This caught my eye on AOPA this morning.....an LSA car-powered-chute vehicle....

This is interesting to me for several reasons:

Company founder Stephen Saint is a missionary and the son of Nate Saint, one of the pilot missionaries who was killed (speared) back in the '50s while trying to contact the Waodani Indians in the Amazon basin. Nate's sister and other women returned to evangelize the tribe soon after Nate's death, and son Stephen eventually traveled to the same area. This was the story behind the 2006 docu-drama "End of the Spear", a movie that had some limited success.

I had the privilege of taking a medical team to this part of Ecuador in '08, and visited Nate Saint's old home at the edge of the jungle in Shell, Ecuador, next to the airstrip that they used (and still do) to fly out into some of the most remote parts of this hemisphere.

Anyhow, here's AOPA's story and video on the car-a-chute:

http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2010/100629maverick.html?WT.mc_id=100702epilot&WT.mc_sect=tts

Arlen,

Great post! I have read the Journals of Jim Elliot, and have both the "End of the Spear" and "Through the gates of Splendor" documentary movies. Glad to hear that there are still active missionaries in the Ecuador area. Would you have any photos that you could share?

Regards,
Kent

Kent,
I have a thousand pictures. BTW, I watched them flying a C-182 out of the airstrip in Shell, Ecuador, heading for a grass strip in the jungle to pick up an injured person and bring them back to Shell for treatment by some American missionary doctors who were there. It's not a thriving general aviation community there, but they put this plane to good use.

Here's the team:



My wife and I at an edge-of-jungle school:



It's the kids that get to you...



My son-in-law starting an IV...

Great pics! Thanks for sharing.