I made a blog post about the significance of the Kodiak in March of 2008, and you can see it by scrolling down to the blog archive. I had heard that MAF already had a Kodiak delivered to them. What I did not know is that they have three, and the fourth one is on the way. So when I went into the hangar today there were two Kodiaks parked in there. What a cool sight!
I said in the March 08 post, but I want to mention it again. These are cool looking (and performing) airplanes, but that's not what excites me about them. What excites me is what they are going to do, and how effectively and efficiently these things are built to do it! Each one of these airplanes is going to impact many lives!!
So one of the two Kodiaks in the hangar is getting ready to get flown to Indonesia to begin its service. The flight over is known as a "ferry flight." What they do is put two huge cube shaped metal tanks in the cargo area and fill them with fuel, and with the fuel in those tanks as well as the airplanes normal fuel tanks, the plane has enough range to make it overseas. I thought it was really cool to see those ferry tanks installed and I tried to capture them with the camera:
From the front of the airplane:
It's kind of hard to see what's really going on there, but they are two big cubical tanks that hold 200 gallons of fuel apiece.
And from the rear:
You can kind of see those tanks in there, but you can also see that HUGE cargo door! This airplane can carry somewhere around three thousand pounds of cargo. That's alot. It will carry over a ton of cargo into some of the smallest and most remote airstrips in the world
And here's a picture of the "avionics" in the airplane, or the instrument panel which is state of the art:
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Yesterday they had the engine compartments open performing maintenance.
MAF is expecting its fifth Kodiak airplane soon as well, and i hear they plane to have ten by the end of next year. I had no idea they were getting so many so fast. How exciting! I knew they had 20 originally on order, but I figured that would take over a decade to fill, but they are filling it fast! God is providing for the making and sending out of these wonderful machines.
How do these planes compare to the ones I will probably flying right away? MAF's fleet of some 140 airplanes is made up of mostly Cessna 206's. They had a few parked in their other hangar room. Here's a look:
Yeah it bears a resemblance to a simple Cessna 172. It is much more capable though, with a huge side cargo door and the capability to carry over a thousand pounds of cargo. This is the type of airplane I will be doing my flight evaluation next week (and this might even be the very one!)
How is the evaluation going so far? I think it has been going really well. I honestly was much more worried about the maintenance portion of the evaluation than the flight (though I've been preparing hard for both) but I feel I have been doing much better than I have expected to do on the maintenance portion. I was worried because my maintenance training was so long ago, but i am building an even deeper respect for my school because during the test, so many things that were taught to me are coming back to me. I am also seeing the value of prayer as I have been evaluated on many specific things that I have run across and had my memory refreshed right before it popped up.
