GCI's Evangelical Team Departs MMS Aviation

MMS has been privileged to provide aviation maintenance services for Gospel Carrier International for several years now. GCI is a unique ministry focused on evangelistic outreach, church planting, and discipleship training for the Chinese speaking community in the United States.

Each spring, GCI makes an evangelistic tour of the US. This year is no different. Yesterday afternoon, Williams Chang, GCI President, pastor, and pilot,landed their King Air 200 in Coshocton and taxied up to our ramp. Their team was tired but energized over how the Lord had been working through them over the last twelve days.

Starting out in Gaithersburg, Maryland the morning of April 16th, they flew to Marietta, Georgia for a one day event. From Georgia it was on to Texas, then to Louisiana, then back to Texas. After Texas they flew to California and then Iowa before their stop here.

Williams mentioned a couple "squawks" regarding two aircraft systems before taking his team into town for a night of rest. Our mechanics serviced the airplane and had it ready to depart first thing this morning as Williams and his team needed to be in Michigan this evening for more ministry. They plan to be back in Gaithersburg sometime Sunday evening.

Here's a video about their departure this morning.



Thanks for being a part of our ministry. Through your prayers and your gifts to MMS, you're helping Gospel Carrier International win souls for Jesus.

Another Rapid Response to Florida

Four of our guys are getting ready to head down to Florida on another Rapid Response trip to help Missionary Flights International. Dale, Ian, Paul J., and Andy will leave Wednesday/Thursday for Ft. Pierce. They're heading south to install the two PT-6 turbine engines they removed from a DC-3 at Preferred Airparts in Kidron, Ohio on the turbine DC-3 already with MFI, N200MF.

The DC-3 in Kidron was recently purchased by MFI and is being prepared for future service with MFI. Because of the high time being accrued on the engines of N200MF flying relief into Haiti, it proved advantageous to remove and ship the engines from the DC-3 up here (Kidron, OH) down to MFI for installation on N200MF. This will allow N200MF to continue flying while its original engines are sent out for overhaul. Here's a video about the guys removing the engines several weeks ago at Preferred Airparts.

Missionary Flights International (MFI) DC3 Engine Removal from Paul Jones on Vimeo.

Another part of the preparation for the trip is fabrication of the hoses necessary to install the engines. Here's Andy fabricating some of the hoses.

Andy organizes hose material and hardware.

Working hardware onto a hose end

Working with hardware in the hose vise

Jim provides his own vise-grip as Andy secures the hardware in and over the hose end.

Thanks for your prayers and gifts which allow us to continue preparing people and planes for worldwide mission service.

Serving Toward Friday In His Kingdom

As we gather as a group to pray each morning, to share our goals for the day, and to reflect on Scripture, we're constantly reminded of Who it is we serve. The airplanes we repair for the field, the people we prepare for missionary service, are tools in God's hands for the spreading of His Gospel and the expansion of His Kingdom. There are many jobs in His Kingdom. Some of them even go to airplane mechanics and facilities maintenance guys right here in Coshocton, Ohio.

Andy seals engine baffling as Jim continues the avionics installation on the Brazilian 206.

Paul installs rings on the pistons for the cylinder sets for the rear engine of the Canadian 337.

Josh continues his repair of fiberglass nose bowls for a local Piper Aztec.

Dave re-installs rain gutter knocked from the stairwell and walkway roof by this winter's heavy snow.

A New Week At MMS

While a new week has started at MMS, the same basic set of aircraft projects continue. Here's a snapshot of Hangar A with three airplanes in it.

Hangar A

The Brazilian 206 is in the foreground. Andy continues with some engine work while Jim continues the avionics installation. The RV-8, to the left, is a local airplane having structural repairs made to its tail section by Chuck & Paul G. The red airplane, the Canadian 337, is waiting for its rear engine to be assembled after overhaul. And just behind the tail of the Brazilian 206, Josh completes some fiberglass repairs on nose bowls for a local Piper Aztec.

Paul J.

Paul J. is in the engine shop measuring internal components prior to assembling the 337's rear engine.

