A peek at MAF

We got acquainted with MAF's headquarters yesterday, and we wanted to give you a look.  MAF moved their headquarters here to Nampa Idaho a few years ago.  They were in Southern California, and the cost of being there drove them to seek somewhere more in-expensive.  It just so happens they do alot of their advanced flight training right up here in Idaho, so they moved their headquarters to Nampa (just outside of boise).  They have a cool facility, and some really cool airplanes to see there, but MAF is not about the cool buildings or about cool airplanes.  They are about the lives that are changed in remote parts of the world through what they do.  

This is what you see when you first walk in the doors.  Click on it and enlarge it, and you will see the different operations there at the headquarters.

The building is laid out "like an airplane" with two wings on either side, a middle section, and a tail that is an auditorium that serves as a lunchroom, chapple, and a rental hall for the community.  Here is a view of one of the "wings."

If you walk around the wings you find many interesting things.  There are many cultural artifacts around for decoration.  There's also some cool airplane models.  Here's a model of the new MAF Kodiak.

At the entrance they also have a neat exhibit.  For those of you who know the story of the 5 missionaries who were killed in south america in 1956 this will have some significance.  This airplane frame shown here (with a big print of the actual sandbar where the event happened) contains pieces of nate saint's actual airplane (the plane was in actual worse shape than this and they had to weld it together a little bit to make it look at least a little bit like an airplane) but these are the actual pieces of Nate Saints airplane recovered more than three decades after the event.

Here's a look at the "hangar" building from the front, where all the planes are parked, the maintenance training and flight training takes place:


A break for now, but more about the maintenance hangar in the next post!