviation for a couple of years, then back to the mission field.
Also, I'm not sure how to word this, but there several in our midst that would like to give something to the missionary that spoke at our last meeting in April, so lets take up a collection at the next breakfast and send it as a group. His only means of support for he and his family is from donations and the church. Maybe this chapter could help support this mission. Think about it.
I thought you might like a bit of news for your newsletter about one of your members - Mac F. C. McLaughlin. We (I'm lucky enough to be included, also) are going to Italy on the 13th of April to accompany a Captain on his last flight for TWA before his mandatory retirement.
He had come to Mac when he was 16 years old to learn to fly and from then to present, Mac has been his mentor, etc. He worked for Mac at the old Mt. Hawley as a lineboy, flight instructor, etc. before being hired by TWA and serving in the Guard. Many of you fellows may know him - Frank Scahill.
Anyway, this is his way of saying 'Thank You' to Mac for all he has done. His last flight for TWA will be on the 16th from Milan, Italy to New York. Aren't we lucky!!
Jean McLaughlin
New AME Bruce Chien has received his AME and is now giving Flight physicals.
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