Maintaining MAF’s aircraft
This is John Hermanus. He lives in Mareeba, Australia, where he works as an MAF .
John was born and raised in Borneo, Indonesia. He was a pilot in Arnhem Land before leaving for Australia to maintain MAF aircraft.
John’s biggest challenge was being taught in English – a foreign language. John explains that, ‘When it got too difficult, I would just ask for God’s help.’
MAF engineers all have a very big, well organised toolbox, which takes years to build up. John sees his toolbox as God’s and is more than happy to share his tools and equipment with other engineers.
They carry out maintenance checks on MAF planes from nearby countries, do routine servicing for the Mareeba Flight Training Centre aircraft, as well as all their ‘heavy’ maintenance (a big aircraft inspection that happens every six to ten years).
Mareeba engineers also work on special projects. One of these occurred when MAF purchased six new Cessna Caravan aircraft which were in Mareeba, then flown to Papua New Guinea to serve the remote communities there.
The team stripped all the paint off the aircraft, worked on it, and then re-painted the planes in the MAF colours so they were all shiny and ready to fly!
Our Mareeba engineers often travel to other MAF programmes such as Timor-Leste, maintaining aircraft that would otherwise have little or no engineering support.
Without its engineers, MAF wouldn’t be able to get its planes in the air. We are blessed to have such talented people as John Hermanus, who play such an important role in our organisation.