Meanwhile over in Hangar C, Tim and Mark are inspecting a Mooney for MAF, Dale is inspecting a Cherokee for a local pilot, and Ian is painting a 172.

Dale inspects the Cherokee in Hangar C.

The 172 after receiving its white color coat.

Puttie Pie

The funniest things happen with animals. This story happens to be about some kitties across the street instead of our pups for a change. Tim and Michele are another MMS couple who live across the street from us. It's a wonderful blessing to have them so close. They care so well for our house and dogs when we travel and likewise, we look after their house and kitties when they travel. It's a match made in heaven for us all!

Another advantage is that we can host visitors together, which is what we did recently when we had a family visiting from Scotland. This time we met at Tim and Michele's house for dinner. I had "dessert duty" and baked a peaches and cream pie and also made a peanut butter pie. I have a pie basket which makes carrying the pies easy so I took it with the pies in for dinner. When we arrived I was greeted by 3 loving kitties, Frankie, Herbie and Lucy. Herbie and Lucy are getting big but are still very much curious little kittens. Knowing that, I placed the pie basket on the counter leaving the towel draped over it to protect it as we ate dinner. Michele put the peanut butter pie in the fridge. We had a delightful dinner with our friends from Scotland and were ready for the pie for dessert. Yum!

That's when Michele came in and sheepishly announced there had been a "pie incident". Either Herbie or Lucy the kitten thought the basket, complete with snugly towel, would be a very nice place to take a nap! Michele brought in the pie, looking not quite the way it had when I brought it. We all laughed like crazy people. While we were happily eating our dinner in the other room, One of the two kittens had stepped in the pie basket, on top of the towel and tromped all around to get comfy, leaving craters in the pie underneath! It was a nice soft bed and even still slightly warm from the oven! Ha!

Missionaries that we all are, we still ate the pie! The heavy towel had been totally covering the pie the whole time so the pie looked pretty bad but still tasted quite good. So, we had "putty pie." We may never call it peaches and cream pie again! :o) Ah, life with the animals we love....

Seven Projects Underway at MMS Aviation

We currently have seven mission and non-mission projects underway: mission--Mooney annual inspection for MAF, Cessna 206 restoration for ministry in Brazil, annual inspection/double engine overhaul on a Cessna 337 for ministry in Canada, a Cessna 402 in for spar cap inspection, and Cessna 172 that's being repaired and painted for use by MMS. On the non-mission front: inspection and repair of a local RV-8, and an annual inspection of a regional Cherokee.

Here are some snapshots of the action.

Andy installs exhaust probes on the Brazilian 206's engine.

Chuck makes repairs to the RV-8.

Scott organizes engine parts for the Canadian 337 before starting reassembly.

Tim inspects the main landing gear on MAF's Mooney.

A Trip To Columbus, Cleaning Up After The Cockers, and Spring Arrives in Coshocton

A Trip To Columbus
Yesterday afternoon we had the pleasure of making the trip to Port Columbus International Airport to meet Andy & Heather Swanson and their children, Abigail & Matthew, as they arrived to undergo candidate evaluation at MMS Aviation next week.

The Swanson Family: Abigail, Heather, Andy, and Matthew

The Swansons are from Scotland and are in application through our training partnership with MAF-United Kingdom. Coordination and oversight of the candidate evaluation process is one of my responsibilities at MMS.

We met the Swansons without complication and stopped at Hoggy's (a Columbus BBQ chain) for their welcome to Ohio dinner (at 12:00 midnight their time!). When traveling with two little ones, strollers, and car seats, packing for a week uses up some space so we took the MMS van and Karen's car to bring everyone and everything back to town. We greatly enjoyed our time with Andy, Heather, Abigail, and Matthew and look forward to getting to know them better over the next week. They're being hosted by another of our MMS families.

Cleaning Up After The Cockers
And speaking of our trip to Columbus...while we were away Tucker and Tanner found their way upstairs and had a grand time ripping and shredding and spreading the bathroom trash all around. I'll spare you the photos of the hallway, guest room, and stair landing to just share a snapshot of my cleaning the bathroom floor. At least they didn't go for to toilet paper rolls.

Cleaning up after Tucker and Tanner's fun time.

