Aviation in the Amazon
The question of where exactly we plan to go and what exactly we plan to do after I complete the training at the Moody Aviation school here in Spokane comes up quite a bit. The truth is, there is no specific place we have definitively determined to head to. There are, however, several places that we have on our hearts, places that we would most love to wind up in. Chief among those places we would love to work in is a little know country in South America, referred to by the locals commonly as Brasil. We know it in the US by its English name: Brazil.
In the world of Mission Aviation, Brazil is a land of great opportunity. While its overall urban aviation industry has advanced considerably in the last few decades, the physical nature of the Amazon region leaves Brazil as home to some of most isolated people groups in the world. The Amazon rainforest covers a land mass of about 5 million square miles in size. That is about 8 times LARGER than the state of Texas. Even Robert and Rafael cannot argue over the vastness of the Amazon. Perhaps even more incredible is that of the portion of the Amazon Rainforest that is in Brazil, 70% of it is not accessible by land. Traveling around the Amazon is an endeavor that is mostly only possible on a snaking river, or in an airplane.
Having spent a lot of time in Brazil, and having a permanent Brazilian Residential Visa, gives me a lot of interest in Brazil, and also a very viable ability to move down there and work after completing the Moody Aviation training program.
Up until a few weeks ago, however, I did not have much of an idea of what the needs were in Brazil, and more specifically, how I could help meet them. That is when one of the guys on the leadership team at Moody left a packet in my school mailbox. It was a rough outline for a plan to develop an infrastructure that could effectively provide access to aviation to most of the people living in the Amazon region. It is a lofty goal, and the vision is only slightly developed, but reading that little packet of information got Alyx and I super excited. It seems like the type of vision we could both easily get behind.
We hope to meet the man behind the plan soon. His name is Marcio. Alyx and I will be in Brazil in January, 2019 and will look to schedule some time to hopefully sit down with this guy and seek to better understand how we could fit in. It’s very early on, but please be praying about how this vision could be made a reality. Stay tuned as this idea continues to develop!
This image shows the current state of aviation in the Amazon region in Brazil. As you can see, it doesn’t cover much of the region, and the resources there that do cover parts of the region are slim. You will notice that many of the groups consist of just one aircraft to cover massive swaths of land.
This image shows the rough plan that I have been reading about for the various types of aircraft that would be needed, as well as their rough positioning throughout the region to be most effective.