RUNNING MISSIONS IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA
20 Mar 13

Chris Evans is the CEO of Hamilton Aero Maintenance, a New Zealand-based company that provides a wide range of aviation services to private and commercial customers on an international scale. Evans recently came back from a trip he won’t soon forget, running missions in Papua New Guinea in a PT6-powered PAL P-750 XSTOL, a Niugini Aviation aircraft for which Hamilton Aero provides maintenance.

“Niugini Aviation use the aircraft for charter work primarily. Typical jobs are moving people from the highlands to the city and back. I was able to go on one of these trips. The landing strips in the highlands are usually pretty rough. On takeoff the reliability and power of the PT6 comes into its own... there are pretty much no second chances once you start moving.

Flying up to these highland villages early in the morning was just stunning! The sun coming up over the mountains, reflecting off the PAC 750 wings... the mist hovering in the valley was breathtaking.

The village I visited was at around 6000ft and cool and misty with that glorious rainbow following us all the way. The people were so friendly... when the plane landed they just appeared from everywhere to help unload and carry goods back to the village. It’s a team effort and a crucial event in the year... for some villages it’s the only delivery for up to two years.

Most but not all mountain villages have their own strip carved out of the mountainside. Flying over you’ll see pockets of villages high up on mountain peaks, each with their own landing strip. You might wonder why they don’t just share these strips but it can days to walk between villages, and sometimes inter-village tensions get in the way.

A fairly common charter service is carting betel nut. It’s grown in remote villages and then flown into the city where it’s sold on the street by local vendors. The nut is chewed, and it’s often compared to tobacco and coffee.

I went on a couple of “nut runs” while there. We were joined by another PT6-powered aircraft, a Cessna Grand Caravan. We flew over the Owen Stanley ranges through the famous Kokoda Gap, which is part of the Kokoda Trail, a focal point of the Second World War.

For the first run we flew over the top of the mountains because the weather was choppy. We climbed to 13000 ft to clear the ranges. The northern side of the mountains drops almost immediately from 12000 ft to sea level. It’s quite a thrill.

The next day we went to the same strip but the weather was perfect so we flew through the Kokoda Gap. It was incredible, especially considering how grueling it must have been 70-odd years ago.

I really appreciated the crew at Niugini Aviation taking me along for the ride. Our company is based in New Zealand and we do maintenance on these aircrafts in Papua New Guinea. Our engineers go up there when checks are due and carry out the work as required. Because of the reliability of the PT6 engine and the rugged build of the airframe the time between maintenance is really impressive considering the rough operating environment.”

Photos courtesy of Chris Evans

Source: http://www.pt6nation.com/member/passport/story/608