Flying Upwards

The Bag Run

2008-03-24T21:21:00.004-06:00

Above the Weather, Early Morning.

My cup of Earl Grey tea is slightly on the strong side as I sit and sip in Melfort's quite clubhouse. My King Air 200 manual is open in front of me, but my eye's are constantly wandering to the windows. Outside an early spring snow fall has obscured the visibility down to less than a mile, casting the early morning world (well my world anyways) into a pleasantly gloomy state. The flakes are big and getting blown into a fast dance, it's a little memorizing.

The NDB approach brought me within sight of the field just thirty minutes ago, after a short and enjoyable flight from Saskatoon. My fears of heavy icing due to the 0º temps and a forecast for a mix of rain and snow were gratefully unnecessary. The flight was completely ice free.

The landing was made amid soft two inch drifts that weren't even felt through the Cessna 402's gear and peddles. The cargo was soon unloaded and the flight plan closed. Now I start to run through my daily routine of sitting in Melfort, which is not my normal run but lately I have been filling in quite a bit.

The routine consists of a cup of tea and a nap or some reading while hanging out at the little clubhouse/terminal at the airfield. Then it's down to the bakery where I get the most fabulous cinnamon bun and a cup of coffee and do some more reading. After my fingers are sticky and I'm starting to buzz from the caffeine, I head to the apartment for some more sleep, reading and maybe some television. Usually there is a short walk somewhere in the day and possibly some window shopping. Around 5 PM I head back out to the airport to again load up about 500lbs of bags. Soon the power comes up, followed shortly by the landing gear. Then I'm riding air back home.

7000

2008-02-21T10:13:00.002-06:00

Well, I'm back in the right seat. Making radio calls and flipping switches. However this time it's in the Cessna 402. No, I didn't get a demotion, I'm doing line-in-dock with a new hire who's going to be another captain on the C402.

He's a fine pilot and is doing a very good job. He's actually flown on 705 machines (airline category planes), been a chief pilot and has over 7000 hours. I feel a slight bit funny showing this guy the ropes with my 1500 hours of experience. But I also feel lucky that he isn't anything difficult to fly with and isn't making a bunch of mistakes, because we are filed under my license number today. He has 50 hours of line-in-dock to do, just as I had 7 months ago. I will be flying the majority with him for those hours. That'll be alright, it's always nice to have some company on those long days in the middle of no where.

Just Too Cold

2008-02-04T09:03:00.000-06:00

Watching the -37ºC sunrise as I drive back home to bed.

The past week was one of getting up sometime between 0400 and 0500 every morning. Going through the usual hygienic routine, then it's a bagel, boots and outside...

And that's where things began to change, Monday morning was a blizzard, the drive to work was harrowing to say the least. Once I was there though I was lucky enough to have my plane in the hanger where I got to do a warm walk around. But soon after had to cancel my flight anyways, due to low vis and 30 to 40 mph direct crosswinds at my destination, which was a 3100' strip with patches of ice. Not really inviting.

By Tuesday morning the blizzard had died down, leaving behind frigid -35ºC temps. As I drove into work that morning (in my wifes vehicle since mine wouldn't start) I knew that I'd be canceling the flight because we don't fly any of the companies piston planes at or below -35ºC. Unfortunately I was still required to show up at work, make the decision and tell the passengers.

Wednesday warmed up to -34, unfortunately my destination was sitting at -38. Same thing therefore, canceled.

Thursday I finally got to sit in the plane. The normally soft and comfy seat felt like I was sitting back in my high school plastic chair twas so hard, thanks to a couple of days of sitting outside. The engines fired up nicely though, thanks to the Tanis heaters and tents that go synonymously with winter and I proceeded to taxi the plane to a secure spot to do my run-up. Bare of any seats in the back of my plane to do a cargo run, I worked down my after starts and taxi check list. About half way through the list, the cold weather started to show it's dislike for mechanics and as I set my heading indicator. The push-to-set button stuck in and I was left without my HI which was also coupled to the autopilot.

Lord Almighty, I said.

And walk-in to get maintenance, which tell me it'd take a while to fix. My fourth cancellation in a week. Makes ya feel a little useless.

Friday morning comes along, I'm sleeping in bed. My cell phone is quiet. I am happy.

Quiet Morning

2008-01-14T15:10:00.000-06:00

I'm in the North, at least 60 miles from the nearest civilization. Level at 8000 feet and flying even further northward. It's early morning, still dark. The radios are eerily quite, I'm thinking I'm the only one up here this morning so far. The air is so quiet broken only by the noise of the twin 325 horse powered Continentals, droning on and on till you don't really hear them anymore. I'm hearing a faint howling scream every now and then. I don't know if it's in my mind or the wind rushing 195 mph past the cabin. But it defiantly sets even a lonelier feeling to the already empty plane. I'm flying single pilot today and my lone passenger is snoozing in the back, all light are out except for the warm glow of my instruments. It's almost spooky. My comfort is the warm blast of heat off the forward heater, blowing on my legs from under the dash, along with my lite up instrument panel. 160 NM to go.

Frozen Digits

2007-11-27T17:29:00.000-06:00

It's a beautiful winter morning as I traverse the skies at 6000'. It's -24ºC up here and colder down on the ground. The earth is peacefully frozen down below me, covered in a white glow from the full moon's shine across the white landscape. The early mornings offer this calm quietness, well, once you're airborne and have a warm blast of heat blowing across your toes. My fingers are now thawed out and my back is relaxed after tensing it, to ward off the cold. Another hour of this goodness until I'm landing on a snow covered runway and freezing my digits all over again tenting and plugging the airplane in for a cold day's wait in La Loche.

Smooth Air

2007-10-04T16:58:00.000-06:00

Looking for a Clear Path in the C402

I'm up at 16'000 feet, just finished enjoying a cup of coffee and a cookie. The sun is beating through the window and the scattered layer of clouds 10'000 feet below offer glimpses of a beautiful Autumn afternoon down on earth. It's relaxing.

I've forgotten how relaxing it can be when you get up high above the bumps and weather. I got checked out on the Cessna 402 about 3 months ago and that has been the only thing I've flown in the past two weeks. Although I really enjoy the plane and the challenges of single pilot IFR, getting a break from flying in the weather down at 6'000 feet is nice. The low rumble of the turbines and smooth upper atmosphere are great for putting a guy in a mentally and physically
relaxed state. Unlike what I was trudging through just yesterday with the C402 that provide a little to rough for a few of my passengers and I ended up with a collection of used sick bags in the back. Not to mention a queer smell for the rest of the trip!

Anyways, time to start thinking about the final descent of the day, it's only a few minutes ahead...

And The Sun Stood Still

2007-08-12T11:39:00.000-06:00

The sun is below the horizon as we lift off the treated gravel of Points North Landing on our home bound leg. As we climb through 9500 feet the sun reappears as a bright orange ball. It sits on the earth's far line for the rest of the climb not moving an inch. But within two minutes after leveling off at FL240 (24,ooo') time catches up with us and the sun drops away out of sight. Now the sky will take the slow shift to the nights darkness, but not without a spectacular show of fading colours chasing the sun over the Western horizon. I guess it's good morning China.

Never Scared (Old Archives)

2007-08-02T17:20:00.000-06:00

The one hour left mark has just slid by as we reach 209 miles North of Saskatoon. Blue skies and warm weather we leave behind as we get closer to the rain and snow that is pelting our destination. The weather this morning in Saskatoon made for a beautiful spring morning, but obviously changed as the day rolled on.

I know that at least one of our seven passengers in the back are concerned about flying into the weather at Toon Town. Before we left the ground he had asked me if we could fly in the foul weather awaiting us. I told him it wouldn't be a problem. He replied with, "Good, that's what I like to hear, even if it's not the truth." It reminded me of an old pilot saying, "You can scare yourself as much as like in the cockpit, but once in front of the passengers everything is just peachy"

The Alleyway

2007-07-26T16:37:00.000-06:00

Runway 09, YXE

After some dodging and diving we flew clear of the thunderstorms that had us flying off course for the past 100 miles. Now in the final decent we could see our destination clearly. Sitting at the end of an alleyway walled between a dark layer of more thunderstorms spouting rain and a gray line of smoke coming off the many forest fires in progress. Looking down out my window I can see spots of orange were the fires rage. The smoke from the fires is less then 3 miles to the East of the airport and the winds are coming from the West. Which means we're going to have to pass through some of the smoke onto final. If it gets any tighter we'll have to reconsider coming into the other runway with more than 10 knots of wind on our tail.

Luckily as we draw closer to the strip the thunderstorms are looking further away than first thought. This gives us the option of circling to the West for the upwind runway. The smell of smoke starts to tickle our senses as we join the base leg for R21. By the time we get to final our visibility has dropped considerably but luckily the runway is still within view. The smoke is stronger now as we drop the gear and go through Landing checks. Lined up on final we all of a suddenly break out of the smoke cloud about 2 miles back.

After we land and begin to unboard the passengers I'm surprised at the lack of smoke in the air. You can just smell the tiniest tinge of burning jack, enough to remind me of a camping trip just a couple weeks ago. A drop of rain lands on my face, the alleyway is getting thinner.

Old Archives (Feb'07)

2007-07-20T13:08:00.000-06:00

We just leveled off at FL210 after 21 minutes of climbing, so an average of 1000 feet per minute. The airport we took off of had a field elevation of 805 feet above sea level. We'd just spent the night in Stoney Rapids and used up the day drinking coffee and taking a neat hike along the river by the open rapids. The 4K hike through snow burned a lot of carbs and now, sitting in my soft seat I can feel the missing energy.

A layer of redish clouds are below us as I watch the sky transition from day to night. Besides a little light chop we're passing though right now things are peaceful on deck tonight. I'm enjoying the ride. 53 more minutes before we grace the asphalt in PA.

