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The two-day “Aviation Seminar” wrapped up this morning out at the airstrip. The A&P (Airframe & Powerplant, i.e. airplane mechanic) students put together a fun documentary of their time last year, complete with an overly bombastic soundtrack and some other nice flourishes. A church-planting missionary couple gave a presentation for the next couple of hours and shared about their time in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, flying to totally isolated people groups up in the mountains whose only access to the outside world is by air. The missionaries would fly in, befriend the locals, get to know their language, minister to their needs–physical, medical, and eventually spiritual–and do this from village to village on the mountainsides of the country over a span of many years. Amazing stuff to hear about.

During breaks and fellowship time I walked around at got some images of the place that will essentially be my second home for the next 4-5 years. I will get to know its intricacies and resident personalities very well.

Looking south from the main parking lot towards the A&P complex. The old classrooms and workshops are in the foreground, and the brand new A&P hangar is in the background. The runway runs north-south to my left (out of view) and the administrative building is directly behind me.

Looking north from the other side of the admin building. That’s the north end of the runway. You can see why go-arounds can be a bit more tricky in that direction (read: the trees).

The illustrious flight office, where the CFIs’ (certified flight instructors) offices are.

The main aviation hangar. Fairly new.

The Cessna 180 sitting in the hangar, recently washed and waxed. It’s a pretty airplane, but evidently quite a handful to fly and especially to land, what with the tailwheel landing gear arrangement. Landing an aircraft with the steering gear behind the main gear is a bit like trying to drive your car backwards at 50 mph–you have to pay attention to it otherwise it will get away from you and swing around (negative dynamic stability).

Faux-artistic shot of the back of the 180.

A Cessna Skylane RG. This one is parked in the hangar behind the 180 and is the first high-performance, “complex” airplane we’ll fly, which just means it has over 200 hp, retractable gear, and a controllable-pitch prop. By all accounts it’s a very nice plane to fly.

Detail of the retractable nose gear.

What I’ll be training on, the ubiquitous Cessna 172. We had a preflight briefing on this plane last Thursday, where we learned to preflight the aircraft, scrutinizing it to make sure it is completely airworthy before flight.

Engine detail from another nearby 172 that had the cowling removed. 4-cyl, air-cooled flat twin. Same configuration as a Volkswagen Beetle (the old kind) engine. Much older technology, but it doesn’t break.

Back of engine. The all-important (for an air-cooled engine) oil cooler is visible.

Looking down the runway to the south from the north end. It’s very narrow, much more narrow than most runways in the U.S. But if we can perfect our landings on this, we can really land on most anything out there.

There’s a plane on short final (i.e. about to land) just beyond the edge of the runway. You can see the landing light on the wing.

The airplane landed. A brand new 172 (2004 model, at least) flown in by one of the attendees of the Aviation Seminar. Pretty airplane.

I took the opportunity to take a couple more pictures of it once it taxied in and parked.

More new 172.

Inside the new A&P hangar. Brand new. I’ll be taking my A&P year next year and will use this facility exclusively.

Outside the new hangar.

Some of the engines I’ll be tearing down completely and rebuilding next year. These both run (not at the same time).

More engines. The jet engine in the background will be disassembled down to the individual nuts and bolts and completely rebuilt. I’m looking forward to that :)

Aerial photograph of the whole facility. Looking north.

A bulletin board in the admin building with many missionaries’ prayer cards and newsletters. If you’re familiar with the Cessna 150 you’ll understand the irony of the statement near the bottom. It’s a dinky little plane.

Yours truly. And windsock.