Humanitarian Group Looks For Support to Update Aircraft for Service to Children's Home in Guatemala

By Carmelo Turdo

In the summer of 2018, Dave Reichard and Tom Stukenberg, the current and former Directors respectively, of the Manos de Compasion (Hands of Compassion) Children's Home in the Bay of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, were looking for a small twin-engine aircraft to replace their aging Cessna 172. Due to the poor road conditions and mountainous terrain, air transportation is the most efficient way of travel to pick up supplies and meet with government officials in the family court system in Guatemala City. An aircraft was found in the U.S., but it would need substantial maintenance before it could be put into service.

Over the next year and a half, the Midwest Aviation community stepped up and the green and white Piper Geronimo was flown to Guatemala in February 2020. It has been a blessing to the children at Manos de Compasion and the local community ever since. The following people dedicated their time and resources to make the aircraft available for this humanitarian service:

Paul Voorhees and the crew at Big River Aviation; Kevin Hammond, St Louis Community College; Steve Long, One Spirit Engineering; and Nick Turk, Turk Aviation. The Aero Experience documented the contributions of all the many talented and caring people who participated in the aircraft return to service.

Manos de Compasion has a need for additional avionics equipment to operate their Piper Geronimo safely in the Guatemalan mountains. The aircraft does not have a stall warning system, and there is a need for a Garmin Angle of Attack system to be installed. Steve Long of One Spirit Engineering will be volunteering his time and expenses to travel to Guatemala to install the system once it is purchased. A goal of $2,000 for the purchase of the equipment has been set for the project.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation at the link below, with all proceeds going directly to this project to support of Manos de Compasion. Thank you for your generosity!

Project fund: https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=UKRDMPFN5RA9U.

For more information on Manos de Compasion and the aircraft project, see The Aero Experience four-part series and the video posted below.

Ministry Uses Aircraft to Care for Children in Guatemala, Part Four: One Mission Accomplished, Another One Begins

Ministry Uses Aircraft to Care for Children in Guatemala, Part Four: One Mission Accomplished, Another One Begins

By Carmelo Turdo

Big River Aviation, along with contributors from the Midwest Aviation community, recently completed the restoration of a twin-engine Piper Geronimo for use in the mission field. Manos de Compasion (Hands of Compassion), a children’s home ministry located near the Bay of Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala, received the aircraft in early February to better meet the daily needs of the over fifty children receiving foster care in a region lacking adequate ground transportation and infrastructure. In Part One and Part Two of this series, we reported on the use of aviation at Manos de Compasion and how St. Louis-based Big River Aviation became involved with the restoration to flight of the ministry’s latest aircraft. In Part Three, we took a detailed look at the aircraft restoration project as told by those who were directly involved. Here in Part Four, we conclude our story with coverage of the final month of maintenance and the flight from St. Louis to Guatemala.

We backtrack into the previous portion of the story, in November and December, when some additional items remained to be adjusted before the Geronimo was ready for delivery to Guatemala. The need to do more repairs to the aircraft, the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and continuous waves of marginal weather between St. Louis and Texas delayed progress further. More work on the propeller, fuel system and radio were completed, and the weather finally began to cooperate as February approached.  

Steve Long, of One Spirit Aviation and avionics specialist on some Big River Aviation aircraft projects, brings us up to this portion of the story. “Finally, the day came when the aircraft was ready to fly. The aircraft had been sitting for a couple of years, so the condition of the engines was unknown to us up to this point. Nick Turk offered to be our evaluation pilot and proceeded to get the veteran aircraft in the air. One of the advantages of an aluminum aircraft is that aluminum doesn’t rust like the steel used in our cars. When an aircraft is well maintained, the life expectancy is unlimited as long as the aluminum maintains its strength. So, a 60-year old airplane can still serve well in the mission field. After several months of test flying and repairing the problems, the aircraft was ready for Tom and Dave from Hands of Compassion to get familiar with it. The aircraft went through another three weeks of flying to get it ready to make the flight between St. Louis and Guatemala.”