A New Airplane on the Horizon

2007-05-02T13:56:00.000-06:00

Well, I've slacked. First I suppose I'd blame it on being really busy, coming home every night after a 10 - 14 hour day, too tired and preferring to spend time with my sweetheart than with a cold piece of plastic. Then a slow season hits. I start flying about once a week and have no stories to tell, along with getting in lazy mode and just enjoying other blogs with out stretching my mind to write my own.

Today however, after flying only about 30 - 35 hours last month and this month starting out just as slow, I decide to spend some time with the ol' keyboard.

Last month, although not flying much I got to participate in a three day ground school after my Chief Pilot walked up to me at work one day and asked if I had gotten a manual yet. Slightly confused, I replied back "no I don't think so, what manual would that be?"
"O, the Beech 1900 one. I'm gonna train some of you higher time King Air F/O's on it." And then took me to his office and handed over an inch and a half thick black binder that contained everything a B1900 pilot need to know about the aircraft.

So now that the ground school is done, I am looking forward to saddling up in a new machine to do some training. Which I think is still a few weeks if not months away. But till then, I'll do my best to use my slow times to learn all that I can about operating this machine efficiently and safely.

As the front of my training binder says "the best safety device in any aircraft is a well trained pilot..."

The Big One

2007-03-20T23:17:00.000-06:00

113 DME East of Vancouver VOR
FL270
Ground Speed 268 Kts

The Boeing 747 is looming large over us as we listen to Towers instructions and scoot into place on Runway 26L. Vancouver is busy this morning and ATC is trying to get traffic moving. Some quick thinking by the Tower has put us in front of a 747 that was just moving to position also on the runway. We're to depart via the Richmond 9 departure. Which calls for a climb to 500' before making a sharp 60 degree turn to the left to clear the departure path for following aircraft, which is the heavy right behind us now.

The powers are quickly up and the runway lights start to quicken there pace out my peripheral view. We're soon climbing up into the cool blue. 500 feet comes within 25 seconds after wheels off and I dip my left wing down 30 degrees for a new heading of 201 degrees. Before I even roll out on the heading I hear the 747 get their take off clearance. Funny, there was no wake turbulence caution with it... Through a 1000' feet we switch to Departure.

The next five minutes fly by in the hustle of checks, vectors and radio changes. The plane, loving the sea pressure out here blasts up through 7'000 feet of sky before I tame the ravenous 2500 foot/min climb to 1500 and settle in to the 15 minute climb up to FL270. Before we are to our cruising altitude I spot the huge Boeing racing by us out my side window. It's heading East with us, although I presume JFK will be it next destination as compared to sunny Saskatchewan. It stays in sight till about 50 miles out of Vancouver before it disappears into the far horizon with a little twinkle of sun off it's broad wings. Holding his proud head up into the cool sky, it challenges anyone to try and take it's place as King of the High Blue.

1000 Hours in the Pocket

2007-03-18T14:59:00.000-06:00

Coming Up On The System

1438 Local
42 DME South of La Ronge
FL210

After a long morning of holding for weather a window opened up up North and so we set off into the sunny blue southern skies for a gray snowy North. Now 30 minutes later after leaving the solid earth behind, we are just coming up on the system that has taken hold of the North for the past few hours. We'll be above it until our decent. But I'm also coming up to something else. The ol' 1000 flight hours mark. After 2 1/2 years training, 3 years fuelling and 1 and a bit years working as a pilot I've finally arrived at the always distant 1000 hour mark. Funny, I don't feel as pro as I thought I guy with a 1000 hours would. I see the many pilots around me with many more hours and know that I have but just written a number in my log book that tells of a pilot still in the early learning stages of his career. Still lots to experience and learn. But hey it has been fun getting here, and I look forward to the next thousand to roll by.

But back to flying, I've gotta give one of our bases a call for the latest weather at our destination. I know it won't be great but I'm hoping it's still above the minimums to get in.

Wild Dogs

2007-03-11T20:04:00.000-06:00

I'm sitting in a small, fairly worn ATCO trailer that is lined with well seasoned chairs on each wall facing one another. One end of the room has the check in counter with the only freshly painted thing in the room, a brightly painted sign of the airline that is in current residence of the building. While the other end of the room has two doors, one leading to a small washroom and the other a storage closet. This end of the room is also occupied with a lonely looking coffee pot and a large heater off the wall. I'm snuggled between the blasting heat and a cup of black gold, no not the Beverly Hillbillies gold. The temperature north of 59 degrees today is well south of -30 Celsius. The chills of this mornings engine tenting are finally leaving me as I take another sip of the warmth and pull back from the heater. A sign across the room on the bulletin board makes me smile. Not because I'm an dog hater, but cause it's about as straight forwardly said as possible...

"NOTICE. Any dogs running loose will be destroy starting February 1, 2007."

I sit back and ponder over my coffee of all the ways to destroy dogs, instead of just simply shooting them. My mind quickly wanders from dogs to cats... I like dogs.

Windy Morning

2007-02-23T20:13:00.000-06:00

Don't let the passengers see now...

The wind is howling at 25 gusting 30 knots as we hold short of the runway waiting on our clearance from Saskatoon radio. It's dark outside still at 0625 and the ground is hardly visible from the blowing snow. Our clearance is given to us with a cancellation time of 1231, that gives us about 3 minutes to be airborne which won't be a problem. As we take position on the runway and pause to run through the take off checks, we are given the illusion of rolling forward from the layer of snow moving steadily down the runway. A quick glance at the motionless runway lights and a little more pressure on the brakes is our only confirmation that we aren't on the move. As we push the power up for take off the strong winds quickly bring out air speed up to 100 knots. We leap off the runway and climb quickly above the blowing snow. The bright lights of the airport and city are below us now. The vis hazard from the windy conditions does not look so bad at this angle.

We are now 150 miles from our destination where we'll be sitting for 8 hours as our customers tend to their duties. We've got a room and bed booked for the day, I'm looking forward to it after the early morning.

Warmth and Dumbo

2007-02-15T20:54:00.000-06:00

15 minutes ago on the ground in Saskatoon we had picked up the ATIS (automated terminal information system) to get the latest weather for the airport. One of the things that came off the monotone male voice was the temperature, a balmy -10 degrees Celsius. What a nice break from the cold -30 degree snap that been punishing us for the last two weeks. I'm wanting to pull out the ol' BBQ and sandals it feels so good.

Now though the OAT (outside air temp) is back down to -25 as we soar upwards through 15'000 feet for our cruising altitude of FL190 (19,000 ft). Our rate of climb is already down to 600' feet/minute, thanks to the full load of 8 passengers and 160 pounds of cargo. The sky is starting to brighten in the East as we climb above the last layer of broken clouds. I can see a brightly lit town through a hole, it passes by slowly, looking sleepy and quiet. This reminds me of the old movie Dumbo the Flying Elephant when he is being carried across the night sky in a blanket by the kind pelican. Now that's an old memory...

A Bright Star

2007-02-06T22:24:00.000-06:00

9.8 Million Miles Away

We're level at 17'000 feet above a platform of brilliant white clouds. The Earth's closest star is shining brightly though the 1/2 thick windshield. The visor is down, sunglasses on, but still it's bright enough to warrant a couple of maps to be hung in the windows.

Using a formula I read about just the other day in an aviation weather book I attempt to figure out the sun's angle (e) above the earth from my location. The formula is e = 90 - (L - Lp) where Lp is the latitude where the sun is directly over head at noon, ei: Summer time the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer or 23.5 degree latitude North. L is the latitude of where you are.

I figure since we are roughly 47 days passed the winter equinox and there is about 91 days in between each equinox, the sun would be pretty near right in between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Equator or about 11.5 (Lp) degrees South. ( When using south latitudes I use a negative number.) And right now I'm flying over the 54.5 (L) degree latitude North. Put the numbers together and I get a sun angle of...

e = 90 - (54.5 - (-11.5))

e = 90 - (54.5 + 11.5)

e = 90 - 66

e = 23 degrees, huh, the sun looks a lot higher to me than that, but then I am nearly 3 miles above the earth. Anyways, back to flying...

Calgary is now 250 NM in front of us, the weather there is going to let me shoot an approach down to about 600'. That's good, cause after a week off from flying, my hands and feet can get a little rusty...

Eyes

2007-01-30T08:54:00.000-06:00

Tucked Away for the Cold Day's Wait

207 NM North Of Saskatoon

FL200

215 Knots Ground Speed

The Northern lights are circling the plane. They are alive and dancing tonight. The stars are bright, showing the paths to the far galaxies. It's smooth and peaceful, the soft glow of the beacon on our wings and the short blue flames off the exhaust is easy on the eyes. Something a pilot has to be careful about. I need to bring my eyes back into the plane, keeping a watchful eye on the instruments, making sure they stay in their monotone state. Not moving. Nothing much is moving in the cockpit, just two sets of eyes and the distance on the GPS, it keeps slowing counting down to our destination.

Waypoints

2007-01-26T12:09:00.000-06:00

Looking for a Waypoint

We're slogging away at 16'000 ft enroute to Cowtown. Strong winds aloft are beating us up with over 45 knots on the nose, our ground speed is down to 180ish knots, making the trip from Regina over two hours long. Which is alright now, it gives me time to think and write a little.

Coming out of Regina we were given an intersection waypoint to fly over on our route. Intersection Waypoints are decision to be used with RNAV or GPS equipment, which usually provide waypoints that are more on our route or they can be easy designed because it's just a matter of deciding where you want a waypoint and then just giving the co-ordinates a name. Now the name is what sometimes causes a problem. Generally these waypoints are given a five letter name. I think they pick the five letters out of a hat and then randomly arrange those letters to come up with a name. And yes, that does make for some weird names. Example: MOOSE, DELBR, ONOET, ODGOV, XOXOM, XUKMI... and so on, try and pronounce those?

