Etc.

I knew it was getting hotter here when I got in the car this afternoon and basically scalded my hands on the steering wheel and stickshift handle. I literally couldn't touch either of them for more than a few seconds without it being quite painful. So just as I got done saying how nice the cool rain was, the rain stopped, the clouds disappeared and the sun came out. It's pretty brutal too...normally the heat is dry here, but all the recent rains have apparently provided plenty of humidity, and just walking anywhere outside brings instant sweat to the surface. Oh well.

Otherwise, things have been pretty busy around here, which is most of the reason that I've been doing a poor job of updating the blog. The airplane that we are leasing to use in Maun is registered in South Africa, so in order to fly it we all need to have South African validations on our licenses. That basically means that we need to take a written test on South African aviation regulations and also take a flight test. So last week, Matt and I drove down to South Africa to take our written tests (which we both passed, thank goodness). Now this weekend, we will be flying our leased King Air down to Johannesburg to take a flight test. It's a bit of an intimidating venture for me, because it's been a long time since I've done emergency training in multi-engine aircraft and it will be the first time that I really take a flight test in a turbine aircraft or any aircraft as big as this one. I've done a few training flights with one of our training captains here, Dan Shenk, but it's still a bit nerve-wracking. After Sunday, it should be all over, though, as long as things go well. I've also been doing some training on our Cessna 210 in the last weeks, and took my checkride on that aircraft with our Chief Pilot. So the last month has been a lot of training and learning for me. In addition, I've been helping out with some of the maintenance office work, trying to get data entered into some new software that we just purchased and finish out all of our billing and paperwork for maintenance from last year. They've kept me going pretty steady, but I'm enjoying it. Better busy than not having anything to do for sure. So that's a quick update. I'll try to be more regular with the posts in the near future...but I just seem to run out of time. Life in the fast lane, I guess.