Spring Arrives In Coshocton
So as not to leave you with the image of Cocker Spaniel mischief, here's a photo that really shows spring has arrived in Coshocton. I took this picture of a Cardinal from our "library" window upstairs (our "library" is the small guest room with all our books in it).

A Cardinal in Keith & Karen's front tree.

Cardinals are the Ohio State Bird and we have several that always return to our corner of the neighborhood in spring. We really enjoy watching and listening to the Cardinals. You can also see that the leaves on our big tree out front are starting to break out! The weather today is beautiful. The sky is a deep blue, the sun is warm, the grass is green (I've already mowed twice!), and it's supposed to reach 66 degrees today.

Thanks for stopping by our blog. Thanks for your prayers. Thanks for your friendship and your gifts which enable us to serve. May God receive the glory!

It's Zyglo Friday!

Here's a video of Paul performing a dye penetrant inspection on the oil sump for the rear engine of the Lamp 337.

It's Zyglo Friday! from Keith Dodson on Vimeo.

If you have a problem viewing Vimeo, click here to go to YouTube.

Have a great weekend!

Interview and Review

Six Month Interview
Part of Karen's and my regular role at MMS is to interview our apprentices and their spouses every six months to see how they're doing in the apprenticeship, in the community, and as a family. We also seek their input as to what MMS is doing well, where & how they think MMS could improve, and talk about effective techniques for coping with the realities of mission service. We use this as a time of providing encouragement, counsel, validation and affirmation.

Today Karen and I met with Paul. Paul's been an apprentice for 18 months and is entering his last year of service before testing for his mechanic certificate and heading out to a new mission. Paul is a pilot and will ultimately serve missions as a pilot/mechanic.

After spending the morning preparing for the meeting, Karen and I met with Paul for an hour and a half before lunch, broke for lunch, and then Paul and I met after lunch for another forty-five minutes or so before finishing up the "interview" portion of our time together. Karen needed to complete some other HR projects on the computer for a departmental report I'm compiling and excused herself to go do so right after lunch.

Karen, Paul, and Keith

Performance Review
After we completed the interview, Paul and I rolled into his 18 month performance review and pretty much finished the day off. It was a good day and yet a full day, to be sure. In the next couple weeks I'll start working with Paul to provide guidance and counsel as he prepares to select the mission with whom he'll serve next.

Paul's doing a great job at MMS, is growing as a mechanic, and growing as a man of God. Does it get any better than that?

It is such a blessing to be able to pour our lives into young missionaries like Paul and have a God-given role in preparing them for a lifetime of service on the mission field. Thanks for being a part of this blessing through your faithful prayers and gifts.

I Rode My Bike To MMS And Survived

Bike Ride
The weather was so perfect yesterday I couldn't NOT ride my bike to MMS. It was the first time I'd really ridden my bike since July of last year when I went through those six weeks of leg pain after riding my bike up to the shop. No problems like that yesterday.

It was a really good ride.

Lord willing, I'll have my strength back and the weather will cooperate so I can ride again next week. Unfortunately it looks likes the temperatures are going to drop back into the cool range for a while. This time of the year I don't have any problem riding my bike when the air temp is 50+, but once it's below that...forget it. I'm still not over winter's chill. It was 60 degrees when I rode in yesterday morning.

Hardesty's Extended Auto Care
My little red car is over at Hardesty's. There'd been rumbling and grumbling noises coming from the front end for several days. The exhaust system had also been wheezing. The noises, and the fact that the left front fender was riding substantially lower over the tire than the right front fender, encouraged me to take the little '95 Aspire in for a check-up.

It's been a good little car though at 15 years old it's definitely at that point where we have to ask ourselves "do we put any more money into it?". In this case, if new exhaust, new struts, new springs, and troubleshooting the engine temp gauge can keep it on the road for an other two or three years...we'll still be ahead of the game compared to adding a monthly car payment to our budget in order to replace it now. Lord willing, we'll have the car back tomorrow.

I'm in Karen's car today as my legs, while allowing me to ride the bike yesterday, appreciate a break between rides. All variables permitting, I'll be back on my bicycle early next week.