So usually the first thing a pilot does after hearing the waypoint from ATC (Air Traffic Controller) is try to take a stab at just spelling it out in the GPS. When that doesn't work he/she quickly grabs for the map and starts trying to find a waypoint that sounds about the same, since you sure don't no how to spell it. And then once that doesn't pan out and your hoping you are some how on course still, you finally ask ATC what the waypoint was again and maybe even how to spell it. The smart pilot will ask this question right after he gets the original request. As you got to wonder what ATC is thinking when after five minutes of receiving the request we (us pilots who are trying hard to be smart) have to ask the name of it again. ATC must be thinking, where have they been going for the last five minutes?

Well today we went through that process twice! And on the same waypoint! By the time we got the correct spelling of the correct waypoint we were five miles beyond it and already onto our next waypoint. Luckily our intial vectors from ATC had us heading right for it and we stayed on route the whole time. But still, it made me feel like a pretty poor preformer. But don't worry folks who trust pilots, this won't happen to this old cowboy again. I don't like trying to guess, I like have the facts. And we could have if we would have just asked ATC from the beggenning, and that's what I'll be doing. Sometimes us pilots are a little worried about what ATC will think of us or if we'll annoy them when we have to ask questions, but I know they don't, it's just in our heads.

Anyways, the ground speed has picked up to a 194 knots, that's a little better. We're now estimating the big city in 43 minutes.

The sky is smooth at our present altitude. A high layer of cloud is sheilding us from the bright rays of sun, no need for sunglasses right now.

Riggers

2007-01-09T21:47:00.000-06:00

Calgary City Center

1413 Local
105 NM Northwest of Edmonton
FL190
GS 226KTS

It's a gloomy gray all around us, we're in the soup at 19,000 feet. The sun is a dull white ball above and in front of us. 40 miles to the west of us are the mighty Rocky mountains, the broad prairies spread out to the East. But neither are visible as we bump in and out of pockets of turbulance that is being pushed out from the mountains. There are seven strong men behind us, all are sleeping. Finally able to relax after a couple of weeks out on the oil rigs. They are always happier than the guys we bring in, wonder why...

Loading the riggers and all their gear was a fine art of balance... The whole way up to Peace River from Calgary I worked on our fancy little C of G whiz wheel (A nicely designed wheel calculater that lets you easily figure out your airplanes Center of Gravity) to figure out how we could load up all these riggers and their gear. I came out with only one solution. Because of all the gear stored in the rear of the plane, we wouldn't be able to use our rear most seat. Instead, two of the guys had to share the small bench seat at the front of the plane. At least for take off and landing, I let them move around while in cruise, where we weren't faced with any slow speeds. They cooperated real well and didn't seem to be thinking that I was some real weight and balance freak. I appreciate them for making my job easy. The rest of the flight went smooth, well besides the odd pocket of potholes in the airways.

Long Day

2007-01-07T19:41:00.000-06:00

The Wind Blowing Hard Across a Hard to See Taxiway

We've just slipped through the gray clouds that are covering nearly all of Saskatchewan today. The sun is near it's setting stages and casting a pinkish speckled glow across the huge sea of stratus cloud. It reminds me of a tropical beach...interesting to say since Northern Saskatchewan is about as far from a tropical beach as you can get, but it makes me feel warm for a moment just thinking it.

We're homeward bound after a long day of many legs, nine to be exact, and one new airport to add to the list. The homeward leg for me is always a relaxing one. We settle into our cruising altitude of 16'000 feet and pull the props back to 1750 RPM. The torque sits at 1500 ft'lbs a side and fuel flow is resting at 300 lbs/hour per engine. Things quiet down and the sheep skin starts to feel overly comfy. It's only a 50 minute leg from La' Ronge to Saskatoon but the early morning and long day has time to catch up with me. The sun is bright on the horizon, the airplanes vibrations are relaxing, the bleed air off the engines is warm and blowing. Not a good combination! I reach back for my last coffee of the day, it's from this morning still, so it should have some kick...

From Cattle to Classroom

2007-01-03T18:48:00.000-06:00

The Early Morning Sun Spashing Across the Avionics Switches

It seems like only yesterday that I was running through the fresh snow trying to avoid the large lumps of brown stuff that weren't yet frozen. Waving the remains of an old hockey stick and hooten' and whistling at the slow to move cows. Pushing them into progressively smaller corrals until they're single file down a shoot waiting to get their hides pricked by a big fat needle.

Wait, that was just yesterday! Wow, how quickly your environment changes. The classroom I'm sitting in isn't really one at all. It's a small office that is already near it's maximum pay load just holding a book shelf, a large desk and an even larger flight simulator. Two other pilots are sitting with me on three chairs that are in a semi circle around the front of the instructors desk. The Instructor is sitting forward in his chair trying to see the front of his computer monitor that he has turned towards us, flipping through the pages of his King Air 100's power point.

My mind is working nearly as hard as my body the previous day. My long Christmas holidays have softened my mental powers, not to mention my physical not-so-powers. I've been through this class a few times already, but still my mind is grinding over things forgotten and other things freshly learnt. It's me yearly ground school, soon to be followed by flight training, that I'm hacking away at. It's been a year since I've started flying for a living. Hard to think that after many years of toiling on the ground, I've just completed my first year in the air. The 800 hours that are penned into my log book would have been an amazing feat just two years ago. Now though, sitting next to a ten thousander I feel inexperienced and young. Lot's of more growing to do. That's good though, I'm still flying upwards.

New Dimensions

2006-12-17T12:04:00.000-06:00

Flying Parallel With Company ATR42 on Decent into a Different Northern Mine

The big droplets of moisture on our wings from the recent de-ice start to roll towards the trailing edge as we push the throttles forward. The airspeed indicator quickly comes alive as we start to enter warp speed, well so it seems as the heavy snow snow fall outside starts to turn into a tunnel of passing stars. He hit warp one and start to pull back on the control column, four seconds later we enter into the 3rd dimension. The gear retract and lights go out, no more flying through a tunnel, it's completely black as we enter into the low layer of cloud. The black hole. The speed continues to increase, the pressure starts to decrease as we go farther into the unknown. Soon a faint light is starting to appear ahead. Wisps of light red clouds start to fly by at incredible speeds. There's no sound to be heard as we push through the layer, squeeze through a few thin passage ways of a ragged top and blast into new heavens. It's soft and light up here, an atmosphere full of gentle blushes of reds, yellows, pinks and purples. Outlined in deep black and traced with light blue. The air is heavy with tranquility, calmness, peace and wonder. Energy runs through my veins. God is good.

An Early Morning De-ice

Smooth Skies

2006-12-10T17:03:00.000-06:00

On approach to La Loche

The sky is soft, clear and blue today as we are homeward bound level at 15'000 feet. The whole day has been a joy to fly, with smooth air and warm temps on the ground, well only -5C, which is a peach at this time of year up here. The sun is gentle mix of colours as it slowly drops below the far horizon. The sun setting in the North during the winter takes nearly 15 minutes longer to set than in the South, another neat thing about up here. I'm in the KingAir 100 today and it was been treating me good, it's smooth and easy to handle.

We're now 71 miles to the North West of P.A. and you can see a distinct line on the ground where the bush and prairies meet. It's pretty much black and white. Neat.

I had a cool video of landing the plane, but I never figured out how to get it onto the blog, I'll keep trying though. The picture above is the first image of the video.

10 minutes after landing in La Loche, it's much darker on the ground. And it's already past 9:30 am local.

Blast to the Past

2006-12-04T15:26:00.000-06:00

Looking Out My Old Office Window

A charter this morning brought me back to my ol' stomping grounds in Regina where I used to be a fueller before I got hired on to fly. It was nice to be back and say hi to everyone I used to work with. While sitting in my old chair in the fuel office looking out at the view I seen everyday for 3 years I couldn't help but remember all the good times I had had here. Here is a funny story that came to mind...

It was an early winter evening and I had just returned from fuelling a jet at the main terminal. I was covered in snow and fairly chilled throughout the body as it was ugly outside. As I stepped into the fuel office my partner that I was working with that night was just finishing bundling up and told me he was going to do some snow removal on the apron with our old Bobcat. I said sure, shed the last of my outer layers, grabbed a coffee and sat down to finish up some paper work. I was soon finished the paper stuff and was relaxing in my chair looking out at the blizzard in progress, dimming the lights in the office so I could see through the darkness that had already settle on the airport. I could see the Bobcat working back and forth on the apron moving mounds of snow and cutting a ray of orange light through the heavy snow fall from it's bright beacon on the roof. I noticed all of a suddenly that that was the only bright light out there, all the taxi and apron edge lights where out on the airport, strange, normally Regina doesn't try and conserve power between it's flights or they'd be flicking the lights on and off every ten to twenty minutes.

While I was pondering this strange event, the door to the office opened up, sending a cold breeze past me. Brrr. My partner comes walking in with a funny look on his face and a three foot length of black cord hanging out of his hand.

"What's that?" I ask.

"Umm," he starts, a little worried sounding, "I pulled it up with the Bobcat just near that last apron light, I hope it's nothing important."

"Huh, that's not so good. I noticed all the apron lights are off, is that normal?" I pointed out.

"Crap. I hope that has nothing to do with this, I'd better call airport maintnaince and let them know." He says while quickly reaching for the phone and punching in seven digits. After a brief explanation and a few uh, huh, uh, huhs he puts the receiver back in his cradle and plops into a chair. "Crap."

"Not good?" I question.

