|
Jungle pilots visit Clearwater
By ANNE W. ANDERSON
| Article published on Thursday, April 20, 2006 |
|
![[Image]](/content_images/042006_cit-04.jpg) |
| Photo by ANNE W. ANDERSON |
| A group of Countryside Christian Academy students and staff join JAARS pilot Dan Miller in front of the Robinson R44 helicopter he landed at the school. |
|
CLEARWATER – Any other day, the children might not have paid much attention to a helicopter circling overhead. One recent Friday morning, however, almost 200 Countryside Christian Academy students jumped up and down and waved eagerly as the chopper flew over and then settled softly onto the school’s grassy parking lot.
Once the rotors stopped spinning, they knew they’d get to see the four-seater Robinson R44 up close.
“You guys can come right up here and look in,” said Glen Ferguson, a missionary pilot for 11 years in the Amazon jungle of Brazil.
Ferguson, now with public relations for Jungle Aviation and Radio Service headquarters in North Carolina, and half a dozen other JAARS workers and supporters brought the helicopter and a short-field Helio Courier airplane to the Tampa Bay area April 7 to publicize their global work supporting Wycliffe Bible Translators.
According to Bob Moore of Clearwater, the local coordinator of the event and a retired Eastern Airlines pilot, JAARS originally planned to be at the Clearwater Airpark the entire week, as it has been for more than a decade. Because of construction at the airpark, however, such events have been suspended.
Instead, JAARS flew to several Christian schools, mostly in Hillsborough County. Friday was Clearwater’s turn.
Diane Gager, the principal at Countryside Christian Academy, said JAARS is one of three international projects supported by the school as a whole. Individual classes also support local works.
Mike Mower, a pilot who used to fly in the southern Philippines and now lives in North Carolina, said JAARS pilots fly 4 to 5 days a week transporting translators and supplies to remote villages.
“We also do medical flights – taking villagers or missionaries from the villages to hospitals in larger cities – and help the local governments with disaster relief,” Mower said, noting that while Florida had four major storms last year, the Philippines averages 20 a year “plus volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.”
While JAARS supplies air support to fewer than a dozen countries around the world, they provide communications, information technology and culturally appropriate media services to workers in more than ninety countries. That technology also helps the pilots.
“It used to be ‘what you see is what you get’ when it came to weather information,” Mower said. “Now with the Internet we can get weather information almost immediately.”
Even so, Mower said pilots may still fly in marginal conditions and land on airstrips made of grass or crushed coral.
Ferguson said JAARS pilots come from all walks of life, have commercial aircraft licenses and are certified mechanics.
Besides the fly-in at Countryside Christian Academy, the group’s plans called for the helicopter to fly in to Harborside Christian Church on McMullen-Booth Road Friday afternoon where other students were scheduled to visit with JAARS workers. Gusty winds and limited landing space blew those plans awry, so the Clearwater Airpark stepped in and with a sidewalk completed the night before saved the day.
And an out-of-towner got to go for a fun ride.
“This is so cool” said Marianne Burke, an emergency physician from Los Angeles unexpectedly visiting the airpark Friday afternoon as she enjoyed a serendipitous first helicopter ride.
 |
Article published on Thursday, April 20, 2006
Copyright © Tampa Bay Newspapers: All rights reserved. |
