Bahamas Habitat

Please help us get the word out about the next Fly-In & Help Out Event
by Posting this notice at your airport, flying club or FBO.
Please Click Here: Bahamas Habitat Fly-In & Help Out Event Notice
Click to print the Press Release: Bahamas Habitat Press Release FlyInHelpOut Oct2010

Please come join us!

And spread the word!

Cowboys & Angels

In Haiti, general aviation pilots are making a measurable difference

By Marc C. Lee. Photos By Jessica Ambats

As we approach from the north, over the deep lapis Caribbean Sea that surrounds a crescent shore, Haiti suddenly appears.

At 4:53 p.m. on January 12, 2010, a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck this country. It’s estimated that some 210,000 people died in the temblor. The land is green and mountainous and looks—from 6,500 feet—uninhabited. As I look down from a Beechcraft Baron that’s loaded to the headliner with medicine and food, I see only verdant valleys.

Not since the Berlin Airlift in 1948, when Western Allies flew 4,000 tons of supplies daily into the Soviet-blocked city, has the world seen as much need for airborne relief. A poverty-stricken island with little infrastructure and no building codes, Haiti seems poised on the brink of catastrophe. But general aviation has given people real hope. The Haiti disaster has demonstrated what aviation can do and how it can make a difference

Making It Happen
At Odyssey Aviation, an FBO at Nassau Airport, Bahamas, pilots in jeans and T-shirts walk purposefully as carts overloaded with boxes labeled “IV fluids” and “exam gloves” are pushed to waiting airplanes, ranging from single-engine Cessnas to King Airs. The flight-planning room has a long queue, and pilots discuss such exotic-sounding locations as Les Cayes, Jacmel and La Gonave. This is base headquarters for the relief effort run by Bahamas Habitat (www.bahamashabitat.org).

The group was established to build homes and provide missionary work to islands in the Bahamas. When the earthquake struck, the group’s executive director, Abraham McIntyre, went into action mode—he hasn’t stopped since. “We’re running Delta Air Lines and FedEx,” laughs McIntyre, who isn’t yet 30, “and I see no sign of stopping.” He’s running the show with Cameron King, a 23-year-old long-term intern and multi-engine commercial pilot, and Matt Hansen, another fresh-faced volunteer and experienced pilot. Since the disaster, more than 120 pilots have responded to their calls for help, 400 flights have been flown, and 250,000 pounds of supplies and 250 passengers have been carried to and from seven airports in Haiti. Pilots donate their airplanes and fuel (the FBO offers a discount to relief pilots), and volunteer to fly sorties. McIntyre, King and Hansen have moved into a warehouse hangar, and they put in 16-plus-hour days, coordinating flights and sometimes flying sorties themselves.

The Mission
Since the earthquake, many have fled the desperate conditions in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s largest city, where damage was at its worst. They’ve poured into smaller villages, but these outlying areas are unable to support the incoming throngs. The remote towns lack enough food and medicine, and the overrun orphanages and clinics lack even basic supplies. The people rely heavily on GA airplanes.

Each morning, pilots are briefed and airplanes are loaded for the long flight to Haiti. The donated supplies originate from a warehouse provided by Read the rest of this entry »

A captivating presentation of Bahamas Habitat flight missions to Haiti entitled  Flying Into The Eye of Chaos (Haiti), will be provided by Dr. John Corneal at Sun ‘n Fun on Tuesday April 13th at 9:00 AM at the Florida Air Museum.

The lecture includes dozens of photos of the missions and the conditions in Haiti. Dr. Corneal is an entertaining speaker and attendees will most certainly experience the drama and excitement of these missions through his engaging lecture and his unique adventures.

What:     Flying Into The Eye of Chaos (Haiti) Lecture
Who:      Dr. John Corneal of State College PA
Where:   Florida Air Museum at Sun ‘n Fun
When:    Tuesday April 13th, 2010 at 9:00 AM

John Corneal of State College PA, who had previously joined in with Bahamas Habitat for a Bahamas Habitat Fly-In and Help Out Event, answered our call for mission pilots to Haiti.

John is a veteran pilot of 20 years and the owner of a Mooney Ovation aircraft. On two separate occasions he made is way from his home town in Pennsylvania with supplies to our Nassau command center and then for multiple long days he made flights to Haiti along with our other volunteer pilots.

“I always had the feeling that we are our brothers’ keepers,” Corneal said. “That it’s important for all of us to take care of each other.”

Upon returning John prepared a detailed presentation of his mission flights and it was so well received by his local EAA chapter they encouraged him to offer the lecture at Sun ‘n Fun. The organizers were eager to add him to the presentation schedule. So don’t miss this engaging lecture.

We express our thanks to John for his mission flying and the great job he is doing sharing his experiences with others to encourage them to join in.

See local news article regarding Dr. Corneal’s missions.

We are partnered with Bahamas Ministry of Tourism at Sun ‘n Fun and you will find us at Booths 65 and 66.  Come see us and we’ll share more with you about the great mission flying opportunities with Bahamas Habitat. Mission Pilots are needed for upcoming missions to Haiti and the Bahamas.

Volunteers Needed

If you have flown with us or been on a mission to Camp, We Need Your  Help! We need YOU to help represent Bahamas Habitat at the booth to share your experiences with others.

You can volunteer for a half day, a whole day or multiple days. Please email our Aviation Coordinator, Cameron King with your availability at: cameron@bahamashabitat.org.