"Ahh, looks like it cut off the power supply to the entire fields taxi and apron light. But looks like the runway lights are still working though. Maintenance says they should be able to get the back up power to work."

After sitting and watching for the lights to come back on for about ten minutes, we hear a plane call up Ground on the radio for his taxi. Ground gives him the taxi clearance and ends it with a "But be careful as there isn't any taxiway lights." And he doesn't stop there."It looks like a fueller took out a line for all the power to the lights and maintenance can't get the back up system to work with it out either." I look over at the big guy sitting next to me, his face is starting to turn a shade darker.

"Geez, they could have left that last part out." He says with a red face, "that's kinda embarrassing."

I just start to laugh in my chair and pretty much for the rest of the shift. For every time a plane went to taxi for the next two hours, ground control had to tell the story of why the lights weren't on, and he always ended it with, "a fueller did it." My partner got over the red face pretty quick and started to laugh with me. And that was just one of the funny story's to tell...

An Early Morning

2006-11-27T10:04:00.000-06:00

One of the Benefits of an Early Morning Departure

0410 in the morning my alarm starts squealing, urging me to get out of bed. It's Monday morning after a week of holidays, what a way to jump right back into things. I have a flight scheduled for 0630 this morning. I like to get to work an hour and 30 minutes before departure, which makes for early mornings usually. Company requires us to be there only an hour before departure, however to order fuel we need to give an hours advance notice, so I like to get to work in time to figure out what we'll need and then fax the fuel load off.

The wind bites into me as I step out side into the dark. The first real snow of the year stings my face and whips through my thin pants, gonna have to get the long underwear out soon. Winters nearly here, brrr. The drive to work is slow as the highway is covered in snow and ice. I guess at 0500 in the morning there just isn't enough traffic to warrant a snow plow on the highway. Or it's government employees and they don't start till 0900...

I arrive at work only an hour before departure due to the slow and nerving drive in. The captain has already ordered fuel, that's nice, I don't have to rush. While checking the NOTAMS (Notifications to alert pilots to important changes or info at airports or along airways) I notice the fiction index for the runway in use this morning is only .28. That's about the equivalent of the friction on a skating rink. Interesting. But by the time we are ready to go, half an hour late due to the late arrival of our passengers, which is understandable thanks to the weather, the friction Index has gone up to .52. That's a bit better, not a whole lot though. But soon we're airborne and the harsh weather is all below us. With only a bright sunrise to contend with, we finish up the After Takeoff checklist and let the plane accelerate to about 170 knots holding a 1500'per minute climb. By the time we come back tonight I'm sure that things will be well cleaned up and just a little whiter. Nice.

General Aviation

2006-11-20T21:28:00.000-06:00

Maple Creek Airport with the Cypress Hills in the distance

I'm sitting in Maple Creek today for about 6 hours. It's unbelievably warm for Nov 20th, about 12 degrees. This is the first time here and I enjoy this spot, it is one of the nicer small airports I've been to, the place is old but well taken care of. The clubhouse has lots of old pictures on the wall that are fun to look at and plenty of magazines, some as old as the pictures. The general aviation seems to be doing well here, but definitely slowing down from earlier years. It amazes me and saddens me at how prosperous and busy these small airports once were, and how slowly they are fading away to the high cost of ownership, insurance and fuel. The pictures on the walls of the club house show large classes of student flyers and ramps full of planes from the 70' and 80's. Today there are five planes based at the airport and not many more club members. I hope general aviation stays alive in these smaller communities. It offers a bright contrast to aviation and freedom to many who dream of walking the clouds.

Position Postings

2006-11-14T09:27:00.000-06:00

Enjoying the Present, Pondering the Future, Just South of Stoney

A while ago in my company a few position postings came up that I decided to apply for. One was captain on a Cessna 401 courier job, the other was as a First Officer on a Beech 1900. Both offer different pros and cons right now to where I am sitting in my career. First off the C401 job offers very valuable PIC (Pilot In Command) time that I need eventually in my career, I'd say the sooner the better. And it isn't only the time in my log book that matters but it is the experience that I would gain and knowledge I would receive from a single pilot IFR(instrument Flight Rules) job. But this position doesn't offer a pay raise, nor that many hours a year, probably only around 300 a year.

The F/O job on the Beech 1900 offers heavy commuter experience and a nice pay raise. However I don't want to end up being a career F/O and it would possibly make me take a pay cut whenever I do decide to go captain. Luckily I shouldn't really have to make my own decision as I suppose that if I was to be offered a position...; which after a simulator evaluation ride, I wonder if I will be. As I made a few blunders during it that if it had been for real I sure wouldn't ever be making another mistake, ya know what I mean, eh. Shutting down the left engine when you have a right hand engine fire sure doesn't help a situation... Anyways, If I was to be offered a position I would take whatever they offered me as either one would be a challenge that I'd appreciate to take on. I guess we'll see what happens, and if I get none right now I wouldn't be down or worried. I'm sort of on the fine line of hours for the jobs anyways and enjoy my current position right now. I know that sooner or later there will be more positions opening.

Saturday Morning

2006-11-13T09:29:00.000-06:00

A Company Jetstream Off of Cluff

It's Saturday morning and I'm suppose to be in my warm bed with my warm wife, but instead after a late call last night I'm now sitting in a sort-of warm cockpit with a sort-of warm cup of coffee. A company plane had a starter problem up North last night, so we get to come pick up their over due passengers and bring them back South.

Right now at about 30'000 feet over Northern Sask there is a Jetstream of about 150 MPH out of the West. After leveling off at FL250 and battling an 85 MPH head wind we decided to descend to Fl190 where we only had to put up with a 55 MPH head wind. The fuel burn went from about 530 pph to 680pph (pounds per hour, but we saved ourselves about 15 minutes, so we should still be pretty near our planned arrival fuel. We are void of passenger right now so we could take enough fuel to get home with, we're hoping not to have to load anymore on with these crazy winds. There was also forecast to be some severe CAT (Clear Air turbulence), but it's been fairly smooth so far, let's hope it stays that way.

Amendment

2006-11-08T21:04:00.000-06:00

Ahh, peace at last. I'm sitting in my office at 25'000 feet above the world below with views out of my window towards the East, South and West. Half the sky is clothed in darkness, while the sun is well below the horizon on the other side, just setting a dim glow. Stars are just starting to come into view in between the horizons from deep within the galaxy.

The day was rather hectic after our first flight, which was to Wolleston Lake at 0800, was cancelled due to the weather in Saskatoon sitting at 1/4 mile vis in heavy snow and drifting snow. About an hour and a half after sitting and waiting for the weather to improve, the passenger decided to call off the trip. Thirty minutes later dispatch had another trip booked for us to leave at noon on a sched flight to Regina, that's if the weather would allow. After planning our day out a second time we where advised that we were needed somewhere else. A few people needed picking up in P.A. to go up North to a mine!

So cancel that flight plan and scribble some more numbers and make another phone call to Flight Services. Now all we are waiting for is our plane to thaw out in the hanger as it had sat outside for a few hours and was covered in snow and ice. About 2 o'clock we were ready to be pulled out and de-iced, to finally head off on an adventure. After sitting in the de-ice line for 45 minutes and just when the plane in front of us is finished being de-iced, we get another call from dispatch to return to the hanger, our trip has changed!

We're to go direct up North to Points., with a load of passengers and then bring some back. I file the plan through Edmonton radio on our taxi back with just a bunch of numbers from memory. After filing and canceling three times, I'm sure there is going to be some lost or mess up flight plan in the system. So we taxi back to the hanger, pick up our passengers and then get back to the de-ice bay, were we quickly get a splash and then fire up to finally get on our way. Well, now our double caliber brakes, which have gotten plenty of snow on them have frozen up, we're not moving. I have to hope out of the plane and take the a screw driver to them to separate the frozen discs. It works, but now our de-ice hold over time, which was about 7 minutes is past due and we need another spray. All I want to do is get airborne! It almost seems like there is something telling us not to go, hmm?

But at about 1535 in the afternoon, seven and half hours after we were originally planned to depart, we finally reached a hundred knots and our wheels left the frozen runway. Amazing. Now, sitting in the wool covered seat with near blackness all around me, things are quiet, and relaxing. In 45 minutes we'll be touching down for the last time today. That there was a long and tiring day.

Too Much Coffee

2006-11-02T20:34:00.000-06:00

Hard at Work

The Western horizon is a long line of hazy red as night is rolling across the white North. We're South bound at 24,000 feet for home from Points North. We spent the morning hopping between northern towns picking up and dropping off people. And then spent the afternoon drinking coffee and playing crib in the small warm kitchen of Points North while the snow fell and wind blew outside. We've still got about 50 minutes till we're home and I'm starting to feel the coffee. I'm gonna be sore by the time we land. It's my captains leg to fly, I'm really hoping he's going to make a smooth landing tonight or it could get messy up front here...

The other KingAir has a tube up front for such a time as now. Sadly this plane doesn't...

Now is when you start thinking of wanting to fly something bigger, something that has a decent lav on board...

...45 minutes to go, time is passing slowly...thank goodness for the tail wind tonight...

Other Action Going on at Points, Exploration for Uranium

Contrails

2006-10-30T21:13:00.000-06:00

Company King Air, 1000 Feet above Us

We're 124 Miles north of YXE at FL250, there's a company King Air trailing us by a bout 17 miles. They just called us on the company frequency to let us know that we are leaving contrails in the cold sky. I look at the OAT gauge it's showing -45 degrees Celsius, that's indicated. To get the true outside air temp I minus about 6 degrees to correct for ram air warming. As we fly through the air at 260 knots, the friction created on the temp prob by the passing air actually warms the prob up. The True OAT is -52, cold.

