our history
On May 20, 1945, MAF conducted the first North American flight, marking the beginning of a legacy that would continue to today.
our founders
Betty Greene, the first-ever MAF pilot
In 1946, Betty made history as the pilot of the first ever MAF flight! Find out more about this pioneering woman of faith, passion and great talent as she spearheaded the mission aviation movement.
“On the morning of our departure, a group of friends gathered for prayer and to wish us well. After taxiing to the east end of the dirt strip, I swung the plane around for take-off.” The very first MAF flight was underway!
MAF Pilot Betty Greene was a young woman of 25 when she took to the skies in February 1946.
“As I pushed the throttle forwards, dust whipped up in a cloud behind us,” she continued. “I climbed westward and circled back over the group of friends who waved to us as I dipped the wing in salute.”
“It had been a year and three months since I opened the office,’ Betty wrote in her book Flying High, a fascinating account of the early years of MAF and her own adventures as its very first pilot – not to mention the first ever female mission pilot. ‘What a thrill to actually be doing the work for which we had hoped, prayed and planned all those months.”
MAF’s first ever flight
The excitement of the flight in the ‘beautiful red 1933 four-seater Waco Cabin Biplane with a 220 horsepower Continental engine’ was tangible. It had been purchased only weeks before departure from the small city of La Habra in Orange County, California on 23 February 1945, bound for Mexico.
The plane was to be used initially to help SIL/Wycliffe missionaries, who converged on ‘Jungle Camp’ for training, before spreading out across Asia, Africa and Latin American to translate the Bible into scores of indigenous languages. But it was only the first of many aircraft and pilots deployed across the world in the service of the Gospel in the years to come.
“As the Waco Biplane wound its way in stages over Phoenix, Marfa, Brownsville, Tampico and Vera Cruz to Mexico City, Betty said, ‘We exclaimed “Ohs” and “Ahs” over the beauty of the shimmering Gulf Coast, the luxuriant green growth below and the towering Sierra Madre Oriental mountains to the west.”
A steep learning curve
The initial flight took more than three days as Betty proceeded cautiously, grounding the plane at one point to investigate a concern with the engine. These early flights were a steep learning curve for the young pilot – building on her experience as a WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) towing aerial targets for artillery practice and participating in early stratospheric flight testing that led to the development of technology for high altitude flying.
One lesson she learned early on was the need for wide safety margins when flying over mountainous areas. Betty ‘encountered an unusually severe downdraft’ crossing mountains near Arriaga on that first ferry flight.
“A glance at the rate of climb indicator told me that we were descending at about 2,000 feet per minute,” wrote Betty, “although I was in level flight and had level throttle. Fortunately I had several thousand feet to spare and was glad of it.” Disaster was avoided and valuable knowledge gained.
On another occasion, Betty wrote, “I flew a family from Jungle Camp to Tuxtla. As I sped down the strip I noted the plane hesitated to take off. We had poor lift and the tail wheel hit the rise at the end of the strip. That experience taught me what a difference high temperatures and high humidity can make for flying. After that I tried to get out of marginal strips in the cool of the day when the lift was good.”
An understanding of the challenges involved in flying in tropical climates and over remote and difficult terrain had to be learned on the job by Betty and the other early pioneers. This was later passed on to generations of MAF bush pilots through excellent training.
A series of firsts
In her career, Betty made over 4,640 flights as she ferried aircraft and delivered missionaries, dignitaries and cargo to inaccessible corners of the country. She also carried out many life-saving medical flights for patients who would have died without them.
Betty went on to serve in 12 countries including Peru, Nigeria, Sudan and Papua (Indonesia) and touched down in some 20 more, before returning to serve MAF from its US base in 1962. Her impact as a woman and a pilot was clear. “I was frequently the first woman pilot to fly in an area,” she explained.
“It was said that I was the first to fly across the Peruvian Andes into the jungles of the upper reaches of the Amazon River. In Sudan, it took an act of parliament for me to fly there. In Papua, no woman had piloted a plane into the so-recently opened interior. Amelia Earhart had only touched down on the coast of Papua New Guinea on her round-the-world flight in 1937.”
“These experiences were thrilling,” Betty once remarked humbly, ‘but in all honestly I did not have any ambition to achieve ‘firsts’ in flying. My mind was set on doing productive work and any achievements in flying came about incidentally as I carried out my assignments.”
Passion and faith
Described as a woman with ‘poise, refinement, alert mind and ability to articulate’, what impressed people most was Betty’s strong faith, professionalism and passion for flying. Her resilience and grace when, time and time again, she faced resistance for being a woman pilot in what was seen as a man’s world, were remarkable.
Betty was decades ahead of her time and God’s chosen instrument to fulfil an important strategic role in MAF’s early development. As one commentator wrote concerning her lasting impact, “Through her writing, dreaming and service she offered new ideas and principles in the area of aviation to enable missionaries to do their work in remote areas.”