Haiti Mission Update

All together over 125 pilot volunteers flew over 3200 mission flight hours, moved over 250,000 lbs of vital supplies, and carried hundreds of people in need in and out of Haiti. We had over 32 states and 6 countries represented in the airlift.  It was truly amazing and its not over...

We are launching Phase 2 of our Haiti Relief
We have our first teams headed to Haiti to explore our best options for continued operations based either in the Dominican Republic or Haiti directly. The goal is to build a sustainable model that will continue to serve the needs of the outlying areas of Haiti and the missionary organizations we serve in those areas. We will be informing you of new flight mission opportunities soon. If you have supplies, connections, needs or other helpful suggestions we’d like to hear from you.

Fly-In & Help Out Event Update
Two weekends ago we had our Fly-In and Help Out event with about 30 people involved and over a dozen aircraft.  The weekend was a great success and we look forward to having you involved in our next one this Fall scheduled for October 21-24, 2010. If you’d like to fly over at a different time…no problem! Just let us know when you want to come.

Please contact Cameron King, our Bahamas Habitat Aviation Coordinator, for help with any topics in this email at: cameron@bahamashabitat.org.

We are very grateful to all of you who have supported Bahamas Habitat.

We hope to see you NEXT WEEK at Sun ‘n Fun!

John Armstrong

President

Bahamas Habitat

info@bahamashabitat.org

www.bahamashabitat.org

ph: 406-359-1669

PS: We offer an FAA Wings Credit Course on “How to Fly to the Bahamas”.

If you’d like to have us bring this course to your airport or group please let us know.

.



Less than 24 hours after our Fly-In and Help Out teams flew back to the US, a tornado touched down on Grand Bahama Island damaging port cranes, roofs and utilities. Three are confirmed dead. Abraham McIntyre, called us to advise he will be launching in the morning to fly to the Grand Bahama Island to see if there are needs we can help with directly.

Click for more info and photos.

Every Fly-In & Help Out event we’ve had has been a great success but our recent March event was a HUGE Success!

Over 30 people participated in the Bahamas Habitat Fly-In & Help Out Event in March. This event served several purposes including being a recap of the Haiti Relief operations and phase two planning for that aspect of Bahamas Habitat’s operations in addition to our usual introduction to the mission opportunities at Camp Symonette on Eleuthera.

The flying was perfect as usual and teams were able to work on numerous projects including tile work at the Pinder home, concrete work on the rehab of the James Cistern clinic, plumbing work in Governor’s Harbor and upgrade work on the cistern at Camp.  Pilots enjoyed the flying with some taking advantage of a half day fly-out to Norman’s Cay for conch fritters while others flew up to North Eleuthera to help prepare facilities for a mission team that was coming the following week. The north crew were treated to some of the best conch salad ever!

Camp Symonette was really humming over the weekend as our large group over lapped with two other mission teams coming in from Albany Georgia and another from Knoxville Tennessee for their week-long mission events.

During the Fly-In & Help Out Event we were able to recognize and applaud the work done by Abraham McIntyre, Director of Bahamas Methodist Habitat, along with our staff pilots Cameron King and Matt Hansen, for the amazing work they did managing the Haiti relief missions. Through their direction and tireless work and of course many volunteer pilots the organization delivered over 250,000 lbs of supplies and coordinated over 3200 hours of mission flying.

In a special presentation, Steve Merritt, our Treasurer and Chief Pilot awarded Masters in Ocean Flying Certificates to Gene Schmidt and Sam Frasier for their extensive flying during the Haiti mission operations.  Gene flew 6 weekends in a row to Haiti and Sam flew 5 weekends.

Also attending this event were several special guests representing partner organizations that are helping us develop a phase two strategy for continued support of flight operations to Haiti. Included were Jim Lee of Rotary International, Scott Brallier of Wings for the Word, Darrell Roberts of Harvest Equippers and KC Carter of Missionary Supply Network. These partners along with our staff and experienced Haiti volunteers are working together to deploy an exploratory mission in April to evaluate basing flight operations either in Haiti or the Dominican Republic. We’ll be publishing more on that as things develop so stay tuned.

Thank you to all that participated and helped make this Fly-In & Help Out Event our best yet.

McCook, Nebraska local businessman Richard Stull recently completed a Haiti relief mission through Bahamas Habitat.  He recently shared his story with the McCook Daily Gazette.

With more than 4,000 miles flown in six days, the Good Samaritan has returned. Local businessman Richard Stull stated that it was a trip of a lifetime and he is ready to go again. The mission, flown on his dime in his personal six-passenger Piper Cherokee Six, was to deliver badly needed medical supplies to Haiti.

Returning to the States he carried a father and son, from Kentucky, who had served as relief workers in the earthquake devastated country.

Read the rest of the story in the McCook Daily Gazette

There have been thousands of flights bringing in tens of thousands of pounds of relief supplies. The vast majority of those flights are done by a private individual with his or her own plane. One of those pilot/owners is Joe Budge from Annapolis Maryland. Joe recently came back from spending a week of hauling supplies from Ft. Lauderdale and Nassau to Haiti. Here’s his story.

Day 1: Saw an announcement on the internet that a non-profit in the Bahamas had organized an all-volunteer general aviation supply train for Haitian relief. Bahamas Methodist Habitiat had organized a similar effort several years ago when Eleuthra was devastated by hurricane. They were re-activating it in the wake of Port-au-Prince’s devastating earthquake. Spent several days trying to get through to them via email without luck. Finally called the FBO in Nassau where they’re basing the effort and talked to Abraham. He said “get down here!” Read the rest of this entry »