Thursday, May 25, 2006

Enroute Thoughts

95 miles South of Collins Bay, SK
Flight Level 210
Ground Speed 222 kts
0810 Local Time

We've been in the air for an hour and 14 minutes now, it's 12 more minutes to the KEVBO intersection where we'll make a ten degree turn to the left and then only 80 more miles to our destination, Collins Bay.

We just got out of the soup (clouds/weather) about 20 minutes ago, it's blue skies above now, but not for long, there's a solid layer of clouds sitting over our destination. I didn't have the best sleep last night, so I'm a little tired. Two cups of coffee helped a bit, but that causes other problems when your stuck in the air for 2 hours with no washroom aboard...

The weather at Collins Bay is received. Ceiling is between 550' to 750' AGL (above ground level), 3 miles visibilty. Looks like we'll be doing the RNAV approach onto RWY 02, the approach will allow us to come down to 519' AGL. We should make it in, but we'll be going down to minimums, it's been a while since I've shot an approach, should be fun.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Thunder Storms


A short 35 minute flight to Regina today was proof of how every flight a pilot flies is not the same as a previous one, even if it includes the same destination. After waiting for a CRJ200 to land and then watching both a C172 and another CRJ200 take off out of Saskatoon, we pushed the power levers forward up to 700 degrees C, which usually we set to 1680 flbs/torque, but as summer is taking over it's the temps that govern our takeoff power setting. We started rolling down the runway with my captain calling first the power set and gauges green, then the alertness call at 80knots then the 100knot call and rotation. Our wheels left the runway at 105 knots and we climbed off RWY15 for 15'000 feet. The climb was smoother than I anticiapated with a long line of thunder storms streching from Regina to Saskatoon, but when we leveled off at 15'000 the turbulance was makeing for an uncomfortable ride so we got permission and dropped down 2000 feet. We quickly reached Regina and began our descent for the visual onto RWY13, the tower informed us of the TSs rolling in and told us we weren't gonna be able to get out if it didn't happen in 45mins. So we landed in Regina and taxied to the Aerocenter, it was a good feeling parking there in a plane as that was were I spent the previous three years working on the ground parking planes and fueling them.

We ended up on the ground for only about 25 mins and than hopped back in the plane, fired up and got clearance for RWY31 so we could stay away from the looming storm that was only minutes away. We lifted off 31 and immediatly asked departure for 12000 (instead of our flight planned 16000) and for deviations to the right for weather. We were approved for it all and proceeded to fly about 15 degrees to the East of our course. Within 5 mins our storm scope was showing lighting only about 15 miles behind us, we continued to the flight with a nice 30 knot tail wind and the line of TSs on our right side the whole way to Saskatoon. We arrived along with about 4 other planes trying to get into Saskatoon, thanks to a hard working Terminal and Tower we where able to land without any delays, we got the visual for RWY15 about 15 miles back and where told to land and hold short of RWY 09, which wasn't a problem for us. We landed along with a B737 which was touching down on 09 just before we touched down on 15. We landed and slowed down to exit on Alpha, the taxi back was nice with the whole day still before me. And it's now evening and we haven't seen those thunder storms yet.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Summer's coming

The horizon is 60 miles ahead of us, a crisp line between the ground and the sky, a full semi-circle streching from my left, unobstructed all the way to my right. Not a cloud is seen as we fly north at 225 mph, sitting on smooth air 20,000 feet above the ground. The King Air's twin turbo-props are a dull roar as the enigine cores are spinning at an incredible 63,000 rpm, producing 650 horsepower per side which is used to turn the 4 bladed Hartzell props at 1750 rpm. It has been awhile since we've seen the horizon unubscured by cloud, this is a sure sign that Spring has started to move over and let Summer take its place. Summer, the season where an airplanes performance drops and the approachs become turbulant, the lower atmosphere filled withpockets of rising warm air as the sun heats the earth below. But also, on the other hand, a season of no worries about icing, slick runways and damaging windrows. Plus, beachs, barbeques, warmth, baseball, fishing...and on and on...