Dave Reichard, Director of Manos de Compasion, posted this update to the ministry’s Facebook page on December 3, 2019. “Tom and I went up to St. Louis to bring the plane back a few weeks ago. We were hoping to return with the plane this trip, but we ended up finding a number of things that needed to get repaired before we could bring it down. We did a number of test flights and were able to finish up a lot on the plane. We ended up coming home on Thanksgiving Day to be with the family…The mechanics are working on the plane now and will be doing final test flights later this week. They will let us know when we can come get the plane.”

Nick Turk, the evaluation pilot and advisor to the project since the beginning, briefly reviewed the process for The Aero Experience. “Many businesses, organizations and people contributed parts, services, advice, time, money and effort for the restoration of Piper Geronimo N101UA for Manos de Compasion. The Geronimo sat in a hangar in rural Spring Hill, Louisiana and it had not flown in many years. Paul Voorhees, the owner of Big River Aviation, provided the maintenance expertise to restore the plane to flying condition. On many trips to Louisiana, and over a two year period, his staff and other volunteers made the plane flyable again. It arrived in St. Louis in April of 2019 where the greater work of restoring the plane could be accomplished in the West Terminal Hangar at St. Louis Downtown Airport. 

“Dave Reichard and Tom Stukenberg from Manos de Campasion arrived in St. Louis in early 2020 to help complete the final repairs and fly the plane…Tom had owned a Geronimo in the past and was quite comfortable and happy with the plane. As the St. Louis effort to restore the Geronimo came to a close, their adventure to fly the plane back home to Guatemala began.”  

And then there was the weather. Low clouds hung over the St. Louis area and points south, and numerous discussions were held among Nick Turk, Dave Reichard and Tom Stukenberg about the weather conditions and the best departure date. As the final days of January came to a close, and more last-minute maintenance items were completed on the aircraft, we were able to conduct more interviews and gather more photos and video for this series and future publications. But we could all feel that it was time to get the aircraft safely to the field where it could be used effectively at the Manos de Compasion children’s home.

“As soon as this weather clears out, we’re heading south,” Dave Reichard told The Aero Experience during our January 31 interview. “We’re going to get down to Texas, a straight flight that’s about seven hours. We will probably stop about halfway to check the plane…and then we’ll continue down to McAllen, Texas. Then we have to do an APIS for the U.S. and an APIS for Mexico. Then we’ll do our best to overfly Mexico – our hope is to overfly it. The only thing that would stop us would be weather or some sort of mechanical problems. But our plan is to overfly Mexico from McAllen straight to Guatemala City. And then from there we’ll have to park it and get our paperwork squared away with the Guatemalan Government and then we can take it to our strip that’s right next to our house, to the ministry.” 

The flight was set for the morning of February 1, and the aircraft was packed and ready for engine start at 8:00 A.M. Dave and Tom had their first passenger on board, Mynor from Manos de Compasion, who accompanied them on the commercial flight to St. Louis on this trip. Taxi out of Big River Aviation and onto the apron for the engine run-up went routinely, and takeoff was accomplished at about 8:30 A.M. About thirty minutes later, they returned to land at St. Louis Downtown Airport after experiencing more problems with radio communications. The plane was unpacked and diagnostics were performed. It was determined that a higher grade of coax cable was needed to reduce signal bleed, and a later test flight confirmed that the problem was solved.

The delivery flight was scheduled for the next day, and the trio was again performing their pre-takeoff engine run-ups at 9:00 A.M. This time, the takeoff went without a hitch, and the Geronimo was on its way south. The aircraft flew to McAllen, TX and the fuel-feed nemesis emerged again. It was remedied, and the flight resumed. A landing in Mexico for fuel could not be avoided, and they took off soon thereafter for Guatemala City. They arrived in late afternoon on February 4, and returned to the children’s home later by land route. Delivery of the aircraft to the Manos de Compasion airstrip was accomplished on February 27 following the completion of the legal and administrative paperwork. The first flight in support of the ministry’s residents occurred earlier this week.