About 5 hours later, we're homeward bound on the last leg of our day. We're the ones trailing company now. They're about 22 miles ahead of us at FL220. We can't see them, but they're leaving behind bright white streaks in the blue sky. Cool, the plane I fly is big enough to leave contrails, it's a neat sight. Soon we hear another company KingAir coming towards us at FL240, we spot them and there are nice contrails behing them also. I'm able to get a good picture of this one. It's been a good day in the office.

It's Cold at 25'000 feet!

FL250

2006-10-17T22:03:00.000-06:00

Over BC

From FL250 the sun is bright and it's all blue sky above us, the earth is covered by a solid pure white layer of cloud. It's funny to think that far below under all that cloud it is dark, gray and dismal. Hmm, I guess in about 45 minutes we'll be entering it for the 5th and final time today. We've already used up over twelve hours out of our fourteen hour duty day, I'm pretty sure dispatch won't have anything for those last two hours. Hopefully not anyways. I was only suppose to have two short hops of 45 minutes today, but 9 hours of flight and 3 provinces later here I am. Floating back home, wondering if this time I'm actually finished. O-well, the joys of charter work.

Level at FL250
actual OAT (Outside Air Temp) is -36
IAS is 180 kts
TAS is 259 kts
GS is 240 kts
181 miles W of CYXE
108 miles E of CYYC
1082 miles N of KLAX
1661 miles W of KJFK

Okay I'm done playing with the GPS...

Medivac

2006-10-15T13:26:00.000-06:00

The sun is setting on the western horizon as we settle at 16'000 feet for the hour and 20 minute flight to Cowtown. We're staying low today as we're conducting a medivac, we can keep our cabin altitude at about 2800 feet at this height which provides a comfortable ride for our not so well passenger. The patient we're giving a ride to today looks in fairly rough shape with IV tubes and other metal contraptions sticking out of her. It made for interesting loading as you had to be very careful to not bump any of them.

It's actually my first medivac, as well as my captains first. So that makes this trip cool. It's neat to put the word "medivac" on the end of our call sign which gives us priority over most other flights in the sky. ATC works hard to get us to our destination quickly.

We took off RWY 27 in Toon Town and are given the clearance for RWY28 into Cowtown which provided a very direct and straight flight without more than a 20 degree turn the whole way. On short final to 28 ATC asks us if we'd prefer RWY25 which would put us on a tight 3 mile final but would also put us on the ground nearer to the apron we so desire tonight. We accept the offer and make a solid left turn to intercept final for RWY25, Tower asks us to keep our speed up so an A320 that's on final for 34 can land. Well with only 3 miles to go there's not a lot of room left to keep the speed up, but we do our best and it makes for a smooth and slightly long landing on 25 which gets us quickly across 34 and out of the 320's way. We exit on A and call up Ground control for the short for the short taxi to our apron. After unloading and grabbing a bit of fuel, we are ready to go East, back home at FL230.

Flashing Lights

2006-09-28T17:09:00.000-06:00

We've just leveled off at 17'000 feet and I'm starting to get comfortable in my sheep skin seat for the two hour trip north. Looking out the window into gray nothingness thinking about grabbing a hot cup of coffee to warm up the dreary day, when red lights start flashing across the glare shield. The "left engine fire" light is brightly glowing on the warning panel. A short breath hops out of my lungs. My captain swears and then looks out his window to check out the engine for any sign of fire. There is none. A quick scan over the engine instruments shows normal and matched indications. No low torque or high temp on the left engine that would indicate a fire was happening.

We call up ATC and ask for a heading change to the left. A common problem with the fire sensors on the King Air is that they are susceptible to other elements than just fire to set them off. The King Air has three photo sensors placed inside the cowling of each engine nacelle. They don't sense temperature but instead they work on detecting inferred rays that fires produce. Therefore if a ray of sunlight somehow sneaks through the cowling and rests it's beams on the photo cell it will set off the engine fire sensor. Standard procedure is to steer 45 to 90 degrees off of heading to change the angle that the sun is contacting the plane.

However, today we're under a thick layer of cloud and when we turn off our heading the light does not go off. Now we start to suspect that some moisture has sneaked on board and triggered the fire sensor, another susceptible spot on the photo cells. It had been raining all morning and the plane had sat outside for sometime, so we figured it was just a moisture problem. But because we couldn't get the engine fire light to go out, we decided to return to Saskatoon as we had only gotten about 60 miles to the north enroute. We asked for clearance back to the airport and quickly explained to the passengers why we were returning to Saskatoon. One passenger figured his business that he was going to was more important than a chance with his life and argued with us to continue on. He lost the argument needless to say.

Autumn up North

2006-09-17T18:55:00.000-06:00

Following a DC9 Down Taxiway Alpha

Well it's been back on the ol' flying pony for me. I worked a solid seven days this week due to being on call last weekend. A lot of it was up north to the mines, including one over night. Only one out of the province trip to a fishing lodge in northern Manitoba. I was really impressed with the land up there. The ground was made up of sand and sand and more sand, not a spot of dirt seen. And with more poplar trees and very few evergreens (which so commonly cover the North) you could see the hand of autumn on the land. Beautiful bright colors of yellow, red, orange and green stood out everywhere. Gentle hills, bright blue lakes and open sandy spaces made up the terrain. I've never cared to own my own plane but after seeing this place I started considering buying a small plane of my own so that I might be able fly up here on occasion to fish, camp, hike and hunt. Ahh, what a wonderful thought, too bad I'm not a lawyer pilot, or a doctor pilot that could afford such a sweet deal. But maybe someday...I guess another goal to add to my list...

ADF's

2006-09-11T20:20:00.000-06:00

ADF - Automatic Direction Finder

Used for picking up bearings to NDBs (Non-Directional Beacons).

A useful navigational tool for finding airports, flying an airway and for navigating an approach through clouds to a runway. Almost all aircrafts produced up till modern day times had this Nav aid installed as mandatory equipment. However with today's technology the ADF has become nearly obsolete on all modern aircraft, replaced by the amazing GPS (Global Positioning System). The GPS can do near all the functions of the ADF plus a whack more, and it can do them all ten times more precisely. But back to the ADF's, since most of the aircraft that are flown today (especially the ones in the skies I roam) are installed with the ADF. Luckily the ADF presents one option that the GPS does not, and today we're using it for most of our trip.

Although not the primary purpose of the ADF, but nearly it's most useful asset to an IFR GPS equipped aircraft is it's ability to pick up AM radio stations from hundreds of miles away. This allows the pilots to pass a long quiet trip by with up to the day sport results, maybe even a Riders game, or just turn the dial and pick up the latest news, usually something along the lines of a combine accident involving two fence posts and a scare-a-crow. Of course it also allows you to pick up important aviating info such as the weather in nearly all the towns across whichever province the station is in.

Yah know, like ..

"it's a warm day here in SmallTown although the wind is starting to knock a few of Grannies flower pots off her south porch ledge, and o-yeah as for clouds there's...1, 2, uh, 3, uh...yep I'd say it not be much more than 5 out there. And that there is your on the hour weather report for SmallTown! Now about those Riders..."

Which of course translates into : 18015G20KT P6SM FEW040 20/15 A????(the altimeter is your only guess). So yeah useful info can come from using the ADF as an AM receiver. But I'd have to say the feature I enjoy them most for is when I can find the soft drawl of a lonely country musician, singing his heart out to all the pets on the farm. This and a cup of strong black coffee will really make the time on a long quiet flight pass by in real comfort.

Post Script: The Land of Living Skies is not actually this rudimentary. I have exaggerated it for humor. Although some would argue with me...

Sun & Moon

2006-09-10T23:54:00.000-06:00

The Moon Rising Out The Left Window

It's homeward bound at the days end. Through the broken glass on my wrist watch I'm seeing the small hand on seven and the bigger hand around the four mark, telling me it's about 7:20, PM that is. I scroll through the pages on the GPS till I find the Sunset/Sunrise page and punch in C-Y-X-E. It's tells me that sunset is going to be in about ten minutes, that mean official night time starts at around 8:00, one half hour after sunset. We're going to be arriving in Saskatoon in 55 minutes, that means we'll be logging between 10 to 15 minutes of night time in our log books tonight.

The sun has reached the horizon on my side of the plane when the moon starts to peak his round head over the earth's curvature out the captains window. It's a neat sight as the moon is still below the horizon for anyone standing on the ground beneath us. But at 25,000 feet, we get an exclusive first peak. It is a pale pinkish blue colour, sitting lonely in a soft blue-white sky. I haven't seen it like this before, luckily I'm able to catch this 'moon birth' on film, well on about a million 1's and 0's, as I'm using a digital camera...sorry, got technical, we'll stick with film, sounds better.

The Sun Setting Out The Right Window

Quikie

2006-09-06T22:30:00.000-06:00

CRJ200 Taking off RWY34 as we fuel up in YYC

Time: 1903 Local
Altitude: Fl250
Position: 104 miles West of Saskatoon
Ground Speed: 256 knots

We're empty in the back right now as we knife through the smokey skies quickly making our way home after a pop-up charter to Calgary. We were called up at 1515 this afternoon and asked to fly a few clients to Calgary in an hour. After quickly getting dressed and driving the 15 minutes it takes to get to work, we got off the ground only 10 minutes late and were soon settled in for the 1hr10minute flight to YYC.

Now Saskatoon is 10 degrees off our nose, due to a strong 50 knot wind coming from the North, and we're planning our decent and approach. I'm feeling good about the flight, I always enjoy flying into bigger airports. The busy chatter on the radio and ATC instructions are enjoyable to hear and follow. There are many planes coming in from all over the nation, all coming together to form a single line onto the runways. Although today there were three active runways, 34, 10 and 07. We were given 34 to land on this afternoon, which worked well as we easily exited off onto taxiway A3 and had a short taxi to Apron 6 were the Shell FBO(Fixed Base Operations) sat. After dropping our passengers off and grabbing enough fuel to wavier off the ramp fee we turned around and left off RWY07 for the bright blue again.

