The community at Mapuru homeland, 30 km south of Galiwin’ku, has been operating a co-operative food shop for the last 14 years. It aims to make essential supplies available in the homeland by buying and transporting in bulk, so that expensive ad-hoc shopping flights to Elcho are reduced. Over the years, MAF has transported bulk food consignments at reduced or zero cost by using “back-charters” – the empty sectors we fly between charters.
Recently we got the call that the road to Mapuru had become impassable due to the rising river levels so could we fly the latest bulk order of four pallets arriving on the barge. Each carton, bag or drum has to be weighed, moved to the aircraft and loaded thoughtfully to keep the aircraft in balance and within its take-off weight limits. Over three days we used ten flights at full capacity to transfer the food the 15 minute hop to the homeland. In all, we moved 3,944 kg. The pilots were grateful for the line of willing helpers at Mapuru to help offload.
Recently we got the call that the road to Mapuru had become impassable due to the rising river levels so could we fly the latest bulk order of four pallets arriving on the barge. Each carton, bag or drum has to be weighed, moved to the aircraft and loaded thoughtfully to keep the aircraft in balance and within its take-off weight limits. Over three days we used ten flights at full capacity to transfer the food the 15 minute hop to the homeland. In all, we moved 3,944 kg. The pilots were grateful for the line of willing helpers at Mapuru to help offload.
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