OCTOBER 2017 GREETINGS FROM THE LINKLETERS Dear Friends,

It was lovely to get to meet a few of you during our short trip back to Europe over the summer. We are sorry we didn't get to see everyone. Our trip was fun but busy. We managed to fit in two family weddings, numerous speaking engagements, a baptism and visits to the MAF operations office (technical meeting) and to the MAF UK office in Ashford to meet the new staff in the support team.

The wedding of Celia's nephew took place on the island of Ibiza in the Mediterranean, so we booked some cheap package flights and fitted in a few days surprisingly impressed by Ibiza once outside the main resorts. It is peaceful and pretty and the wedding venue was fabulous. Mim wore her best outfit, with a beautiful waistcoat sewn by Celia, her bow tie and her favorite bowler hat. She looked amazingly smart, although a little warm for the weather. The food served was also lovely with the biggest paella I have ever seen. After that we are definitely back on our traditional Ugandan diet of rice and beans in order to loose weight! The baptism couldn't have been a bigger contrast taking place out doors in the Lammemuir hills during the Scottish summer with everyone wearing two sweaters and raincoats. It was just as much fun though! Our trip home was uneventful, and Pirate the cat was delighted to see us. He has been well looked after by a friend while we were gone and definitely looks thinner. He is doing his best to persuade us to change that. Geoff was straight back to work and Mim's school has started again. She is very happy with her 5th Grade teacher and also with the opportunity to learn French. Celia is again working as a volunteer in the school library. Just to finish off the news a couple of older bits of excitement to update those of you who we did not see over the summer.

The first was the was our meeting with David and Joy Holloway during their visit to early in the summer. David as part of his work with A.I.D. (Anglican International Development) in was in Kampla following a visit to Kenya to give a speech in the Anglican cathedral in Namirembe at the graduation of a group of nurses whose training had been arranged by A.I.D. We were With Rev David & Joy Holloway fortunate enough to during their visit to Kampala

Thank you all once more for your support, prayers and encouragement.

At the end of the summer term Mim's school organised a marvelous father and daughter / son event. The kids invited their fathers to lunch with them at the "posh restaurant" across the road from the school. After a lovely meal each father in turn had to give a 5 minute speech to their child encouraging them and complementing them on what they had achieved in the year. Geoff claims he told Mim that she would do better at school if she had extra maths homework and that if she was less grumpy and cooked more cakes she would occasionally be quite nice!!!!

Mim's summer achievement Love Geoff, Celia and Mim learning to walk on stilts News from the Hangar...... Have tool bag, will travel!

Usually the maintenance of the MAF aircraft is carefully scheduled. On the Cessna Caravans we work to a programme laid down by the manufacturer and approved by the Uganda Civil Aviation authority, so every 100 flying hours we bring them into our nice (relatively) cool hangar and inspect various things. Every 200 hours we carry out additional inspections and the programme extends beyond 20,000 hours where there are special inspection requiring removal of the bolts which hold the wings to the fuselage for what is known as non-destructive inspection of the holes in the mounting brackets. Add to this parts which need to be inspected or replaced on calendar time and other components which have a life based on the number of landings and take offs of the aircraft and the AMP or approved maintenance programme as it is known rapidly becomes quite complex.

I think it might have a puncture Rescue mission

However occasionally aircraft do succumb to unplanned breakdowns where engineers have to travel out to more remote locations to fix them. A few months ago I had a trip out to Kaabong to fix the brakes on one of the aircraft. After landing to drop off some passengers the pilot reported by HF radio that his RH brake seemed to be leaking. As it wasn't safe to fly the aircraft in that condition (or at least to land it again) I was dispatched to carry out a repair at the bush airstrip, while the aircraft which delivered me collected the remaining passengers and took them on to their final destination at Kalongo hospital.

Carrying out a repair away from base always takes a bit of planning. You don't want to travel for several hours to find that some critical item is forgotten. In this case that pilot didn't know exactly the cause of the problem, so I traveled with spare seal, hose brake caliper, master cylinder and half a gallon of hydraulic fluid.... be careful not to put it in anything that can spill as the lower air pressure at altitude will surely make it leak and then the plane will smell terrible for days, not to mention the horrible sticky mess.

The repair was carried out under the eagle eye of the local Karamajong youth who were very interested in all that was going on. The repair was successfully completed just soon enough for us to make the last take off time to get back to base a before dark. There is no night landing allowed at Kajjansi. In a similar vein my colleague Andy has just had a trip to Kotitdo to rescue our 206. As he takes much better pictures than I do, he gets a mention as I have included a few of them.

In the hangar we have had a few changes in staff. Sadly our Ugandan engineer Martin Wabwala has left us to take up a position in the maintenance department in the Ugandan Government flying school at . Martin came to us directly from engineering school and has learned a lot in his three years in the MAF hangar. We hope he will be able to make good use of that experience in his new job and that he will be able share the experience with people. there.

We have a new Ugandan apprentice called David Moiti. Also leaving us is our Dutch apprentice Geert Bax who

has completed his years placement in the hangar and Martin Wabwala When we returns to Europe to complete the experience necessary to thought he was going to be get his EASA aircraft engineers license. He has worked stuck at the CAA and missing hard and effectively in his time with us and we hope that his leaving "do" he will end up joining MAF permanently in the not too distant future. Please pray for -For Geoff's boss, Kees, and his Uganda Details family. His father is very poorly. MAF -For apprentice Engineer Geert P.O. Box 1 Bax, that he can find a job in Kampala Europe to finnish his training and Uganda for his long term plans with MAF. -The ongoing situation in S Geoff: [email protected] For my bird watching friends: Sudan For more engineers for Celia: [email protected] This is the real use of the rudder the MAF Uganda hangar on a Cessna Caravan -For Mim's new school year.