Balus Belong 7 Day

By Adventist Heritage Centre

Cessna 180, the ‘Andrew Stewart’ (VH-SDA), is the second mission aircraft, worldwide, purchased by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It was the first new mission aircraft, the first worldwide to enter service in 1964 and the oldest denominational aircraft still extant. After nearly a decade of mission service in Papua New Guinea without an insurance claim, in one of the most hazardous aviation environments in the world, VH-SDA was flown back to Australia and traded in on a larger and more capable replacement. Former pilots and missionaries then raised money to purchase the aircraft back from the dealer and over the next dozen years or so this aircraft flew in the North New South Wales Conference, used during the week by office staff in the course of their duties and often on the weekends for lay evangelism. Traded in several more times for aircraft with better load carrying capabilities and the longer range needed with all seats filled required to reach all parts of north western New South Wales, it was after ownership outside the Church, bought back each time until eventually retired with 9,000 hours on the airframe, parted out, and mounted on a pole at the ‘Sunnyside’ museum in Cooranbong, NSW. Then after 20 years and obvious deterioration and little maintenance it was brought down off its pole and restoration to display condition commenced.The story of the ‘Andrew Stewart’ is inevitably entwined with that of the growth of denominational aviation in the South Pacific with, at one point, 12 aircraft in the fleet flown by 16 pilots — and the establishment of a flying school at Avondale College in Australia. Today the legacy lives on as the mission aviation program of the church includes turbine powered aircraft in Papua New Guinea with short field and load carrying capability not even imagined when VH-SDA entered service in 1964.This is also the story of VH-SDA’s two first pilots, Pastor Len Barnard whose 18 year struggle to see a mission aviation program established in the South Pacific was fulfilled with the purchase of the ‘Andrew Stewart’ and Pastor Colin Winch, the second pilot of VH-SDA, who later pioneered long over-ocean flights with an Aztec, the ‘J L Tucker’, which with long range tanks set several distance records across the trackless Pacific. Later he was to establish the flying school at Avondale where he he was the Chief Flying Instructor and, before his retirement, served for many years as the Chief Pilot for the South Pacific Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.All royalties realized from the sales of this book are being used to fund the restoration of the ‘Andrew Stewart’ by its former pilots and other volunteers to static display condition and that income will also assist with the provision of a purpose built hanger to enable that display under cover.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adventist Heritage Centre
• Release date: Feb 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476419763

Book preview

Balus Belong 7 Day: The Story of the First Adventist Mission Plane in the South Pacific

1st Edition

Lester Devine

Published by The Adventist Heritage Centre, Cooranbong NSW at Smashwords

Copyright © 2010-2012 Lester Devine

Front cover design: ‘That Design’ Avondale Graphic Design Studio. 

(Designer: Joel Vodell; Project manager: Chris Ramptom)

If you have any additional information or find errors in this book, please email us at [e-mail]

All profits from the sale of this book go towards the restoration of the Andrew Stewart and the building of a hangar to showcase the story of this aviation work.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Dedication

Foreword

1. The Beginning of Adventist Mission Aviation in the South Pacific

2. Mission Service in Papua New Guinea

3. The Adventist Aviation Association

4. The Display and Later Recovery of the Andrew Stuart for Conservation and Eventual Restoration

5. Flying the Andrew Stuart

Honor Roll

Endnotes

Dedication

To LEN BARNARD, who promoted his vision for Mission Aviation for twenty years to colleagues and leaders who were mostly disinterested, or even actively opposed, yet was eventually able to bring the Andrew Stewart into denominational service with he as it’s first, and ultimately longest serving pilot. He is the father of Adventist Mission Aviation in the South Pacific—and beyond.

To COLIN WINCH, a younger colleague of Len’s, who initially shared the Andrew Stewart with him and then, over several decades, developed the new mission aviation program into the professional operation we have today, initially by using the first twin engine aircraft for record breaking long range international mission flights across the trackless Pacific Ocean at a time when navigation aids were much more rudimentary than today, then establishing the Avondale College flight training program, and finally by his service as the Chief Pilot for what is today the South Pacific Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

FINALLY, our thanks for the protection of the Lord who watched over these two neophyte pilots in the initial years of the mission aviation program when their commitment and enthusiasm exceeded their experience as they learned on the job in one of the world’s most challenging aviation environments — Papua New Guinea, where the clouds are full of rocks and high altitude mountain airstrips are often one way, very short and rough, and demand meticulous navigation and precise aircraft handling. That the Andrew Stewart served nearly ten years in this harsh and unforgiving bush-flying environment without an insurance claim, operating regularly at the very edge of its performance envelope, is a testament to the leading of Divine Providence.

Foreword

Many times I have been sitting beside or behind the pilot as we approached a small bush airstrip somewhere in Papua New Guinea. Many times I would listen as the familiar words were spoken Sierra Delta Alpha approaching airstrip. The pilot would name the airstrip and then we would land to be greeted by the enthusiastic people of the region or village that we were visiting on that occasion. Often I would stand and watch as the plane took off leaving us to do the work that it had brought us for. It would return after some days or weeks to pick us up and carry us to our next destination. In the meantime it would be traversing the country making possible in a few hours opportunities for service which in a previous generation had taken weeks or months. No, it was not the Andrew Stewart. By the time my family and I served the Church in Papua New Guinea in the late 1970s and early 1980s this marvelous little plane had already been retired and one of its successors, a Cessna 206, had taken its place. But the work was just the same. And one thing was just as true. We would not have been able to do what we did