George Morgan, Co Founding Director of Gippsland Aeronautics, hands over the keys of the new Airvan to Marcus Grey, Chief Flying Instructor of the MAF Flight Training Centre at Coldstream (Vic), who will ferry the aircraft to Cambodia.

Gippsland Aeronautics Director George Morgan recently delivered a new Airvan to the Mission Aviation Fellowship International for service in Cambodia.
MAF Australia has been a major customer of the Airvan operating seven in Arnhem Land, two in Papua New Guinea and one each in Indonesia and East Timor. However, this latest aircraft is the first to be delivered to MAF International.

Where previously the MAF organisations in each country operated autonomously, the separate MAF entities from Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa and the USA recently came together under one banner to form MAF International.

MAF International, which has around 1000 staff, operates 133 aircraft in 35 countries throughout Africa, South and Central America, Asia and the Pacific. Every three minutes an MAF plane takes off or lands somewhere in the world to serve isolated people in thousands of remote communities.

MAF has been operational in Cambodia since January 1995. The Airvan, which replaces a smaller aircraft, will be based in Phnom Penh and will fly to all parts of the country including the remote northern and north-eastern provinces, enabling humanitarian groups, government and mission teams to have access to otherwise isolated regions for work.

The most frequent users of the service will be groups involved in environmental protection. Other users of the MAF service include personnel involved with land mine clearing, aid and development workers, translators, United Nations and international embassy personnel.