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Day Three of Three


Scattered Cloud Over Northern Saskatchewan

Well, the trip ended in very interesting fashion that only charter flying can offer. In the beginning, I was to fly out of Saskatoon at 1315 empty up to Cigar Lake to pick up the four pax we had left up there for the night. Well about 1030 Friday morning I got the call from dispatch asking me too come in ASAP, the reason being was we had a company plane in La Ronge that had had smoke smelt in the cabin while in flight and so where on the ground and in need of maintaince. And La Ronge is right on the way to Cigar and we were suppose to be empty on the way up so we could make a quick stop there and drop off a couple of maintaince engineers.
So I made the trip into Saskatoon about an hour early then we were planning and we were airborn by 1230 with 2 maintaince engineers in the back. We were half way to La Ronge when Dispatch again called us, this time on company frequency and told us that instead of going straight to Cigar after La Ronge, make a stop in Key Lake (20 minutes from Cigar) and pick up two extra passangers to bring along back to Saskatoon. So once on the ground in La Ronge we made the neccessary revisions to our flight plan and were then off to Key Lake to pick up two.
The adventure goes on, we got to Key and greeted our first passenger (while waiting for the other to show up), I happen to say something like "so you get to come down to Saskatoon for the weekend, eh?". Well, we should have expected this, when he said 'Actually I think you guys are suppose to drop me off in Prince Albert". O. Well we quickly called up Dispatch and confirmed it with them, and then for the 3rd time that day, called up Flight Services and ammended our flight plan.
Soon we were on our way to Cigar Lake with two on board, and four more to pick up. Or so we thought, but before we landed we were informed that there was actually gonna be 5 now out of Cigar. Wow, Luckily we didn't take an excessive amount of fuel out of Saskatoon and were able to easily cope with all the extra weight while still able to make the extra legs also.
We took off out of Cigar Lake with an almost full load and started too make our way up to FL190 for the trip to P.A. We got a hold of Edmonton Radio on the Wolleston DRCO (Dial up remote communications outlet) and asked them to open our IFR flight plan and for clearance into high level airspace. Well it seems we had confused them with all of our changes to our flight plan and they were unable to clear us up into high level airspace, so we had to get a hold of Winnipeg Center when we got high enough to pick up reception on our radios. Eventually we got the clearance, and leveled off at FL190 for Prince Albert.
We had no more changes to the flight and ended our day in Saskatoon at 1830. The weather was a soft 15degrees Celcius when we walked back to the hanger and finished up the paper work. Our trip is over, as well as our week, I'm looking forward to a slow weekend.

Final Collins Bay

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Day Two Of Three

Well, day two went well with a morning flight at 0800 to McArthur River, a fifeteen minute hop. We sat all day at the mine while enjoying plenty of food, coffee and entertainment. These mines are really a good day to spend the day, they have gymnasiums, weight gyms, billards, ping pong, internet, TV, and many other things to help pass the day away. Around 1600 we drove out to the airstrip and after a short wait, our passangers showed up and we flew off, low level, to the next mine, Cigar Lake, a quick 10 minute hop. Our passangers are spending the three days up here touring three mine sites, we are their transportation. But tonight instead of staying the night at Cigar, dispatch had us drop the pax of for the night and then pick up 5 other people at 3 different mines and take them to Saskatoon. Which is great because now I'm at home with my beautiful wife for the night. Tomorrow we head back up North to finish the job and bring our orginal 4 pax back down south.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Day One Of Three

We're on a three day charter that orginated in Saskatoon this morning at about 0800 when we lifted off of RWY27 in an almost 20 knot cross wind. We climbed through scattered layer of clouds at 1200 feet and then lost site of the ground thruogh 5800 as we passed through the ceiling. In another 1000 feet or so we emerged on the sunny side and proceeded to climb to Flight Level 190, but when we reached FL190 we decided to continue up to FL210 in hopes of lesser winds on the nose. So after getting clearance from Winnipeg Center we jumped up to 21,000 feet where we remained for the rest of the two hour flight to Collins Bay.
The descent was smooth and we were happy to see that the sky was clear and winds were down in Collins for our approach. The passengers on board asked us to fly around the mine site before landing, it was our pleasure to take the 10 minute tour around the mines at 800' AGL(above ground). We landed shortly after 1000 and took a quick ride to the mine site where we got to relax for the rest of the day.
We stay over tonight and in the morning at 0800 hours we continue on with a little more flying then today. Talk to you then...