Wings of Hope volunteer pilot, Ken Pratt, generously covered a gap in service in Belize during the two months between previous pilot TJ Stewart leaving and new pilot Michael Valley taking over the post. During the 60 days he was there, Ken wrote a daily blog, providing colorful, day-in-the-life vignettes of a field pilot in Belize. We will begin posting Ken’s blog on a weekly basis on our website at wingsofhope.ngo/media/blogs/pratt. Here is an excerpt from Ken’s blog, appropriately titled, Day 2:
Today, we got down to the business of flying …
There are five primary airports that I will be sent to: two to the north (one of which is closed for construction) and three to the south. The farthest one is about 45 minutes away, the closest one about 15 minutes. None of these airports have control towers. None have lights. They vary in length from 2,100-3,500 feet. The narrowest is a mere 40 feet wide. None of them have parallel taxiways. And it goes without saying that none have any instrument approaches.
So, the flying is only VFR (visual flight rules), and restricted to daylight only, with no instrument approaches. Generally, the weather allows these types of operations …
Today, TJ (former Wings of Hope pilot in Belize) took me on a familiarization trip to see all of these airports. I made a landing and a takeoff at each of the four airports which were open. Some of the special challenges that we encountered today included a large black dog walking across the runway as I completed my landing rollout, vehicles on a public road which crosses the departure end of one runway, and numerous uncontrolled commuter aircraft operating at the same airports. Not to mention the narrow runways, lack of taxiways, and limited space to turn around at the end of the runways!
This is not exactly “bush” flying. But it is a far cry from the type of flying that I’ve done for the past 40 years …