Busy Summer

Much has happened here at Spokane Turbine Center since the last blog update.  Training continued on our normal, four-week cycle as scheduled through the middle of July.  This training consisted of three flight classes and two maintenance specialist classes on turboprop operation and maintenance, Kodiak aircraft systems, maintenance and flight training, and Garmin G1000 avionics operation and maintenance.  It's been exciting to see so many students come through our doors and to think of the many ways in which the training they are receiving here will benefit those they serve overseas including Bible translators, church planters, and medical evacuation patients.

Last week we celebrated our first anniversary of operations in our newly renovated training facility.  It's hard to believe only one year has passed, as much as we packed into it.  In just one year we've watched this training facility spool up from humble beginnings to the primary training center for turbine missionary pilots and mechanics.  We are exceedingly grateful for the Lord's clear guidance and for His blessing without either of which none of this would have been possible.

Late July through the month of August found us traveling across the country and into Canada on our 2010 Kodiak summer tour.  We visited churches, Christian flight schools, and aviation public events raising awareness of missionary aviation, our turbine training, and partnership opportunities.  We flew 94.3 hours, 9,329.4 miles and gave a taste of the future of missionary aviation to 936 passengers.  The most significant maintenance problem we had was a burned out light bulb, a testament to the reliability of the Kodiak and PT6 turboprop.

As we continue into our second calendar year of training here at our new facility, we greatly appreciate your prayers.  We're still a young organization with plenty of opportunities and associated challenges.  Please pray that God would continue to guide and provide, as we strive to glorify Him in providing the needed training to missionary pilots and mechanics worldwide.

Still Busy Training Missionary Pilots

We have not written on our blog much lately, you may have noticed. The primary reason is we have been in class. That’s probably a good thing since training is what we do. Since the first of the year we have conducted two full training groups for flight students and one abbreviated class. We have twice conducted the full PT6A familiarization course and conducted the G1000 avionics, Kodiak systems and Kodiak flight training three times.


In March we will be teaching our first maintenance training class of the year and second since we opened back in September of last year. We have eight students scheduled from four different organizations. We also have an instructor from Standard Aero coming to lead our training on PT6A hot section inspections.

In other news, we are getting set to release our spring newsletter featuring our flight simulator training and the relief work in Haiti. Several of the pilots with MAF and JAARS that are working down there have received training here at Spokane Turbine Center. We are honored to be helping even if in an indirect way.

We covet your prayers as we drive into our busy spring training schedule.

It’s been a busy fall

Spokane Turbine Center has officially had its doors open for 14 weeks, since September 14th. Somehow it seems a lot longer than that and much shorter all at the same time. Like many life changing events it’s sometimes tough to track elapsed time in an accurate manner.

Over these last 3 ½ months we have trained 16 flight customers and three maintenance customers. Of those, five came from Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), five came from New Tribes Mission Aviation (NTMA), two came from JAARS, Inc. (part of Wycliffe Bible Translators), five came from Moody Aviation and one came from Brigade Air. One NTMA pilot/mechanic even attended both the flight and maintenance training. He had the distinct privilege of spending a total of a whole month here with us.

We continue to be humbled and sobered by the investment that mission aviation organizations are making in STC. Our goal is to provide cost effective, high quality advanced turbine training to organizations that are using these aircraft in the furtherance of the gospel of Jesus Christ worldwide.

We have a long way to go before we have a turn-key training program and, due to the nature of the industry and the technology, will never completely arrive at that point. However, we have an un-yielding passion to create and maintain the premier training program not only by mission aviation standards but by industry standards.

The only way we can accomplish that goal is as a team; a team of mission aviation organizations and the professionals that staff those organizations. By partnering with these organizations we can obtain the requisite experience, data, feedback and critique that are essential to excellence. Primary in that feedback needs to be our weak spots, a.k.a. the bad breath zone. Only by honestly seeking and obtaining that ‘bad news’ can we hope to succeed as a training institution.

If you are in position to provide that information from firsthand experience, pass it along or seek individuals that can share their experience we encourage you to send it along to us. Do it anonymously if needed but please pass it anyway.

We praise the Lord for the provision of resources in the form of vision, finances, staff and equipment to get STC going on the right foot. We look forward in faith and hope to see what the Lord will continue to do in mission aviation through us here at STC.

In case we don’t see you again before the 25th, Merry Christmas to you and yours.

A few more firsts for STC

Today we are starting week two of our first missionary maintenance specialists training class. Three mechanics from New Tribes Missionary Aviation have been with us since November 9th. So far we have completed the G1000 overview and G1000 maintenance functions as well as the first half of the PT6A turbine engine line maintenance and hot section inspection.

