A GUERNSEY pilot is helping the Sudanese relief effort. Bryan Pill has been ferrying representatives from service agencies, Bible translators and medical specialists between the Chad capital of N’Djamena and refugee camps near the border with western Sudan.

‘The daytime temperature can reach 45C and the air is unbelievably dry,’ he said.

‘The thing that strikes me is that it’s just scrub. There’s no food as nothing grows there.’

Since 1992, the former Amherst and Grammar School pupil has worked with the interdenominational Christian agency, Mission Aviation Fellowship.

Most funding for Mr Pill’s work comes from Christian friends and churches within the Channel Islands.

Although his trips do not extend across the Sudanese border, flying time in the six-seater Cessna 206 to the south-east corner of Chad is four hours, giving the need to refuel at Abeche.

Most of his stops are short as result.

‘The aircraft is really at the top end of its range, but until you have a crisis, there’s not really the need for such things,’ said Mr Pill.

The aircraft is one of two that Maf has working in the region at the moment and a larger one from South Africa and its crew will join the team next month.

On occasion Mr Pill is unable to return to N’Djamena on the same day and spends the night at Abeche, an hour’s flying time from the Sudanese border. This provides better protection for the aircraft.

Mr Pill was sanguine about the risks of his job.

‘It’s best not to think about it,’ he said. ‘Conditions are hot and it’s a very difficult environment for the aircraft, but it is what we do.

‘Maf engineers maintain the aircraft to a high standard and much of what we do is common sense. You try not to draw attention to yourself.’

Pilots aim to maintain constant radio contact with people on the ground, particularly in areas with security problems.

Mr Pill flew some of the first journalists to visit the stricken area back to N’Djamena on the start of their return trip.

He was born and educated in Guernsey and has a bachelor of education degree from Exeter. He and English-born wife Tricia spent four years teaching in India before returning to Guernsey. After learning to fly with the Guernsey Aero Club in 1989, he went to train as a commercial pilot in the United States the following year.

He joined the Maf programme in Tanzania in 1992 and, from 1996, the couple spent five years working in Uganda and a further two in Bangladesh before returning again to Guernsey. They have three children – a son and daughter at a UK boarding school and a daughter who attends La Houguette.

Mr Pill has just started his third one-month spell this year working in Chad and he plans to do a fourth in November.

* Mr and Mrs Pill would be happy to speak of their work at formal or informal meetings of groups large or small. They can be contacted at bryan.pill@maf-europe.org or by telephone on 265494.

* The charity, Maf, has 25 aircraft based in Bangladesh, Chad, Kenya, Madagascar, Mongolia and Uganda. It has staff seconded to fields of operation in South Africa, Australia and Canada.

Its mission is to fly light aircraft in developing countries to enable people in remote areas to receive the help they need. Since 1946 these aircraft have been involved in places of ‘deepest human need where flying is a lifeline, not a luxury’.