Thanks for visiting our blog!

PT-6 Class at MMS

The big thing going on in the hangar this week, besides work on the eight different aircraft projects currently underway, is a class being taught by StandardAero on the operation and maintenance of the Pratt-Whitney PT-6 turbine engine. The PT-6 is used extensively on the mission field and is becoming even more prevalent with the introduction of the Kodiak to the mission aviation fleet.

StandardAero has been associated with the PT-6 engine series for many, may years years. As we had a large portion of our staff and apprentices needing to go through the course for the first time, and several desiring a refresher course, Bob arranged for StandardAero to hold their six day class at our facility instead of having our guys travel to their facility in Winnipeg, Canada.

Nine of our guys are spending each morning this week (Monday-Saturday) up in the conference room for the lecture and illustration part of the class. Each afternoon the guys go down to the hangar for the "hands-on" portion of the class. Standard Aero brings one disassembled engine for show-and-tell during lecture and brings a fully-assembled engine for disassembly and inspection purposes providing specific maintenance experience related to splitting the engine, hot section inspection, and reassembly. It's good training and StandardAero does a great job of presenting the information and providing the opportunity to become familiar with the engine.

In the conference room.

In Hangar A

Positioning the engine 0n its stand

Securing the engine to its mounting ring

Top-Secret Missionary Airplane Being Developed at MMS Aviation

As a reward for all our faithful blog followers out there, here's a sneak preview of a new missionary airplane we're developing on the hush-hush. Yes, we do have a little-known Research & Development program here to help keep us on the cutting edge of missionary aviation. The photo you are about to see is the first ever to be publicly released of our very own "X" plane.

We feel it has the capacity to change the way people look at mission aviation and have an impact worldwide no matter what the climate or location. This truly is an airplane for all seasons and situations. While developing this on a small prototype, we envision eventual certification of similar options for larger aircraft like the Quest Kodiak and the Cessna Caravan.

Okay. Here's the photo:

MMS Aviation's very own "X-Plane"

This airplane will be able to make its own runway on the fly! Whether prospective runways need to be plowed or mowed or both, this airplane will be the leading edge of the final push to open up the last frontiers. With the brush-hog deck underneath and the cutting blade on the front both fully adjustable from inside the cockpit, a new breed of construction engineer/pilot will be the first on the scene. No more spending months of tireless labor constructing a runway by hand. Now, it'll just take a few low-altitude, high-speed passes and within minutes missionary airplanes following close behind can be on the ground delivering the people and supplies necessary to continue expanding the Kingdom as our solver winged-wonder heads into the sunset to open another previously unreachable avenue.

We're having a contest to name the prototype. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment.

Thanks for playing along.

Spring Yard Work

Like everyone in a winterized area, spring yard work is a real joy and something we all look forward to. It's like a ritual of new life and new hope. This weekend has really been THE spring weekend to start work after a whole string of perfect weather days. People are getting their mowers out and mowing for the first time (I actually mowed Thursday evening), mulch is being sold at every store and gas station, and we all get reacquainted with our neighbors.

I started with getting the rose bed in order. I'd trimmed the rose bushes back and cleaned them up a couple weeks ago, but more work was needed to get them ready for this season--old mulch out, edging in, fertilizer down, etc.

Working on the rose bed

Completed rose bed

Karen has had an ongoing vision for a mini-pond in our front flower bed. She felt it would be so nice to sit on our front porch and hear water running. She found a small pond liner on clearance and that was that! While I worked on the roses, Karen spent the day developing her pond concept.

Karen and her pond.

Today we're focused on the back yard: preparing and re-seeding the bare spots in the dog's yard, reducing the size of the dog yard, and running down a new tarp for our woodpile.

Lord willing, we'll be able to get it all done before the predicted rain starts!

Have a great Easter!

Tucker and Tanner's Spring Haircut

After a cold winter and months of fur growing, Tucker and Tanner always look forward to getting their spring haircut. We decided to give them a little more personality by keeping the hair long on the top of their heads...

Tucker & Tanner before their spring cut.

Tanner and Tucker after their spring cut.

So, do these dogs really need more personality?