Life support

MOST pilots spend their time taking aircraft from one neat and tidy airport to another, with a standard, solid runway taken for granted. Bryan Pill is not one of them. When he is due to land, the first requirement could be to determine where exactly the landing strip is and whether it is safe to touch down there.

That's because Bryan doesn't have what you might call a 'normal' flying job. He works for Mission Aviation Fellowship, a Christian organisation whose aim is 'to fly light aircraft in developing countries so that people in remote areas can receive the help they need'.

These are places where, judging by some of his photographs, an airstrip is a piece of desert that has been pounded and rolled to compact the sand, but still looks pretty much like the rest of the area.

A Guernseyman educated at Vauvert, Amherst and the Boys' Grammar School, Bryan joined the RAF before doing a BEd at St Luke's College, Exeter and going to the north of England to teach chemistry and outdoor pursuits.

After getting married, Bryan and wife Trish decided that there was more to life than teaching in the UK and got themselves jobs at an international school in southern India, teaching science and acting as houseparents.

They came back to Guernsey in 1984 and worked for the Education Department. Bryan then did a postgraduate course at Birmingham University on working with the vision-impaired and brought his new skills back to the island once again, working with the vision impairment unit.

'During that time I got my private pilot's licence,' he said, 'and then we felt very much that we should be working overseas again.'

Bryan decided to try for a commercial pilot's licence in the USA and to apply to the Mission Aviation Fellowship for a job. He trained at a civilian flying school in Clarksville, Tennessee, where many of his colleagues were military helicopter pilots doing a conversion course to fly fixed-wing aircraft.

With both the commercial certificate and a job offer from MAF in the bag, he did a bush-flying course in – of all places – Scotland.

Bryan had read about MAF. 'There's an excellent book called Jungle Pilot, about some missionaries who died in Ecuador, which has inspired many a young man and woman to chase after important values and, if you like, follow Jesus to the back of beyond.'

Bryan's role with MAF allows him to combine his love of flying with his deep-rooted need to help people in deprived areas.

'It's a real privilege, because it means you're able, as they say, to make a difference. You're doing a professional job but you really get to meet people – often staying with them. It's a hands-on job.'

As for the 'back of beyond', to which he refers, the list of countries where Bryan has worked includes Tanzania (four years), Uganda (five years) and Bangladesh, before his arrangements changed.

He now takes assignments wherever cover is needed and spends the rest of the time giving talks about the organisation.

'These last four or five years my work has been more itinerant,' he explained. 'It's a bit like being a supply pilot. I've done seven trips to Chad, a couple to Ethiopia, South Africa, Uganda quite a few times, Sudan, Rwanda, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique.

'It's the best flying in the world, really hands-on, and the places are remote. The reason why you're using the plane is that, although there is an airstrip, there's no one else who really goes there.'

He said that in Uganda he did the 'blood run' –

a route around the north-east of the country, where he picked up unscreened blood, took it back to Kampala to be screened, then took it back.

'In Bangladesh we have an amphibious aeroplane and there's a couple of projects including a floating hospital. Surgeons will go out for a couple of weeks and we'll fly them out there. We've got a number of aircraft operating in Afghanistan.'

Often, Bryan will be flying a Cessna Caravan 9-12 seater, carrying a ton of passengers and/or freight three or four hundred miles.

When so many of the airfields are off the beaten track, where do the planes refuel?

'We often go heavily loaded with fuel,' he said. 'But if we're going in empty, we'll take a couple of drums of fuel and leave them there, and we always carry a pump on board. Typically in the dry season you fly with an hour reserve over the return distance and in the wet season an hour-and-a-half.'

To Bryan, because he is used to this, everything seems to be under control. But then he tells a story of tankers driving out to certain areas and stockpiling fuel – including one instance where the storage building was a mud and brick construction that also featured chicken wire.

Not only was it less than secure in itself, but it was right next to an old ammunition dump featuring rockets, mortars and mines.

'I assume that's been moved now,' he said with a laugh.

It all sounds rather dangerous but Bryan says they only take sensible risks, though they do work in places where there is civil war.

'Yes, the world is less than ideal. As a general rule, if you think you can't get safely in and out, then you don't go in. But I remember one occasion when some missionaries got caught between rival groups who were having a bit of a gunfight and I had to go and pick them up,' he said.

'We normally land one way and take off the same way, but in this case I actually came in the wrong way and landed between the trees – the shortest landing I've ever done.

'I did a 180 on the strip, threw the doors open, got my passengers in and told them to strap in.

In those situations we don't hang around.

'Sometimes in Uganda and Chad you fly very high over the strip and spiral down, because the strip itself is secure.

'But we always check by satellite phone or shortwave radio that the area is clear.'

He doesn't even think of that kind of thing as the most worrying scenario.

And then there is the problem of creating airports.

'A lot of our airstrips are dirt strips, a bit rough and ready, and I went to one recently that, even with GPS, is really hard to find.

'Everything off the runway is completely soft. Sand is a nightmare.

'A lot of the strips are set up by the villagers.

We try to involve the village in preparing them – we provide the expertise. Usually it involves removing some trees.

'The surface doesn't have to be brilliant, just reasonably well drained and smooth, but trees are a problem because they can grow so quickly, so you have to take the roots out, too.

'We try to avoid removing anything that's worth keeping. In places like the Congo there are so many trees that even with GPS you have trouble finding the strip.'

In addition to the lack of regular supplies of fuel, remote places don't tend to have resident aero engineers, so the pilots have to have a practical side, although complicated repairs and anything involving replacement parts will probably involve flying an engineer in to do the work.

Circumstances occasionally result in pilots having to sleep in the plane or even under the wing – the latter being a mixed experience, Bryan says.

'It was a beautiful experience to sleep in the desert, but it was amazing how cold and windy it was. I thought I was going to be blown away.'

That episode was part of a trip taking a medical team deep into Chad, including a Swiss vet who was to treat camels.

'I don't think he'd ever seen a camel before,' Bryan said.

His work finds him in communities where the level of education is extremely low and he recalls the very different feeling of being watched intently by a group of villagers simply because he was reading a book, and of teaching them to spit watermelon pips.

Although MAF is a Christian organisation that aims to spread the word wherever it goes, in reality the mission is broader.

'We help anyone who needs assistance. When I was in South Africa a guy broke his neck and it was a six-hour flight to repatriate him. Even if the family had been able to hire a doctor and an ambulance, it would have cost them a fortune, and to drive him through Zimbabwe – who knows what would have happened.

'I flew him, and six hours is the longest I have done, but it made such a difference to the family.'

There must be easier ways for a pilot to earn a living, but Bryan clearly loves what he does.

'I was going to say it's fun,' he admitted. 'It is, but that's not why I do it. Because you're on your own, you live on your wits a little bit.

'It wouldn't suit everyone.'

* Visit the Mission Aviation Fellowship website at www.maf-uk.org.