We're 75 miles back, time to start the decent. A WestJet B737 is behind us now, ATC is barking on the radio to take up a new heading 20 degrees to the left. Looks like the 737 is gonna be passing us by. Soon we see the silvery shine of the plane as it passes about 4 miles to the south of us, we keep it in sight until it lands and we're put on a five mile final. Soon we're the ones squeaking the tires down on RWY09, ending our short 4 hour day.

Scavengers

2006-08-31T22:28:00.000-06:00

Ahh, the little extra benefits of being a pilot and having no shame. On an average of 1 out of every 4 to 5 flights we have catering for our customer. And for some strange reason the customers never seem to finish the food that they order, sometimes they do not even touch it. Now, if you have no shame in going through the leftovers you can usually find a nice snack that is still in it's wrapper, or a whole meal! On this paticular flight the customers did not even touch these amazing 4 inch thick clubs. And it so worked out that we had dropped them off late one night and had a two hour empty leg back home, t'was the perfect late night snack.

A meal like this was probably worth half my days pay, aircharter meals are some of the most expensive meals out there. A pilot I used to work with told me of the time he was down in the lower 48 and picked up catering for 8 passengers, which included a platter of sandwiches and a platter of cheese and crackers. The bill came to a total of over $600US, crazy but not at all unusual.

Happy landing

2006-08-29T14:22:00.000-06:00

It had been about 3 or 4 months since the last time I had been into Patuanak's short gravel strip. Now on short final, with the threshold of RWY14 coming at us at 110mph, my mind is racing with possible situations that could arise between now and engine shutdown. 'What if we float too far in these windy conditions, the runway is only 3000' long.' 'What if we break a brake line with this gravel?' 'How far into Beta/Reverse is OK before we start to damage the prop?' 'How soft is the runway.'
My mind is alert for what might happen in the worst of situations and how to handle them while keeping my attention focused on the job at hand, approach and land, all in safe fashion...

The last time I was here was spring and the runway was soft, requiring higher than normal taxi power, which in turn caused our props to take a slight beating with all the thrown up stones. A brake line was broken on landing also, resulting in an interesting taxi. Example: a normal 90 degree right turn now became a 270 degree left turn. The takeoff was also a little unnerving as the end of the runway started to approach much sooner than what was comfortable. But in the end, after a company Cessna 402 had flown a couple of mechanics out to fix the brake line, we got out of Patuanak alive, safely, on time and without worrying our passengers.

...Our tires hit the ground at 95 mph and spray gravel in all directions, a cloud of dust is climbing behind us and racing down the strip to catch up and cover our plane in a thin brown coat. Props flatten into Beta range and act like spoilers, creating drag, and pushing me forward into my shoulder harness. The brakes tighten up and slow the wheels down, turning the kinetic energy of the spinning tires into heat waves wafting up from the brakes. Within about 10 seconds and thankfully well less than 3000 feet, it's all over, the plane is turning around to back track RWY14 to the little gravel apron. Once again, the satisfaction of a safely flown plane is heard as the passengers all clap their hands in appreciation of their two pilots...Okay, I went a little far there. The clapping is all in my head and the passengers are wishing that we had never landed as now it is their turn to start working...

Western Canada

2006-08-22T13:54:00.000-06:00

The month of August has been slow. I've been pretty consistant at working only one day a week for the month so far. Although last week it picked up to 2 flights, one on Monday and then one on Friday, but with the spacing I really didn't feel the pressure of over working myself...haha.

The last two flights though have been excellent ones. The first was a trip too Vancouver, with a stop in Campbell River and Calgary on the way back. Three firsts for me with this company. The day held for us a bright VFR sky and decent winds for crossing the mountains. While entering the Vancouver terminal control area I remember thinking somewhere along the lines of 'Thanks goodness for the VFR weather.' As I was working just to keep on top of all the different routeing they we're giving us, let on having to worry about getting an approach loaded up and intercepted. I was thankful of my captain as he had done this route numerous times already, which led to me being reminded once again the value of experiance.

The second excellent flight took us to Beauval for the day, which was spent sitting in the plane for 2 hours before I decided I really needed to use a washroom. However with bush thick around us for miles there was no nearby washroom to use. So I grabbed a Kleenex box and took a stroll in the woods. Ten minutes later I walk out feeling better but a little sore from the prickly bench I had 'used', and to humour the situation even more my captain, who had been walking around on the apron and down the sole road that led to the airport. Called me over and told me of his discovery he had made. A motel with a restaraunt was just down the street 200 meters! And was sure to have a washroom, a little late now though. But we walked the road to Amy's Bar & Grill and waited out the rest of the afternoon in the air conditioned restaraunt drinking coffee.

Two hours later, our passangers show up and we head back to Saskatoon to drop off two of them and take on a bit of fuel before blasting off to Winnipeg to drop the other three off. The sky quickly dims as fly East and we are greeted with centerline lighting as we touch down on RWY18 in Winnipeg. The passangers are happy to leave the plane and get to there hotels for the night. However we still have the 2 hr deadhead back home before we can end the day with our heads on our pillows.

There's a reddish orange line seperating the earth from the black sky as we level off at 24,000 feet. The faintly lit horizon off our nose gently merges with the green glow of the Northern lights out my side window. Two dull blue flames are streching back out of the exhaust stacks not more then three feet away from my side. The world below is sprinkled with lights from warm cozy homes, the universe above me is sparkling with millions of far away stars. I try to take a picture of it all with my wifes digital camera that I steal from her for some of my flights. However the small screen comes up black, showing nothing of that which is outside. This is a moment that I have been priviliged to see, a picture that is just for me. The cockpit is peaceful tonight, warm lights illuminateing the insturments, gentle roar of the power giving turboprops, and a cozy seat beneath me. I'm happy for the headwind tonight.

Line Checkout

2006-08-15T16:23:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was my final line check ride for the King Air 200, which consisted of flying with a senior pilot on a trip up to Collins Bay. Basically, there was nothing different about this flight as opposed to all my previous flights except for the "linecheck" that was printed beside my name on the schedule.

The captain I flew with was the same one I had done my ride and previous other trips with. He is always a good time. There is about 5 captains for the King Airs in our company so naturely I have flown with all of them more than once. Today my Captain and I got talking about some of his friends that had ended up flying for Air Canada and other major airlines. He told me of them flying for years with the same airline and only a handful of times flying twice with the same pilot. Hard to imagine, that is a lot of employees in one company. We talked about where I wanted to go with my flying career, and the pros and cons of all the different routes a pilot could take. My decision was that where ever I was to go, I was going to enjoy the ride there...

Back in the 100

2006-07-24T22:24:00.000-06:00

Large mountains of white tumbled cloud fill my window as we fly through the sky at 230 knots. The sky is alive with wind swept plains of strato-cumulus clouds which rush up to meet the towering alto-cumulus. There are the dark feared towers of the rain loaded thunder storms that stretch upwards of 43,000 feet today, casting a shadow on us as we zip close by it at 17,000 feet. I'm in the King Air 100 today, it's been awhile since I've flown it and I can really notice the less power and stability of it in the climb. The 100 has about 2 feet less wing on each side of the plane which you really notice in flight as the plane is not a stable as the long winged 200, also you notice it when landing the planes, the King Air 200 really likes to float down the runway with the extra lift created by the wing. But all in all, I'm happy to go flying any day in any one of the two, they're both great airplanes.

Speed Record

2006-07-22T09:47:00.000-06:00

The King Air 200's T-tail

We've been flying at 17,000 feet due to CYR222 (Military restricted Airspace) that is sitting just above our heads at 18,000 feet. With almost a full load of passengers and a bit of freight our gross weight is 10940 lbs, not really near our max t/o (take off) weight of 12500 lbs due to the min required fuel on board. It's a 45 minute hop from Beauval to Saskatoon and the last for us for the day. Currently the time is 1805 local and we're 75 miles North of Saskatoon, and as I look down at the GPS it's showing me a ground speed of 301.8 knots, that's a personal best for me, exciting. With a TAS (true airspeed) of 259 knots that's a good 42 knot tail wind. I believe there is a Jet Stream (a very strong tunnel like set of winds) above us about 6,000 to 15,000 Ft, probably producing winds up to 100+ knots.

The Barren Lands

2006-07-17T18:02:00.000-06:00

The Barren Lands

With our powers to idle we touched down on runway 34 with a puff of dust off our wheels, that was quickly blown away in the light breeze. We taxied off the runway onto the gravel apron and pulled the fuel to idle cutoff, the engines came to a whining stop. I opened the door and the gentle smell of the Canadian North filled my senses, the real far north Canadian North this time, I stepped to the ground and looked around for the first time at Baker Lake, Nunavut. Flat as the eye could see with gentle hills broken up by moss covered rock, the barren lands! One of my favorite books as a youngster was Lost In The Barrens by Farley Mowatt(spelling?), and it talked of two young men getting lost in the northern barrens, and since that book I had always dreamed of seeing them. Alas another one of my dreams fulfilled.

The journey was a 800 nautical mile trip from Saskatoon this morning, it took us about 3hours and 40 minutes to get up here, my longest non-stop flight yet. The thought crossed my mind of do I still want to get into the big jets at the airlines and do 8 - 12 hour flights around the world, cause this sure seemed like a long trip to me. But then I think, well in a big plane I would be able to maybe stand up and stretch my legs and also have a bathroom on board to use. I hadn't drank anything all morning to prepare for this long leg, and it worked good for me thank goodness.

