The second wing of a 180-horsepower A1C Husky plane comes off at the GUT-Works, LLC, hangar at the Lawrence airport Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009. The Lawrence company is one of the sponsors helping ship the plane to Africa where it will be used by the Kenya Wildlife Service to help locate elephant poachers. Handling the wing from left are GUT-Works manager Ron Renz, mechanic Phillip Pittzer, Paul Isabell, base mechanic for LifeStar and Jonah Seibel.

It may seem like a long way to the savannas of Africa, but a Lawrence aviation company is proving it’s closer than you might think.

Employees at GUT Works, an aviation firm based in a hangar at Lawrence Municipal Airport, are participating in a program that will help save the lives of endangered animals and protect wildlife in Kenya.

After a Wyoming pilot donated a $220,000 airplane to the Lindbergh Foundation, GUT Works raised half the costs associated with shipping the two-seater Aviat Husky A-1C 12,000 miles across the globe.

“People say, it’s an airplane, why don’t you fly it?” GUT Works Manager Ron Renz said. “Well, we’re going halfway around the world. That’s a long way, and there’s some big overwater stretches. This airplane just doesn’t have the range to do that.”

So instead of preparing for takeoff, the crew in Lawrence is taking the plane apart, piece by piece. It will be packaged in a shipping container and begin its two-month journey to a port in Mombasa, Kenya.

The plane, equipped with state-of-the-art night vision technology, is a gift to the Kenya Wildlife Service. It will be used to track wildlife and patrol for poachers on game reserves. Renowned U.S. aerobatic pilot Patty Wagstaff has been working to train the pilots with the wildlife service for the past six years, teaching them flight maneuvering skills that help them when they are tracking elephant poachers.

“What began as a simple partnership between the Lindbergh Foundation and Patty Wagstaff to support her work training the Kenya Wildlife Service pilots to safely protect wildlife from poachers, has evolved into a gift that we could never have imagined,” Lindbergh Foundation President and CEO Larry Williams said, referring to the donation of the brand-new airplane.

GUT Works is the main exporter of that particular brand of aircraft.

Renz said it typically costs about $13,000 to ship a plane of this size to Africa. He worked with his suppliers — from the container company to the forklift provider — to cover about $6,000 of that.

“It’s a really good opportunity because it’s helping the environment and it’s helping an underdeveloped country,” Renz said. “It allows us to showcase how general aviation helps the world. To me, airplanes are my life. It’s a great way to use that to make the world a better place to live in.”