Visiting JAARS
On Tuesday afternoon we arrived at JAARS in Waxhaw, NC. JAARS used to stand for the Jungle Aviation and Radio Service, it doesn’t anymore, but they still provide aviation and communications for missionaries working in remote locations around the world. They still do that, the flying in and out, but the radios have changed to e-mail, Skype, Facebook, etc… and on top of all that they train people in electrics, plumbing, building, carpentry… another endless list.
The site is more spread out than Wycliffe, with a range of huts, hangers, buildings dotted across a 200 acre site. We took a tour of the facilities which gave us the chance to look around the buildings and see the planes. It was pointed out that we were pretty fortunate to see the Kodiak, a new plane that works on Jet fuel rather than aviation gas.
JAARS assisted with the design of the Kodiak, making sure that it was able to deal with short take-off and landings – runways of about 700ft – was able to take passengers or freight and could deal with tough landings. It’s proved to be a really successful design, so there are a whole load of planes on order, JAARS are getting 1 in every 8 until they have 5.
The place also has a really interesting Alphabet Museum, which shows the development of a whole variety of writing systems. It’s probably not for everyone, I hit information overload after 30 minutes, but if you’re interested in how language is written down you could probably spend a day or so in there.
On Wednesday evening Tany and I were able to have a meal with Noel and Catharine Carpenter and their two kids. Noel’s been at JAARS doing some flying training for a new role in PNG and they are aiming to be out there later on in the year. It’s strange, I met Noel and Catharine in Australia in 2001, they then visited the UK in 2002, this is the first time I’ve seen them since. The world appears to be shrinking.