Anyways, it was great to fly up to Nunavut and I look forward to the many other great places I'd like to go one day with my job.
Baker Lake Nunavut is the geological center of Canada
Short Final for Runway 34 with another King Air on the Roll for Departure

Sand Dunes

2006-07-13T21:10:00.000-06:00

The altimiter needle is racing counter clockwise as we decend down through 15,000 feet. Our destination is still 40 miles ahead of us, as we come up on the Athabaska Sand Dunes, huge sandy areas spread out on either side of us, showing a different side to the dark green North. The sand dunes cover an area greater than 800 square miles and sit on the south side of lake Athabaska, a rare sight. We're a little high to see the intrict detail of the wind swept scape but it's still neat to see something I've always dreamt about seeing. A click of the camera and then it's back to work, we're gonna be crossing over the runway and then, according to the wind chose a downwind for the runway. Torgue is back at 800lbs a side, approach flap selected, airspeed 150 knots ready to turn downwind...

Doing the Ride

2006-07-06T18:22:00.000-06:00

Ahh, a sigh of relief as the plane bumps onto the runway and the one dead engine comes back to life finally, just in time for the taxi back to the ramp. No, I'm not in a critical, life threatening situation, I'm being tested on my competence to fly a King Air 200 and on how I handle emergency situations. I just finished my ride and past it, always a great feeling.

We went through the standard three stalls, one clean, one dirty(gear down, full flap) and one in a 20degree bank turn. Then proceeded with two steep turns in a 45 degree bank. A missed approach at altitude with an engine failure followed. But then, a break in the exam as we tested the oxygen automatic deployment system that maintenance had asked us too. This included climbing up to 13'000 feet unpressurized until the passenger oxygen masks deployed in the cabin, which is suppose to happen when cabin altitude reaches 12'500 feet. The systems worked fine and to get back down to 6000' we did an emergency decent, really pretty appropriate for the test we just accomplished. So with the powers at idle, props full fine, flaps at approach and gear down, we pointed our nose at the ground and maintained 181 knots. It's a pretty amazing view when you are being held in your seat by your harness and seeing all ground and not much sky, fun I say. Anyways, we got down to 6000' within a minute and a half and proceed to the NDB off runway 15 for a hold which led to an NDB approach to runway 15 for circling to runway 27. We overshot 27 for vectors for the Localizer backcourse back to 27. And that's where I got the magnetic chip detector light and had to shut the number 1 engine down for the approach and landing.

Now I'm done the ride and am feeling a little more relaxed with life. I've got two right seat PPCs (Pilot proficiency Checks) for the King Air A100 and 200, although they are very similar planes they still require a different PPC. The only real big difference is that while the 100 has only 680 horse power aside the 200 has 850 horse a side, and that makes a big difference, increases the Vno to 269 knots from 208knots. It's going to be fun flying around more than one airplane.

Ragen' Fires

2006-07-03T17:50:00.001-06:00

The northern boreal forest that streached out in a green carpet 20,000 feet below us was alight with forest fires and half blanketed in smoke. A large hot army spread out in a thin line about 15 miles wide and slowly marching forward, swallowing everything in it's path and spitting out ash. The smoke is spreading up to 400 miles from it's orgin, bringing poor visiblity to southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The birddogs, a fleet of Beech Barons and Twin Commanders, are leading the water bombers, big yellow CL215s, in an attack on the fiery army. Diving in and out of the smoke they drop tonnes of water and chemical on the attackers, then circling back to splash down in a puddle to reload. It's an on going battle that must be won, or towns and even peoples lives could be lost.

Muddy Days

2006-06-24T10:39:00.000-06:00

The red mud that is unique to Cluff Lake

N55 52.40
W105 50.50
41 Miles N of LaRonge
FL 230
IAS - 154 Knots
GS - 210 Knots

The blue skies are finally starting to show and the sun is starting to warm up the cockpit as we come upon LaRonge. The day started early with a 0615 flight to Melfort to drop off cargo and then straight back to Saskatoon for another flight up North to Cluff Lake at 0900. I was able to bring my beautiful wife to Melfort for the morning flight since all we had was a bit of cargo. IT was her first flight with me, I think she enjoyed it although she slept all the way home. It was early so that's okay.

The flight to Cluff was questionable since the weather was 500' foot ceilings and a mile and a half visibility in light snow. But our pax wanted to try it anyways so off we left to Cluff at flight level 200 (or 20,000 ft). It was a 2 hour flight that included flying around some restricted air space and the approach was just about to minimums and the visibility low. But we put her down safely.

Now we are on our way home empty and 1 hr 1/2 behind schedule. But that's okay it has been a good day with lots of hard work. Well, we've just been cleared direct ATURU for the approach into Saskatoon ...

Mine Day

2006-06-22T17:51:00.000-06:00

Today was a really neat day. We took off out of Saskatoon at 0645 this morning and after a smooth climb to 17'000 feet we settled down for a nice early morning flight to Esterhazy. It was a nice change for a flight since it was a south-east destination instead of due north like most of our flights. After landing on the 3000 foot strip we got to join our passangers on a tour of a potash mine. It was really amazing, it was 3000' below ground and had foot prints(mined networks) the size of Winnipeg. Really cool.

At about 1530 we returned to the air and got to dodge a few large Towering Alto-Cumulus clouds (developing thunderstorms). It felt like we were flying around large mountains and through tight canyons, pretty fun hand flying. After about 20 mins of weather deviating, we got clear of the clouds and flew a straight course back to Saskatoon and ended the flight with a real greaser of a landing. It's always nice to finish a day off with bright blue skies and lot's of afternoon to enjoy it.

Pie and Coffee

2006-06-21T08:49:00.000-06:00

The town of La Ronge is 19,000 below, although covered in cloud, our little GPS is pointing it out for us. It's 5 in the afternoon and we've been in the air for 50 minutes now, having departed McArthur River this afternoon. We have spent the last three days touring the North for our customer and now our south bound for Regina for the evening. Regina is 287 miles off our nose and with a ground speed of 210 knots we've got another hour and 20 minutes to go.

Things are starting to get interesting as there is a line of thunder storms approach Regina from the west and they are estimating to be there at about the same time as us. Also the La Ronge Radar is down so we're flying in uncontrolled airspace that usually Winnipeg Centre is controlling. The only affect this has on our flight is restrictions on our altitudes and some times out tracks so that Winnipeg can give the proper seperation to all the aircraft flying around here right now. We had been restricted to 17'000 feet for the first 30 minutes of our flight but are now at our flight planned altitude.

We've got an okay amount of extra fuel on board which makes you feel better inside when approaching adverse weather. SIGMETS (significant weather reports) are being read over the radio by Edmonton Centre to help all the pilots best travel around the weather. We hurridily scribble these down and make the decision of where to fly through this beast of a storm. I keep on looking at the Weather Radar and say a little prayer.

But not all is bad, I have some cherry pie (from our last destination) that I'm just pulling out of it's wrapper while filling up a cup of old coffee, just have to finish it before we hit the storm.

Inflight Show

2006-06-02T17:02:00.000-06:00

Sitting on 20'000 feet of air, with all systems working smoothly and bright blue skies outside is a relaxing feeling. We've been in the air for an hour and have almost another one to go before we arrive home in Saskatoon. We've spent the night at a mine camp in Northern Saskatchewan.

I was able to pick up company traffic, an ATR 42, on TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) and then find them visually at about 3000' below us and 5 miles off our right wing. They just had got their descent clearance from Winnipeg Center for La Ronge airport. I got to watch them from 47 miles north of La Ronge all the way to thier touch down on RWY18 at La Ronge. That was pretty cool. Although as they got lower they became merely a white dot on the vast streches of northern forest, but still very cool. I could even see their shadow on the ground as they where on final. What a crystal clear day. Wish I would've remembered to bring my camera so I could've gotten a cool picture for this blog. O-well, next time.

We should be in Saskatoon by 1330 and so far it looks like I have the rest of the 30 degree day off and it's friday to boot. I'm looking forward to home. I haven't seen my lovely wife for one whole night, so that kinda multiplies the excitement of getting home.

Enroute Thoughts

2006-05-25T10:44:00.000-06:00

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.

Thunder Storms

2006-05-23T18:46:00.001-06:00

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.

Summer's coming

2006-05-11T13:59:00.000-06:00

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...

Day Three of Three

2006-05-06T13:10:00.001-06:00

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

Day Two Of Three

2006-05-04T22:22:00.000-06:00

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.

Day One Of Three

2006-05-03T18:44:00.000-06:00

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...

CRM Training

2006-04-29T17:07:00.000-06:00

Crew Resource Management training took up the hours between 0800 to 1600 of this beautiful hot and sunny spring Saturday. With the sky a clear blue and the tempatures high into the 20s, we spent the day locked away in a window less room going over how to behave on the flight deck of an aircraft. Infact CRM training started up about 15 years ago as Cockpit Resource Management and was built and designed to resolve cockpit conflicts and lack of communication between pilots. Which was I guess the reason behind some aircraft accidents. Today the name has changed from Cockpit Resource Management to Crew Resource Management and then too Company Reso... to accommadate the flight attendents, maintaince, ground crew, dispatch and whoever else is involved in the safe conduct of a flight.
Really, the day was not a big waste of sunshine, I did enjoy the company of my fellow employees, some good food, lot's of coffee and oh ya, there was some good things I learnt also. Basically today CRM covers Human Factors (HF), which is basically how to communicate well without offending and how to communicate in way that will not be misunderstood, in other words, communicating clearly. We also learn stuff about ourselves, what some of the mistakes that we can make and how to reconize when we might make them.
All said and done, I'm grateful to the company for offering this education to us. It gave me a lot to keep in mind that might one day save me from makeing a mistake that was preventable. It is after all, the right of any passanger on any aircraft to be able to trust there lives in the hands of the pilots, flight attendents, maintaince, ground crew, and all others that are involved in the safe completion of a flight. And I will happily receive any instruction and education to make myself a stronger link in that safety chain.

