Kenya Wildlife Service Gets Husky

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The folks with the Lindbergh Foundation have been working for a few years now to provide support to the pilots of the Kenya Wildlife Service, who fly under extreme conditions in their effort to protect wild animals from poachers, and on Thursday at AOPA Summit, Foundation chairman Larry Williams announced the group will donate a brand-new Aviat Husky to the effort. The Foundation has been working with Patty Wagstaff and John and Martha King to provide training to the pilots. “They have a fleet of about seven airplanes and a couple of helicopters, and each of them has crashed at least three times,” said Williams. The pilots have minimal training. They are often shot at and operate from rough runways with no lighting. “It’s very challenging conditions,” Williams said.

The Husky was acquired thanks to a donation from Dr. Rich Sugden, an air show performer, vintage aircraft owner and businessman who visited Kenya with the Foundation last year. The Husky has already been flown from the factory in Wyoming to Kansas, where it is being crated for transport to Kenya. It should be there and ready to fly by next February, when the Foundation plans to return for another training session, Williams said.

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