JAARS spiritually mentors and prepares aviation mechanics and pilots to relay the gospel to remote places overseas during Pre-Flight Orientation (PFO), a four-month intensive capstone course for JAARS aviators.
In PFO, pilot orientees experience simulations of operations on the field. They juggle multiple flight assignments, handle challenging passengers, manage bulky cargo, and face language barriers, all in preparation for mission work overseas.
Meanwhile, mechanics take aircraft maintenance courses and practice 50-hour oil changes and 100-hour inspections on aircraft, supporting the pilots as both groups prepare for the ultimate week-long tests of their new skills and knowledge.
Maintenance instructor David Kooistra shoves a log into the body of an JAARS airplane reserved for maintenance practice, creating a gaping hole to simulate a crash in the woods. He calls Caleb, one of his aviation maintenance orientees.
Kooistra prepares the simulated crash site for Bush Week.
“I got a call at 6 a.m. on Monday morning from David,” Caleb recalls. “He said, ‘There’s been a simulated accident. Pack five days of clothes, a lunch, gather the guys, and meet me in the hangar in an hour or so.’”
While overseas, Kooistra had responded to three radio calls for immediate assistance after an accident in the remote rainforest.
He could spend up to a week in the sun’s heat, making use of limited resources to fix the stranded aircraft, so that it could make the trip back to the base. He knows his orientees need practice being flexible and resourceful.
In the Carolina woods, orientees arrive at the simulated accident site with only the equipment in their bags to document the scene, gather eyewitness data, form a plan, and carry out repairs in the “remote location.”
“Let’s get them out there getting dirty, outside of normal operations and into situations where they’re in charge, thinking of types of repairs that might not be normal,” says Kooistra.
The orientees are pushed to their limits to keep cool heads despite the exhaustion and challenges, but the experience is worth it.
“It’s important for us to be good representatives of Christ when we face challenging situations, and Bush Week was an opportunity for us to stretch ourselves,” Whit, another orientation graduate, reflected. “This was an excellent way to be prepared for all the twists and turns missions will throw at you.”
Nothing prepares you for remote overseas mission aviation like the real thing. For pilots looking to fly for JAARS or one of our partners, this includes mountain flight training.
In Indonesia, mountain ranges tower over 15,000′, serving as barriers between God’s Word and unreached people. Orientees need a taste of flying—and landing—in similar conditions.
Thankfully, our training hub in the Appalachian mountains is less than an hour’s flight from JAARS Base in Waxhaw, NC. There, helicopter and Short Take-Off and Landing (STOL) airplane pilot orientees practice their maneuvers in a challenging, dynamic environment.
“The wind gets funneled through all these valleys around mountain peaks and creates updrafts, downdrafts and turbulence,” says Greg, a JAARS PFO graduate. “Clouds can develop, and visibility can deteriorate a lot quicker than in non-mountainous areas, so dealing with the weather is one of the biggest challenges.”
And it’s not just the weather. PFO orientees navigate shadowed valleys and canyons, learning to position themselves close to canyon walls so that they have space to turn around if necessary.
Helicopter pilots practice reconnaissance flights, hovering at ground effect, and landing in tight spots despite the weather. Meanwhile, airplane pilots practice landing on a grassy 1,100′, 16% upslope runway at Strawberry Ridge.
“As you’re taking off, there’s one bump in the runway just before you’re ready to rotate—we call it a ski jump,” says Philip, another PFO graduate. “The airplane lifts off there, and you make it work.”
By practicing on this runway, aviators like Philip prepare for similar airstrips they will encounter in remote, unreached places overseas.
“Now I feel like a JAARS pilot,” says Phillip. “I see myself getting to the point where I have all of the knowledge of many years of JAARS pilots that they’ve passed on to me that’s going to help me accomplish that goal of flying safely in environments that are difficult.”
Ready to prepare for the real thing with hands-on true-to-life training? Join the crew and bridge the distance between unreached people and the gospel.