Mission Aviation Completely Rebuilds Bush Plane

The blog of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) describes how the group took a 1980 Cessna 206 and broke it down to its smallest components in an extensive rebuild effort:

[The] 1980 Cessna TU206, named HC-BMO, served 20 years in Ecuador… After accumulating almost 10,000 flight hours (about 1.4 million miles) we reassigned it to Africa. But first, we routed it through Nampa for a new engine and a major airframe overhaul…

We drilled out and replaced over 11,000 rivets to expose and check every square inch of every surface. We inspected each rubber grommet, control mechanism, pulley, bearing and hose. We checked hundreds of feet of electrical cables and radio wiring…

After investing nearly 2,000 man-hours (worth $130,000 not counting parts), we sent it out with a new name, N5142C, to serve the mountain folks of Lesotho…

That seems like a substantial effort for a missionary organization to take on, though a brief search shows similar aircraft selling for more than $200,000, so the rebuild was likely worth the effort.

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