Manos de Compasion provided these views of the flight from St. Louis to Guatemala, including the eventual reception at the children's home airstrip:

Paul Voorhees, Owner of Big River Aviation, posted this message following the arrival of the aircraft at the Manos de Compasion airstrip. “Mission accomplished! Thanks to all that helped get this ready for service. Steve Long, Kevin Hammon, Nicholas Turk, Wayde Spenner, Brandon Schnicker, Mike Read, Nelson Miller, Trinity Propeller, Wings of Hope and anyone else that helped the Big River Aviation team! I look forward to helping Dave Reichard and Tom and Susan Stukenberg keep this plane in service!"

Steve Long expressed his satisfaction with the deployment of the aircraft and commitment to supporting the work of Manos de Compasion. “Tom and Dave took off February 2 to start a new chapter in the life of this special service airplane. We know from experience an aging aircraft will have issues that will require a mechanic’s touch, and this team of professionals stands ready to make a house call if necessary.  Whenever Tom or Dave makes a telephone call to one of us, we immediately know who it is by the sounds of kids, birds, dogs and other tropical sounds - the sounds of life - that let us know we made a small difference in the lives of people we may never meet. What an honor!”

Dave Reichard continued with this message following the flight. “We want to give a HUGE thanks to the mechanics at Big River Aviation, and of course Paul Voorhees, Owner, head mechanic, and pilot of Big River Aviation. He has volunteered so much of this time, tools, parts, and hanger space to get our plane done. The work they do is amazing. Very thorough and always professional. 

“Another HUGE thanks to Steve Long from One Spirit Engineering. Steve has volunteered hundreds of hours working on rewiring, avionics installations, and other repairs on the plane. Steve was the Hangar Director for Wings of Hope. His experience in prepping planes for field work has been priceless. 

"A BIG thanks to Nick Turk, owner of Turk Aviation, LLC. Nicholas Turk has been instrumental in keeping this project organized and rolling. He also is our safety pilot for our test flights. His experience in aviation has been very valuable.

“A thanks to Trinity Propeller shop in AR. The great people there stood behind their work 100%. We called Johnny on the Monday morning before Thanksgiving. By Tuesday afternoon Tom was on his way home with the propeller ready to go! And they paid for the hotel stay! All at no cost.

“Also a big thanks to Carmelo Turdo with The Aero Experience. He has been taking great photos and will be writing a few articles about us.” 

The Aero Experience was privileged to cover the Piper Geronimo project from St. Louis for Big River Aviation and Manos de Compasion, and we will post follow-up stories periodically. We hope that you will support the great work of Manos de Compasion by contributing directly to their ministry. Please consider visiting their website and making a generous donation to support their work as a foster family to these beautiful and wonderful children!

Ministry Uses Aircraft to Care for Children in Guatemala, Part Three: The Piper Geronimo Project Engages Midwest Aviation Community

By Carmelo Turdo

Manos de Compasion (Hands of Compassion) recently took delivery of their newest aircraft, a twin-engine Piper Geronimo, for use in support of the children’s home ministry located near the Bay of Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala. The use of this aircraft is vital to meeting the daily needs of the over fifty children receiving foster care in a region lacking adequate ground transportation and infrastructure. In Part One and Part Two of this series, we reported on the use of aviation at Manos de Compasion and how St. Louis-based Big River Aviation became involved with the restoration to flight of the ministry’s latest aircraft. In Part Three, we take a detailed look at the aircraft restoration project as it was conducted before the delivery flight in February 2020 as told by those who were directly involved.

We pick up the story at the time when the current and former Directors of Manos de Compasion, Dave Reichard and Tom Stukenberg, were flying their early model Cessna 172 in the high altitude environment of southwestern Guatemala. Most of the flights are made between the ministry’s airstrip and Guatemala City for court hearings and grocery shopping. 

