February 14, 2010 – Sunday 8:27am (Eastern U.S. Time) – Titusville, FL – Report submitted by Air Mobile Joe

Happy Valentine! It’s a crisp 35 degrees here in sunny Florida! Here’s a cool journey for you. Dave Rigby – Retired Science Teacher – turned Water Mule – turned Aircraft mechanic (temporary)! Dave first contacted us after travelling to Africa as a “water mule”. His story is on our December 5th blog below. Well, he was so impressed with what the Voyager did, he traveled to Florida to meet us and ended up purchasing a Voyager to tell and demo others about how remarkable the Voyager is. Dave has stayed in close touch with us and has offered multiple times to come on a “rescue” mission with us. Then January 12th came and all of our lives have been changed. We dashed to Haiti and Dave followed our mission day by day reading the blogs. From Haiti, I responded to him several times. 

Upon returning to the U.S. last week, the phone began to ring and “on faith” Dave boarded a previously cancelled flight from very cold Chicago to moderately cold Florida. Dave’s mission – to join me on my first flight into Haiti in N19EZ (our newly acquired Cessna 337). Not knowing when we are actually departing, Dave showed up to do “whatever” needed to be done to get this mission “winging” back to Haiti. Also, Dave brought funding for 5 more Voyagers. His community truly came together and many gave generously to funds these life-saving devices!!

Yesterday, we spent a very chilly day in the hangar working on our beautiful new bird. From closing up inspection panels, to learning about how to determine the stretch on control cables to propellers and even jacking up an aircraft for a “landing gear swing”, Dave had full day. Meanwhile, my precious Cindy was cooking and serving a Valentines’ Dinner for a local church group. Juliet was Cindy’s invaluable assistant. Our son, Peter helped prepare the feast. Down below in our lobby a team of 15 volunteers headed by Kyle, my son-in-law and his assistant Keith Pecot helped move huge amounts of baby formula, diapers, medical supplies and food to our temporary staging hangar. Cherie, my beautiful daughter (who is expecting) picked up Barbara who had to overnight in the Bahamas due to weather. Pat, the volunteer pilot got her safely back early yesterday morning. They dashed right to the IndiaFest to meet the many generous and caring residents of Brevard county. We are absolutely overwhelmed by the kindness and love being poured out for Haiti in our community. Between inspections / repairs on the aircraft, I fielded calls from Haiti regarding our “Haiti in-flight missions”. Wow, what a day! We got back to our condo at 8:00pm last night. Cindy got home around 10:00pm and Juliet, our other beautiful daughter got home around midnight. A long, but productive day. Just thought I’d give you a little slice out of our life. Hope and pray that you have a blessed Valentines Day. We’ll report on the final tally of funds raised for Reach Out To Haiti with the wonderful “matching” funds by Dr. Charles. God Bless. We have to get ready for church.

Air Mobile Joe