Cleared for Takeoff 50 Stories From the Pen of a Jungle Pilot

The only time many of us would get an airplane stopped in 300 feet would be to snag a wire on a carrier deck or forget to put the gear down. But Bob Griffin routinely landed his Helio Courier on short and narrow strips in the jungles of South America and the Philippines as part of his missionary work with JAARS - the Jungle Aviation And Radio Service - and was often met by tribes of headshrinkers ... and we don't mean psychoanalysts. In this month's Profile, AVweb's Joe Godfrey talks with Bob about logging 7,000 hours as a missionary aviator, the history of JAARS, Helio Couriers, and Bob's friend Gordon Baxter.