“Our grass airstrip by the home is at fifty-three hundred feet,” Tom Stukenberg told The Aero Experience. “Guatemala City is five thousand feet. And in between there you have to be seven thousand, eight thousand feet and to be up above the clouds at ten, twelve thousand feet. The old Cessna would just putt, putt, putt up there but you had to be so careful with weight and you really couldn’t haul any supplies or anything. So we were thinking and praying about getting a different one and then this one [the twin-engine Piper Geronimo] showed up in Trade-A-Plane and I thought, ‘That’s the plane we need.’ But it turned out to be more of a project than we really figured.”

“We ended up here in St. Louis through a chain of references, actually starting in Guatemala with some other bush pilots down there,” Dave Reichard continued the story. “The big issue was that the plane we had purchased was in the middle of nowhere, and we didn’t know any mechanics down there. Luckily, Paul Voorhees at Big River Aviation decided that he would take on the challenge and head down there.”

The connection was made through a mutual friend, Bob Willhoit of Central Air Parts in Staunton, IL, who had supplied aircraft parts to both Big River Aviation and Manos de Compasion over the years. Paul Voorhees, owner of Big River Aviation in St. Louis, adds his view of the initial contact.

"Bob Willhoit said, ‘Paul, I know you’ve done things for Wings of Hope. I’ve got this missionary group down in Guatemala that needs some help. They need someone to go down to Louisiana and do a pre-buy on a Piper Geronimo.’ I had been working on a Piper Aztec out at Wings, and they are a similar airplane. He said, ‘If it’s okay, I’ll give them your number.’ He did, and I got a phone call. He said he didn’t have time to do it, that he’d worked with them for years helping them get parts to support the aircraft they had.” 

Tom Stukenberg

Paul Voorhees

“I get a phone call from Tom, who is down in Guatemala, and he explains the situation,” Voorhees continued. “He tells me about doing a pre-buy down there. I told him, ‘Yeah I can go down there.’ I told him I could go down there and do everything on a budget. I talked to Steve Long, former Hangar Director for Wings of Hope, and asked if he wanted to go to Louisiana with me and evaluate this airplane. And so Steve and I go down there and we make a list of everything we needed to do…We talked to the guys down in Guatemala and they made a deal, they got the airplane…They had seen it but they didn’t realize how big of a project it really was.”

“Several years ago, I met Dave when he and Tom were looking for a small twin-engine aircraft to replace their aging Cessna 172,” Steve Long, now with One Spirit Engineering, told The Aero Experience. “They needed an airplane that performed better at high altitude and could easily takeoff and land on a grass runway surrounded by mountains. Dave explained the necessity of having an aircraft to fly himself and the children to regularly pick up supplies and meet with government officials in the family court system in Guatemala City.  

Steve Long

“Tom purchased a Piper Geronimo (Apache conversion) from Jake Hearnsberger in Northern Louisiana,” Long continued the story. “The previous year, Jake started restoring the airplane, which included disassembling the aircraft to make repairs. Being newly married, Jake and his wife had their first baby, so Jake decided his family took priority over the Geronimo. Tom was introduced to Paul Voorhees, owner of Big River Aviation, via Bob Willhoit of Central Air Parts in Staunton, IL. Tom asked Paul to make a trip to Louisiana and see how long it would take to get the aircraft back to Illinois where Paul’s aircraft maintenance business is located. Since I had years of experience maintaining and modifying mission aircraft, Paul asked me to go along with him to help with the assessment. So off to Louisiana we went...Jake was gracious to allow us to use his hangar while we re-assembled the aircraft.”

Paul Voorhees describes the situation after arriving to inspect the aircraft in the summer of 2018. “The airplane was gutted from nose to tail - everything in the nose compartment, all the air ducting going to the heater. The nose gear was not even connected. The steering was all disconnected. All the electrical had been removed out of the nose and were all just piled up around this hangar...It took six trips.”

“Paul and I were shocked to see the aircraft in hundreds of pieces,” Steve Long added. “Paul and Kevin Hammond, an Airframe and Powerplant instructor at St Louis Community College, made several more trips…The project took about a year to make the airplane airworthy enough to fly to Paul’s shop at St. Louis Downtown Airport, about a 4-hour flight. Nick Turk, a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and now with Aero Careers who wanted to be part of the team as our “ferry” pilot, made the last two trips to Louisiana and flew the aircraft back to St. Louis.” 