Today, 70 years on from MAF’s maiden flight, MAF operates 132 aircraft in over 25 countries and is seeking a new generation of female pilots to follow in Betty’s footsteps.
Stuart King, the first flight into Africa
MAF co-founder, former RAF Flight Lieutenant and Normandy Landings veteran, Stuart was one of the early pioneers to take light aircraft to the remotest parts of Africa in the aftermath of World War II.
Highly skilled, tenacious and dedicated to helping those in need, Stuart began a lifelong mission to reach the most isolated and forgotten people using aviation and technology. This vision has become Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) – an international Christian charity and the world’s largest humanitarian airline.
Serving as an aircraft engineer during the Second World War and ending his RAF career as Chief Technical Officer at RAF Duxford, Stuart nurtured a growing desire to use aircraft for good – helping to establish MAF in 1945.
Struck by the isolation of countless thousands of people living behind physical and economic barriers, Stuart, along with a handful of RAF personnel, set out to discover the extent of their needs.
His determination and sense of adventure led him on a survey flight across eastern and central Africa in 1948 – a pioneering mission that shaped the course of Stuart’s future and paved a way forward for humanitarian aviation.
It took two long years to raise funds for the twin-engined, four-seater Miles Gemini aircraft that became known as ‘The Mildmay Patfinder’ in honour of our sponsor, the Mildmay Movement. Finally, on the afternoon of Tuesday 13 January 1948 at Croydon Airport – after an electrical fault had been corrected– Jack Hemmings (pilot) and Stuart King (engineer) were given permission to take off.
Rallying funds and vision for MAF’s first aircraft – a Miles Gemini – from a handful of pilots and friends, Stuart and former RAF Squadron Leader Jack Hemmings began a six-month survey flight to explore the basic question of whether aircraft could assist the work of humanitarian missionaries dotted across Africa. With little more than a map, compass and wartime RAF experience, the fearless pair plotted a route across Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Kenya and the Belgian Congo, using the River Nile as their guide.
Discovering hazardous terrain and unimaginable needs, Stuart and Jack established connections with the missionary community and discovered that, in many places, the only way to bring life-transforming help to those living in remote areas was to build airstrips.
With the help of light aircraft, emergency cargo, missionary personnel and medical equipment could all be delivered safely and efficiently, saving many days of travel by treacherous or non-existent roads. It was an adventure of a lifetime – one Stuart and Jack embraced with fearless determination and a healthy dose of pragmatic humour.
On one occasion, their trusty Gemini was climbing slowly through the rising valleys of Burundi’s foothills, struggling to reach an altitude of 8,500 feet to clear the mountains ahead. But as they approached the highest peak, a strong headwind dragged them down, and they unfortunately met a banana tree on their descent! It was a miracle that both men survived, although the Gemini was in ruins. Stuart depicted their early perils with artistic flair, noting, “Sometimes, we didn’t quite know where we were!” They had lost the aircraft but continued the journey overland. Seeing now how hard this particular method of travel was, they became more passionate than ever about their mission to help the unreached.
“Although Jack, Murray and I were professionals in aviation, we were all amateurs in mission! We just felt the call to go. We didn’t think ahead to what it might become, we didn’t analyse it; we just went.”
They ‘just went’ on a 9-month survey flight across Africa in 1948, armed with a calling from God and only £250 in their back pockets!
“The sight of Africa was moving and impressive: desert and swamp, later jungle and mountains. That first pioneering survey was exciting, tough and dangerous – but God helped us not to waver!”
The whole enterprise did not come without a strong sense of calling, and Stuart’s unwavering Christian faith led him to risk his life on many occasions to expose the need in some of the world’s most isolated communities. Meeting his wife Phyllis, a missionary working in Sudan in 1951, Stuart recalled memories from their early romance and adventures as young parents in his book Hope Has Wings – revealing a creative, humorous and extraordinary determination:
“After a brief honeymoon, we moved into a room at the SIM headquarters. The plan was to overhaul the Rapide [aircraft] at Khartoum airport [in Sudan], and our room had to double as the MAF office. Phyllis soon took over accounts, paying invoices as well as typing innumerable letters to London, the Sudan Government and to missions. She also ordered spares for the plane. Some of these had to be stored in our room; we even kept a propeller under the bed!
“[Returning the family from London to Africa] proved an epic flight – 12 days and 5,000 miles of flying. We stopped at many bizarre and outlandish places along the West African coast, spending nights in strange hotels or little rest houses. We’d wash the children’s nappies at night and spread them over our knees during the next day’s flight, turning on the cabin warm air to help speed the drying.”
Every tribe and tongue
Stuart was a man who carried heaven’s perspective. He knew the eternal significance of MAF’s work, but had the humility to call it “just a small, but perhaps crucial part.”
“I see more clearly now than ever how the timing of God’s call to us was so valid,” he said reflecting on his years of service, “and how it has been continuously confirmed over the years.”
“My hope is that MAF will continue to be part of reaching out to remote and neglected communities – speeding the Lord’s return.”
