RIDE TO FLY - 23 April 2010

It is now nearly 6 months since our journey from Cape Reinga to Bluff began. Little did we know some of the hiccups ahead of us, but neither did we know the great things that we would witness. First of all, we want to thank you each one for the part you played. Without your support and promotion, the Ride would never have taken place.

In a letter from MAF Asia Pacific, the Executive Officer, Vaughan Woodward, writes :
The MAF New Zealand contribution of NZ$49,079.58 in 2010 toward the purchase of a turbo-charged GA8, is valued and much appreciated.

Following fundraising, manufacture and delivery, the aircraft was deployed to Wewak on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea in October 2009. In the last two months of 2009, the MAF New Zealand funded aircraft, P2-MFL, made a significant contribution in the delivery of aid and development capacity, flying a total of 9.5% of the Wewak base total work.
(P2-MFL is the PNG registration for the new GA8 AirVan).

The aircraft is used to fly from the coastal township into the mountainous interior of PNG providing many remote communities with access to the essentials of life. Here, the turbo-charged engine delivers the performance necessary for operations into short airstrips at high altitude.

During the two months of its operational flying in 2009 the MAF New Zealand funded aircraft has:

• Flown 11 patients and their carers on emergency medical evacuation flights
• Flown 167 hours over 278 flights, the majority of which were visits to remote communities (averaging over 5 flights per day)
• Carried over 490 passengers in and out of remote communities facilitating both government services and business development
• Carried nearly 9,100 kgs of freight (such as food, building materials, medical and educational supplies) to remote communities
• Moved over 30 teachers and education workers (and their families)
• Transported 6 health care workers and 383 kg of health care materials

Since this transfer was made some weeks ago, further donations for the Ride to Fly event, have come in, bringing the latest total in excess of $50,000.

Further presentations have been made at St Peter's Anglican Church, Katikati, Greenwood Park Retirement Village Tauranga, with plans for another at Omokoroa Baptist (2nd May), and The Orchard - Te Puke (June/July).

Following on from these, MAF in Queensland, have requested that we attend a “Ride To Fly” event which they are promoting in Brisbane, on 11th September. This is to be a Discovery Day for folk interested in MAF generally, or for those with a view to serving with MAF. Frank has been asked for a presentation at the end of the ride, telling the story of the DOT and to encourage those who are interested in flying and support services.

If possible, they would like to have the DOT bike there to take part, but this will depend on costs. For this event MAF Queensland have asked to use the Ride To Fly logo with a change of colours, from the old Yellow and Black, to Red and Blue which would then be in line with the current MAF colours. We have agreed to this and MAF NZ will now Trade Mark this logo.