Now the rest of the work was underway at Big River Aviation in April of 2019. There were some bright spots at the outset, with work already completed on the engines and propellers. There was new anticorrosion treatment in the floorboards and soundproofing. The upholstery had already been done. The paint job was already on the plane (the original owner in TX owned a paint shop). All the flight controls had been balanced. The interior and carpet are Airtex certified interior. There were complete logs all the way back to nineteen sixty. Even so, work continued all through 2019 until late January of this year.

Dave Reichard and Steve Long

Paul Voorhees continues with the list of maintenance items completed on the aircraft. “Every air duct in that airplane that goes from the heater from the front where the air vent comes in has been replaced with new, so all the way from the nose of the airplane to the end of the baggage compartment – all new ducting – under the floor, everything. Floor board supports needed reinstallation. All new wiring behind the panel - Steve Long did that work. We installed a brand-new Stratus transponder and engine analyzer. The radio that was in there is an older unit but it had been sent out for overhaul [MAC-1700]. It has brand-new antennas, brand-new coax going to the antennas. All the old breakers have been removed and then relocated to where the pilot can see them and activate them [they were underneath the instrument panel]. New push-pull breakers and all-new wiring.” 

“I spent almost another year installing new avionics and instruments, repairing most of the electrical system, and replacing all the flexible hoses and other things a 60-year old aircraft needs after many years of service,” Steve Long recalled. “Paul and his crew made some engine and fuel tank system repairs to prepare it for service in Guatemala. Mike Dealy, who leads the aircraft maintenance training program at Southwest Illinois College, offered his equipment to assist us in the repair and weighing of the aircraft…This was truly a team project with everyone volunteering their time and talent.”

Dave Reichard and Paul Voorhees

“We had to replace the exhaust, which was a big cost,” Dave Reichard added. “We had some radio issues, installation of some new parts. Another guy here [Steve Long], who I had met a few years ago when I was doing my training at Wings of Hope, just happened to be working here with Big River Aviation. I got to meet him again, and he and Big River Aviation really helped a lot with cost, volunteering a lot of time to help us get this plane done. It was incredible to see how so many different people just came together. Wings of Hope helped us, other mechanics and even the guys on the field would say, ‘I’ve got a part for that,’ and they would go run and grab it and bring it back. It’s been really neat to see how the people around here have come together to help us.”

(L-R) Dave Reichard, Steve Long and Nick Turk 

(Nick Turk photo)

Nick Turk, a professional pilot and owner of Turk Aviation, volunteered his services as pilot-in-command for the flights following the restoration of the aircraft to flight status. “The test flight of the plane on November 20 was the first time it has flown in eight months since the plane was flown to St. Louis from Louisiana,” he told The Aero Experience. Nick Turk, Steve Long and Dave Reichard were flying that day when a problem developed with the fuel system, causing a temporary engine failure. The engine was restarted and they returned to Big River Aviation at St. Louis Downtown Airport for repair.

The aircraft was ready for further flight testing soon thereafter, and more tweaks were needed to make the fuel tanks feed correctly and clear up radio signal issues cured by installing upgraded coax cable. Additional test flights and an extended period of poor weather conditions delayed the delivery flight until February 2, 2020. We will include more of the preparations for the departure flight in Part Four of this series. 

The Aero Experience was on site to document much of the work accomplished restoring and test flying the Geronimo at Big River Aviation. Along with this four-part narrative, told by those directly involved in the project, we have archived several thousand photos and video clips that will be included here and in future stories. Below we include a series of photos that capture the essence of our visits from April to December, 2019.

April - October, 2019

November 2019

December, 2019

   

We hope that you will support the great work of Manos de Compasion by contributing directly to their ministry. Please consider visiting their website and making a generous donation to support their work as a foster family to these beautiful and wonderful children!