Many years ago I hitched a ride in a MAF Cessna 206 from Wewak in East Sepik Province PNG. There we are trolling around at a height that God never meant man to be when........ CRASH ! CLANG ! BAM ! BAM! followed by a noise that can only be described as a whole bank of .50 cals machine-guns all going off at the same time,coming from that thing that is attached to the spinny thingy at the front.
The young misho pilot, and I mean young, he only started shaving the week prior, puts down his bible, sits up straight, cocks his head to one side and says "Uhmmmmmmmm...." then dives into his flight bag and starts hauling charts out madly, finds the one that he is obviously looking for...has a quick squiss, tosses the chart, then turns the machine on its right side so that I am peering directly down at the ground. ...."SADIST" thinks I, 'cos he obviously wants me to get a really good look at my potential grave site.
We come screaming down (and I don't mean that figuratively) and finally level out about 3.5 inches below the height of the jungle canopy all the while the 2500 .50 cal machine guns he got under the bonnet are roaring loudly, very, very loudly in fact. We proceed in this manner for approximately 4 minutes 35 seconds ( at the time I would have sworn it was 12 plus hours), collecting an assortment of leaves and small branches in the undercarriage when suddenly a small cleared area about the size of my back yard, except it got these white cones running up both sides, appears in the windscreen to my front. I am just about to point this anomaly out to the young fella when he looks up, puts down his bible ( I mean this dude was COOL, very COOL) says "AH HA" and climbs the machine to just above jungle canopy height and reaches over and switches off the flamin' engine.(This fella, apparently, has absolutely no fear of death, but I suppose when you are on such intimate turns with God as he obviously was then that would come naturally...be welcomed in fact, I just wished that he picked some other time to pass over) The .50 cals immediately stop their racket and I reflect that maybe he just wants me to have some relative peace and quite....before I go to meet his boss.
We get over the leading edge of this 'backyard' and the young fella slams the machine down on to the deck, and I swear on a sack of bibles that we went at least the first 100 yards on the nose wheel only. Once we had come to a partial stop, he bails out, abandons me to my fate, and dives under the engine cowling. He re-appears only to start scratching around in the belly pod under the 'plane and comes up with a length of fencing wire...12 gauge if my unbelieving eyes can be believed... and a pair of pliars and with a look of triumph on his face dives under the engine cowling again.
5 Minutes later, after a lot of grunting and ouch, ouch, hot! hot's! coming from the front he comes back climbs in starts up, rumbles down to the very end of whose ever back yard it was swings around, the wing on my side actually had to push through some small bushes,.... well trees really, and then he slams the throttle wide open, he had obviously removed the ammo from the .50 cals, and makes a suicidal dash for the extremely large trees at the other end and just when I was convinced that I was going to be smashed into a sodden wet pulp, and I swear on all that you hold most sacred, (ya beer fridge, ya landie) a giant hand reached down out of the heavens and picked up the fragile metal contraption that I was hurtling to my death in and ......lifted it up over the tree height.
After I had regained my composure and located my voice which occurred after I had stuffed a handful of tissures down between my legs, (Why I hear you all say...well I will tell you because I know you will understand and be sympathic.... a little bit of wee-wee came out) I turned to this devil dodging maniac and said " Okayyyyyy!!!!.....what was that all about?"
He turns to me, after putting down his bible, and with an angelic smile states "Oh not much...the exhaust fell off...thats all".
And that was the last time I ever caged a lift off the Missionary Aviation Fellowship of Papua New Guinea it was safer, but not by much, to fly Air Nuigini.
