The experienced pilot carefully preflights her Cessna 182. She confirms all required documents and navigation information aboard. She listens to AWOS and performs a complete run-up. Everything looks good, so she checks for conflicting traffic. Seeing none, she moves over the runway centerline and advances the throttle. In a few moments, the airspeed needle reaches 50 knots. She applies gentle back-pressure and lifts off, enjoying the smooth transition from ground to air.

Ferry flying is never a sure thing, especially in a VFR-only airplane over mountainous terrain with rapidly-changing weather. I’d planned to ferry a Piper PA-22/20 Pacer from Wooster, Ohio to Nampa, Idaho, in mid-October. On the day of the first ferry flight attempt, the winds were at 18 knots, gusting to 30 knots, from variable directions. I did a familiarization flight with the owner, Don, and even he had a difficult time keeping the aircraft on the runway.

We waited for a fire, tilted back on deck chairs, surveying our ramp. Two Grumman S–2F tankers sat full of retardant and fuel—ready. Chuck’s Cessna O–2 and my Turbo Cessna 337 stood by, only one set of chocks securing their right main tires, doors open—beckoning.

A pilot’s initial solo landings rank as major achievements worthy of celebration—getting drenched with water or having your shirttail cut off. But the newly minted aviator quickly learns that finessing an aircraft through a maneuver is not the same thing as judging where, when, or even if he or she should employ the acquired skill.

The 1985 Piper Saratoga climbed in crisp, spring air from Rialto, California. With only three onboard the turbocharged aircraft, we quickly reached cruising altitude and headed direct to Concord. The perfect day promised a perfect flight—except for the vague inkling that something wasn’t right.

I was commissioned to write this article for the MAF Norway magazine. Click the "View More" button to see it. Click here for the English translation.

Early morning, barely light, a high, electronic, belly-dancer tune woke us. Audible first only to street dogs, then faintly for humans, it soon became distinct. Slowly it grew until the too-cheerful-for-morning ditty echoed up the streets that approached our central Asian hotel. When it dominated all other sound, I abandoned our warm bed to peer down from the third-floor balcony.

Holding my new, squirmy, squeaky granddaughter reminded me of two flights. The first flight raced against desolation.

When I arrived in Ecuador, I quickly learned jungle flying was serious business. Take no maneuver for granted. Attend to every detail. Reject all distractions. Clearly, dire consequence lurked in the shadows, straining to pounce.

A few days ago, I released my second book, Mile-High Missionary: A Jungle Pilot’s Memoir. What a marathon! While writing it, the focus morphed twice, and it bore three different titles. I had so much to say and organize, navigating the labyrinth seemed iffy.

A couple days ago I flew 20 minutes from Nampa, ID to Ontario, OR. I was flying to practice instrument approaches—procedures that guide aircraft to a landing in bad weather. I climbed to 6,500 feet in the clear morning air. Cruising up there gave me a few minutes to review the procedure one more time before committing to follow the official course. Then I descended to 5,000 feet and crossed a radio navigation intersection to begin my first approach. Modern avionics make instrument approaches much simpler than they used to be. However, as any musician will confirm, recent practice is crucial to good performance. After a couple times around the airport, I headed back to Nampa.

Thinking of the isolated pastors I worked with in the Amazon jungle, I realized a summary of their stories might go something like this:

Ask any bird. Defying gravity is hard work. A hummingbird, for example, weighs less than an ounce but must eat one to three times her own body weight every day. At first light she’s off searching for the hundreds of flowers she needs before dark.

Regina and I flew a Cessna 172 from Nampa to Cottonwood, Idaho, for a short Valentine’s retreat. The weather forecasts proved accurate—clear skies for our departure and arrival airports. Midway, the ceiling lowered as we crossed the mountains west of McCall—as expected. But, we snuggled into the canyon and followed Route 95 through Riggins, and White Bird. The clouds on our right obscured two 8,000 plus foot buttes—as expected. The Seven Devils peaks on our left were clear—as expected. Then the canyon opened into central Idaho’s prairie at Grangeville.

Early morning desert air. The crisp, need-a-jacket kind of air. Sky bright, but the hangar and scattered mesquite trees still cast long shadows. Preflight done. Last thank you handshakes complete. Time to work. I climbed into the Cessna C-182 cockpit. Closed the door, but opened the window. Cold air swirled around the cabin as I adjusted the seat and fastened my safety harness.

The war shut down almost everything. Our host country, Ecuador, and its neighbor, Peru, fought over a portion of their common boundary. Understandably, the Ecuadorian military prohibited all civilian flying, including ours. No food to school kids. No medicine to health promoters. Neither preachers nor teachers to fledgling believers. The worst? No emergency evacuations. The sick and injured lived or died without our help—except for our radio system.

