Some of you have probably heard us talk about the Kodiak aircraft at one time or another. It is a newly designed aircraft that is more than just a cool airplane. It is going to be a very big blessing for mission and humanitarian flying organizations. It is designed specifically for ruggedness, safety, and economy. It is the answer to a worldwide crisis that is coming upon backcountry air carriers, that is the drastic decline of the availability of "avgas" that most piston-powered aircraft rely upon. The Kodiak is powered by a turbine engine, which means it operates on jet fuel. Jet fuel is very readily available all over the world, and in many places it is a third to a fourth of the cost of avgas. This plane will bring safety, more carrying capacity, the drastically increased economy of jet fuel, and remarkable short field takeoff and landing performance. It will be able to get to those little 1000 foot airstrips in the middle of the jungle. I am so excited about this airplane because of the type of blessing it will be to those living in isolation. If you have the time and the interest here is a video done by the Kodiak's makers, the Quest aircraft company. The big missionary aviation organizations have tens of these airplanes on order, hoping and praying to get them available, made, funded and sent out as soon as possible. Would you pray for the Kodiak's distribution? It seems silly to pray for something like an airplane. But when you understand what this plane will mean to those living in the third world, I don't think it is silly.
If you're still reading, imagine a Kodiak being rolled into the "bone yard" for retirement after fifty years of use. Imagine if that plane had a resume attatched to its wing of all the things that its cargo accomplished. In a typical day that plane could evacuate a villager with an emergency medical condition, deliver a team of doctors to an isolated village to run a clinic, deliver much needed food or medicine to a village in dire need, and bring a team of bible translators in or out of a place where they are working, and maybe finish off the day by flying a well digging crew and their supplies into a place so they can make fresh water available to a village. At the end of that single day the airplane may have saved its passengers weeks of difficult and dangerous travel by foot or over dangerous roads and enabled them to bring supplies they otherwise wouldn't have been able to bring. If a typical day for the Kodiak is anything like that, imagine what a blessing each one will be over the decades it is in service!
