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Published: April 17th 2009
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the Rich's
Cheryl, David, Carl - it's because of them that we are in the Philippines We left Beijing mid-morning Sunday for our overnight train to Guangzhou (AKA Canton and pronounced “gwong JOE”) in southern China. We could have flown for about two hours to make the connection for our next flight, but then we’d fly over about half of China north to south. We opted instead for a sleeper train where we could at least look out the window as the countryside and the people flashed by.
The scenery was very urban for what seemed like an eternity leaving Beijing. But the then it is a city of 17 Million people and about 17,000 square kilometers (6,500 square miles). That’s more people than 46 of our 50 states and more land mass than 3 of our states. No wonder it takes a long time to pass through it.
After a while we were able to look out at the countryside with huge fields of rice and homes and a few cities. Actually, China has 11 cities with a population over 5 million. They consider anything with less than a million to be a small town.
We arrived the next morning after looking out at more mountainous terrain and spent most of the day
our Helio Courier
the obvous choice for bush pilots resting up from our ordeal. In the late afternoon our tour guide picked us up for the obligatory tours - the “5 Goats Park” and the “Family Chan Academy.” They were interesting, but nothing to write home about - so I won’t. Afterwards, she took us to a restaurant for a traditional Chinese dinner and back to our hotel for beddy-bye.
Next morning it was off to the Guangzhou Airport and our flight to Manila, Philippines. The China Southern A-319 flight was again uneventful. The arrival in Manila meant a taxi ride to the SIL (Southern Institute of Languages) Guesthouse. SIL is a ministry of Wycliffe Bible Translators and they are the owners of the compound at Bagabag (pronounced “buh GAH bug”) where Carl, Cheryl and David Rich currently live.
Finally the following morning (we’re now up to Tuesday AM) it was a taxi to Plaridel Airport, a small general aviation field about an hour’s drive north of Manila. There we met up with Carl Rich and Steve, the SIL pilot, who had flown down that morning from Bagabag just to pick us up. We loaded up and strapped in to their 5-passenger Helio Courier airplane for the
on the way to Bagabag
that's the mountains in the distance one hour flight.
The Helio Courier is an amazing aircraft. It is specially designed during WWII to take off and land in very tight conditions and is well suited to bush pilot operations such as Steve’s. He ferries Bible translators to remote locations to be able to perform their work among the people who speak the dialect being translated. The plane is designed to land and takeoff with 250 of cleared space and can comfortably do so with a 500 foot clearing if fully loaded.
It is designed with a large landing gear and a tail wheel rather than a nose wheel so that it stops more efficiently and also takes off in a shorter space. As we took off, from Plaridel, Steve showed me some of the features that make it so preferable for missionary and bush pilot applications. For example, the propeller is run through a gear reduction so that the engine can rev up but keep the prop RPM’s lower thereby allowing a larger diameter prop to grab more air. He deployed front flaps over the front of the wings which effectively add more than 30% to the airfoil and therefore increase lift.
All
ESL Class
Lori (teacher), Jun, Sophia, Hana, Shiny, Eva, Eugene
these things allow the airplane to slow down to as little as 35 miles per hour and still fly. He says that with a strong headwind, he can actually hover at zero groundspeed. Pretty cool!
The flight north took us over lots of rice paddies, small towns and finally into the mountains. The town of Bagabag is located in the foothills, in a valley about a hundred miles north.
Steve flew us over some beautiful terrain and through the mountain pass that serves as an approach to the Bagabag area.
Since Carl was already on board, Cheryl came out to meet us as we landed. The Bagabag Airport borders the missionary compound where they live and we merely taxied into Steve’s hanger on the compound.
Cheryl and Carl walked with us across the compound to the guesthouse where we slept and also to their house 100 feet away.
We got settled in to our new quarters and then were able to sit in on a couple of ESL classes and an ESL mentoring session.
It is now noon-ish on Wednesday, a little more than 3 days after we left our last tourist assignment, Beijing. We’re ready to settle in and visit one place for a while.
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