One afternoon I flew slow circles inside Ecuador’s Amazon jungle clouds. Not completely gray, I’d pop in and out of bright sunshine pockets above or narrow holes open downward to treetops a half-mile below. Tantalizing glimpses too small to stay in, but hinting I might accomplish my new mission after all.

Pebbles scratched the paint. Bigger rocks just turned over in the propeller blast. But golf- to baseball-sized stones pounded the tail of my airplane. Couldn’t be helped on the gravel strip. Still had to takeoff.

Medical evacuation flights really hurt during my first term. Once turned loose with an airplane in the jungle, I felt I had to be both counselor and pilot. During orientation phase I could busy myself preparing the airplane to receive the patient. The instructor pilot handled talking with the village, the family, and supervising gentle loading.

As the newest pilot on MAF’s Ecuador program in the late 1980s, advancing God’s Kingdom excited me. Yet, a hold-over from commercial pilot culture still nagged—having and keeping enough of the “Right Stuff” inside.

Wings perform marvelous feats. With them we soar like eagles and race with the wind. Without them we wish. With them we cross continents, leap oceans, and vault mountains. Without them we walk.

Every station on the main radio network reported low ceilings and rain. But our home base, Shell, Ecuador, looked fine sitting high above the jungle. I switched to the older, short-wave network to reach stations sequestered in hidden mountain valleys. My destination, Yaapi, reported rain most of the night, but a clear morning with bright sunshine.

David McCleery, MAF’s Latin America Regional Director, just shared with me an unusual ministry report from the Shuar tribe, an indigenous group I flew for in Ecuador’s Amazon jungle. One of their pastors might’ve seen it this way … Felipe watched out the airplane window as the tire struck the airstrip’s dirt and started spinning. He exhaled slowly. Would this visit be any different? Glad for the rare chance to fly, he’d already walked to this village every month for two years. The people never chased him away, but never received him either. Still, the Lord had clearly directed him here.

While still in Ecuador, a late afternoon sun burned white. Good weather over the jungle allowed one more flight. I taxied to the runway, passengers eager for home.

I first saw it on a winter day. We sat in the Cessna 172 cockpit, 1,000 feet above a white ridge. The propeller pulled us through sub-freezing air, the heater warming my student in shirtsleeves, me in pilot’s uniform. Sierra Nevada Mountains rose before us, gray granite pushing up through thick snow spiced with dark forest. Pockets of morning fog clung to secret canyons, hiding from morning sun. Deep blue sky arched above, laced with thin, wispy clouds.

Every pilot carries a bag. Some big, stuffed. Others small, concise. As an instructor, I carried headset, ear plugs, sun glasses, local chart, lesson plan, small paper tablet, and pen. As an air taxi pilot, I ditched the lesson plan, but added more charts, a flashlight, flight calculator, Bible, and lunch. For the Forest Service, I added topo charts and “relief” bottle (we raced to fires at top speed, then orbited for hours …).

Aviation ranks as one of the most conservative activities on the planet. In the beginning, all flights were experiments. Enough succeeded to encourage more tries, but crashing got old. Surviving aviators developed a fondness for doing what they knew would work over what they thought might work.

The pilot’s seat gives great perspective. Even in bad weather, the instruments tell me everything I need to know. Blue, in the round gage directly in front, represents sky; black, the ground; white dividing line, the horizon. So, the center white dot means my nose is below the horizon. The short lines left and right, representing wings, show a small right bank.

We’re all flat-landers stuck in two dimensions. Doesn’t matter if we live in the mountains. We’re glued to Earth’s undulating surface, meticulously following its ups and downs. That restraint does grant security. We need concern ourselves only with the challenges of moving left or right, forward or back. Vertical decisions fade to choosing stairs or elevator.

Gravity charges a high price for defiance. All aircraft, whether space shuttle, jet airliner or jungle Cessna cost a lot to operate. They need energy to get off the ground, then demand more to stay aloft until they reach their destination, be it International Space Station, Chicago, or the next jungle strip.

At cruise power, a Cessna 206 engine piston races the length of its cylinder 75 times a second. An hour’s flight slams it through 276 thousand cycles, each stroke pealing a few atoms off the piston rings. After a few hundred hours, the gap between piston and cylinder wall grows. Oil seeps by. Burning fuel blows through the space, so less of it pushes the cylinder down. The propeller turns with reduced force, thrusting back less air. The airplane accelerates more slowly, lifts off the runway later, climbs shallower, and clears the trees by a smaller margin. It reaches altitude later, cruises slower, takes longer to reach the destination and burns more gas.