This morning we opened up our own Kodiak for a simulated inspection and started Kodiak airframe systems training in the classroom. We are well into the season here in Spokane where we have fewer opportunities to fly the airplane due to the weather. That makes it a great time of the year to do maintenance training.

Today we also have another training class going on in our facility. Our friends from Moody Aviation are utilizing one of our classrooms to attend survival training. They will get to finish up their week out in the woods putting the classroom training to practical use. Another organization is providing that survival training to the Moody folks. Although not a part of Moody, we at STC have similar objectives and cooperate with them whenever we can.

It’s thrilling for us to see how the Lord is using our facility. Milestones like the start of our maintenance training, the first use of our PT6 classroom and hosting a visiting organization like Moody Aviation continue to demonstrate the ways that this facility can be used to further the work of mission aviation.

Serving together.

End of 3rd class, prep for 4th

We finished our third round of flight training last Friday here at STC. It was a class made up of two pilot/mechanics from JAARS and two from New Tribes Aviation (NTMA). The two JAARS pilots flew in direct from Papua New Guinea; the NTMA pilots came one from their training base in Arizona and one on furlough from Indonesia.

We are humbled and sobered by the investment that mission aviation is making in attending our training. To know that organizations are going to great expense to bring their people from half way around the world sets the bar even higher for us. We dare not squander or even take lightly this opportunity to serve them through excellent training.

At the end of the training we spent a few hours with these customers asking them for honest feedback on the training experience. We were delighted to not only hear the ways the training met their needs and expectations but also to hear where we can adjust and enhance the training to better meet the needs of future classes.

Each customer also filled out an anonymous evaluation form which further allowed us to capture open feedback as well as metrics to track specific and overall satisfaction with the training courses.

It was also good to connect (and in some cases reconnect) with these field experienced mission pilots. They are our eyes, ears and hands on the Kodiak in the field. Every class that comes through STC is another source of real world data. Data that will not only make our training better but will be passed on to all of our partnering mission aviation agencies.

We value the relationships we continue to build in mission aviation, not only for the sense of community but also providing those critical communication paths that will make all of us more capable as professional aviators and turbine aircraft operators.

Now on to maintenance training. We have this week to set the stage for our first three missionary maintenance specialists arriving next Monday from NTMA. Pray for us and pray for our NTMA customers as they prepare for the two weeks of training.

Another Loss for Mission Aviation

Today we had another great loss in mission aviation. Ron Royce, long time Moody Aviation flight instructor and his student Adam West were lost in a training accident near Elizabethton, TN.

In our minds we know that Ron and Adam are with their savior rejoicing but in our hearts we feel great loss, sorrow and empathy for their loved ones. We praise the Lord for the many years of investment that Ron made in many of us who are engaged in mission aviation. He changed the lives of the people around him as professional aviators and as individuals. Even when we made significant mistakes Ron showed us grace and provided opportunities for us to become better than we were.

Ron's humor is legendary. He honored you when he actually did shake your hand and always accompanied that firm handshake with words of encouragement. I remember feeling honored again a few months ago at Oshkosh when Ron wanted to get a picture of the two of us. After that we talked about pilot training as peers, another great honor.

My logbook shows I flew with Ron 32 hours between June 1992 and May 1995 including 102 landings, which seems like a lot, one every 20 minutes or so. That includes flying to CA and back. I also rode along for a bunch of hours beyond that. What an opportunity.

We will continue to pray for the families; for Ron's dear wife Loretta and grown children Jonathan, Julie and Jeff and the grandchildren as well as Adam West's wife Carrie and two young children.

It's hard to know what to say at a time like this other than we have experienced another great loss today. One that we will only recover one day when we see Jesus face-to-face.

In the wake of today's events Loretta Royce sighed and said heaven will never be the same. A good chuckle is an appropriate emotion to allow to linger. It beats heartbreak and honors the memory of Ron much better.

Training Group #3

Today we started our third wave of training. It is a flight training group that consists of two New Tribes Mission Aviation (NTMA) pilot/mechanics and two JAARS pilot/mechanics. This is the biggest group of customers we have had so far and - when added to the two MAF pilots we already had - made for a busy training center. It's great to see the facility being utilized to a high degree.

Our two JAARS pilots arrived directly from Indonesia (31 hours travel time) where they had been involved in setting up operations of the first Quest Kodiak 100 to serve in missions overseas. It's great to be serving alongside these men as they seek to maximize the work of this new tool.

Our two NTMA pilots are getting set to take delivery of the first of 14 Kodiaks they have on order. Both men will be key in setting up operations, training and learning how to best utilize the aircraft which will also be going to Indonesia.

We are honored and sobered by the investment that organizations like MAF, NTMA and JAARS are making to come to STC to receive their turbine training.