Things a pilot does when he lives remotely

Ryan’s full-time job is as a pilot. Most people would know what that involves, obviously, flying a plane and all the things on the ground that he does to prepare to fly a plane…

But living in Telefomin, possibly MAF International’s most remote pilot base, there are a lot of things he does which aren’t anything to do with flying a plane. He does these things because he’s almost the only person living in Telefomin and working for MAF, who knows how to!

We do have wonderful support from our MAF colleagues in Mt Hagen, who send a maintenance team out several times a year, and who visit the base to check on things. But sometimes problems come up that just need to be dealt with more quickly.

Just what you’d expect, a pilot preparing his paperwork for the day of flying ahead.

Ryan gathering his tools to go and reinforce the Cargo Shed on a Saturday afternoon after a storm blew a wall loose and it was threatening to fall off, leaving customer cargo unsecured and risking falling onto someone’s head!

Fixing the base water pump. Without the water pump, it becomes very challenging to flush the toilet or wash your hands. So Ryan had to delay his take-off to take a part off the water pump in our empty transit house to make sure the base team could still have access to water during the day.

Mouse catcher! After we had new security doors fitted, they left a gap under them (because our doorframes aren’t square), which let rodents in. They were too small to set off the rat traps we have, so Ryan baited one and rigged a line so he could trigger it when a mouse went inside, and it worked!

The following week, Ryan fitted a 1cm high piece of wood in our door frames front and back, to make sure our tiny visitors couldn’t get in again!

IT support. If the base printer or wifi network stops working, our work grinds to a halt, so Ryan often deals with technical issues to keep the Telefomin team connected and to try to avoid the HQ IT staff travelling to Tele unless it’s a big problem.

Shiv’s birthday cake maker! He’s become quite capable in the kitchen and knows how much I enjoy being sung to on my birthday!

Ryan flying his C208 Caravan, just about to turn to land at Telefomin. You can see the airstrip just above his iPad (Also known as the pilots’ Electronic Flight Bag (EFB)).