Simviation Forums

Good evening all...

If you remember me at all you know that one of my long term life goals is one of the following:
1. to supervise the organziation of a non-profit missionary aviation organization that restores tired aircraft here in the U.S. for use in the missionary aviation field around the world.

2. to work for and help aid in the preparation of aicraft to be used for missionary aviation purposes.

So where should I start in pursuing these long term goals?

I'm open for advice!

Wow.. this is interesting.

I'd start by getting a couple of large churches (or church organizations) lined up for the base, name, and legitimate, tax-free fund raising conduit... and some non-paid administrative help.

Then start contacting large flight-schools (or regular university-based programs), about having them donate aircraft that are to them, worn out (they get a tax-break for this).

Getting certified work done for cheap will be tricky... so you might want to look into getting yourself A/P certified too.

Any advice I could come up with beyond that, depends ON that happening..

Good luck !

I've always wanted to be a missionary pilot, maybe someday we'll work together. 

Mark 16:15

well I guess I was pretty vague with my original post. I'm really looking at what kind of positions I should look for that will eventually 20 to 30 years down the road will help me to get to something like that.

unless of course there's something out there now that I can do in a capacity to help and hopefully make enough money to survive.

well I guess I was pretty vague with my original post. I'm really looking at what kind of positions I should look for that will eventually 20 to 30 years down the road will help me to get to something like that.

unless of course there's something out there now that I can do in a capacity to help and hopefully make enough money to survive.

The problem with breaking into the missionary biz is that so much of the labor is volunteered. For example, the best candidates for a bush-pilot post in some remote distant land are usually also maintenance techs, and they'll go into the bush to fly under brutal conditions for a year or so in exchange for (equally brutal) room and board, and maybe airfare.

But if you're interested in running that sort of nonprofit someday, the first thing you should do is find a shop that is already doing that and see about working for them.

You may find that most refurbished aircraft donated to missionary (or other aide or relief groups) come from commercial shops... although I could be wrong about that, and it's no reason to not try to do it as a non-profit, once you learn more about how it all works.