The Race

2006-04-27T22:12:00.000-06:00

The Back Drop to a Good Day

The weather radar isn't showing much return on the screen as we continue our descent through the clumps of clouds that where forcast as thunderstorms. The end of the day is getting nearer as we are heading back from Mclean Lake Mine where we sat all day after flying up there at 0800. With Prince Albert only ten miles ahead of us and company traffic hot on our tail, we're looking through the light showers that are glistening in the low evening sunshine, a beuatiful picture. But not much time to enjoy it as we decide to chop the power and slow down to 160knots to let our company Beech 1900 speed by to get to the airport first as it was gaining on us considerably. PA radio crackles over the headset to tell us that it has started to rain at the airfield. A glance at the field makes me smile, there's one cloud sitting over only half the feild and showers are falling out of it, it's neat to see the shower from this percpective. By the time we land the rain has stopped, you can see a distinct wet to dry line about half way down the runway, that's a quick shower.
After dropping one passenger off in PA we quickly fire the still steaming engines, run through the check list and start taxing for runway 08. The company 1900 has just fired up also after dropping a few passegners off, the race continues. We pick up our clearance from Radio and take off 08, the 1900 has to wait for us to clear the zone (5miles to the south)before they get there clearance to depart. We climb out of Prince Albert with the sky full of dissapateing TCs and a sun slowly getting lower in the western sky. It's a beautiful and quick 20 minute hop to Saskatoon. With the 1900 catching up with us again Terminal tells us to keep our speed up as we're gonna be number one for RWY27 at Saskatoon, we've got the needle hugging the barber poll at 208 Indicated airspeed, the GPS is telling us we're doing 245knots over the ground. The company 1900 gets there speed cut to 190knots, and told there're number 3 for the feild behind a 737 that we're gonna be cutting in front for a tight turn to final.
We round out the turn from base to final and chop the throttles, throw in approach flap at 180knots, then drop our gear at 156knots. The approach rounds out nicely and after putting in the rest of the flaps on short final we land and exit easily at Bravo taxiway. With a gorgeous sun setting we taxi back to the apron and escort the last 3 passanger to the hanger, I'm just walking back to the plane to tie it up for the night when I see the 1900 land on 27. Guess your first sometimes and last other times.
The sunset is a beautiful back drop for a great end to a long day.

Good Morning

2006-04-26T15:27:00.000-06:00

It's currently 0854 and we're sitting at 20'000 feet 280 NM north of Saskatoon. The vast northern boral forest of north Saskatchewan is looking like a sparse and void prairie from this height. The sky is hazing to the north which limits your view of the ground, but looking out towards the East you are greeted by the morning sun. Still low and glaring it makes the thousands of ice covered lakes shine like jewels. The forest is a bright green now, shed of the winters snow; in a few more weeks the ice will be gone, reveiling the bright blue lakes hidden underneeth. The Captain and I are passing the hour and 45min flight to Cigar Lake by with idle chitchat about aviation stories we have only heard and how are past two weeks of no work went. In 20 miles we'll be beginning our descent into the still frozen North.

Embracing Now, Dreaming of Tomorrow

2006-04-23T23:56:00.000-06:00

My job is great. Here's an example... Last month I put in many many long days of work, 83 flight hours and well over 160 duty hours, probably somewhere around 250 duty hours (duty day hours is 1 hour before scheduled dept to 15 mins after landing final landing of the day). It was a lot of time spent away from home, but I loved every minute of it.
Now this past week I've worked nil days and next week is sounding a little slow also, and it's not that I don't like being at home around my beautiful wife, but I just am really really craving to get back to work. Not just cause I get bored but because I love to fly and experiance the learning and growth that comes along with every hour spent in the air.
I'm at frequent visiter to airliners.net, this latest photo got me really excited about my career and where I plan to go.
Chicago, Illinois

Here is where I frequently go now. And I get excited about this too!
"Some Dusty, Soft and Short Strip", Saskatchewan

Don't get me wrong, I don't just live for the future, but I enjoy ever minute I spend working in and out of the gravel strips I frequently accomidate. And I like the idea of climbing the ladder to get where I want to go, always having something a little bigger to fly and maybe a destination a little further away. I think that is what I really enjoy about aviation, not forgetting the hard work of a low approach or the beautiful office view at 21'000 feet.

Flin Flon and back

2006-03-31T15:17:00.000-06:00

Well I had a great flight this morning to Flin Flon, Manitoba and back. It was a beautiful morning in Saskatoon with crisp blue skies and the tempature hanging around -4. We had only one passenger from Saskatoon to Flin Flon, so we were light when we taxied onto RWY27 and pushed the throttles ahead to 1600lbs of tourque for take off power. So in less then 2000' we had accelerated to 100 knots and were airborne off of 27, we climbed to about 3500' before Terminal cleared us on route. We made a 180 degree turn on course and crossed just about back over the airport. I wish I had had my camera up front with me 'cause it was perfect aerial view of YXE. But I didn't. So on the way back I made sure I brought my camera up front with me. Here are some pics in the airplane.My View Up Front

Here, There and Everywhere.

2006-03-23T20:24:00.000-06:00

Well I've been flying for about three months, and minus January b/c it was all training, and you could minus Febuary cause I only flew once. But So far in March I've flown just about every week day. I've accumulated over 80 hours on the King Air A100, which about 62 of them have been in March, that's a busy month! Pilots are limited to so many hours in set periods, they are: 14/day, 60/week, 120/month, 300/every three months, and finally a max of 1200/year. The average for a charter pilot is about 50 - 80 per month and usually around 600 to 800 a year. But it can always be more or less. Such as Febuary for me was a total of 8 hours.
Here's a list of all the place I've flown to since flying for WestWind:

Saskatchewan :
Saskatoon CYXE
Regina CYQR
North Battleford CYQW
Llyodminister CYLL
Meadow Lake CYLJ
Swift Current CYYN
Ile a la Crosse CJF3
Prince Albert CYPA
Lac La Ronge CYVC
Wollesten Lake CZWL
Stoney Rapids CYSF
Points North Landing CYNL
Key Lake CYKJ
McArthur River CKQ8
Collens Bay CYKC

Alberta :
RedDeer CYQF
Conklin CET2
Cold Lake CEN5
Peace River CYPE
Red Earth Creek CEH5

B.C. :
Fort Nelson CYYE

And tommorrow I'm going to

Manitoba :
FlinFlon CYFO

I have to say that I have been really lucky to go to so many places, a lot of times pilots get stuck going between just a few airports for a long time. It has been great.

Here's a Map I Made Up

All over Saskatchewan

2006-03-19T20:02:00.000-06:00

Landing my plane in Saskatoon. Credit to Pat for the great pic.

Well it's been an interesting week, a very busy interesting week. I flew Monday to Friday this week and finished it off with a late night on friday. Around 12noon we departed Saskatoon empty and flew to Regina where we picked up four goverment employees and then proceeded to drop them off all in seperate towns. First it was to North Battleford where we shot the NDB approach for RWY12 to about a 1000 feet off the ground and landed in a roaring 20 knot wind. Then it was a quick 20 minute hop to Lloydminister where we also shot the NDB A approach, which is an approach just for a circling manouver to land in another roaring wind. We dropped off one more honourable and then made another 20 minute hop to Meadow Lake where the clouds weren't so low, so we did the visual approach but again landed in some crazy winds. We ended up sitting there for just about 2 hours while our last passenger went to town for a meeting. Well when he finally got back we took another 20minute ride to Ili' a la Crosse where we encountered our worst turbulance and wind of the day all the way to the ground, but after putting the plane safely down nice and firm, we dropped our last passanger off and headed off again. South bound this time, back to Saskatoon. We were flight planned for 17,000' back to 'Toon town but with no passangers and a light fuel load we came roaring up to 17,000' feet still in a 1300' per minute climb, which normally is slowed down to 700' a minute. So we got clearance up to Flight Level 210, where we quickly got to and settled in for a 25 min cruise before the decent to Saskatoon. The cruise back was peaceful, no passangers, no turbulance and a beautiful sunset to watch all the way back. By the time we landed in another stiff head wind it was dark out. We taxied back to the hanger where we cleaned up the plane and than sat to wait about two hours before picking up the Lietenant govenor of Saskatchewan and giving her a ride back to Regina. We landed in Regina about 11pm and said goodbye to our passenger. By the time we taxied back to RWY13 Regina tower had shut down and Regina radio was in operation, we got stuck holding short of RWY13 while Jazz, Peace Air and Messsaba landed. Which was interesting b/c Jazz's CRJ 705 landed on 13 at precisly at the same moment Peace Air's JetStream 31 landed on 08 to hold short of 13. Which last time I checked Regina wasn't certified for LAHSO (Land and Hold Short Of) operations. But I guess maybe rules change when the Radio's up for the night. Anyhow after a good 15 to 20 minute hold we got our IFR clearance and took off of RWY13 back to Saskatoon. The ride went well and only a slight bounce in the landing with the wind at 21 gusting 29 in Toon Town. Bye the time I got home that night it was 0100 Saturday morning, Sure was happy it was Saturday.

Back in the Air!

2006-03-06T20:16:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been awhile since I've sat in the sheepskin seat at the front of my plane. I hadn't flown since Feb 2nd, and then got to fly finally on Mar 2nd. A whole month off! I spent it fixing up our basement for the most part, my wife and I are hopefully going to get a renter down there. But finally the captian that I was waiting for to finish up his line-in-dock completed it and opened up the schedule for me to get flying.
My first flight back was a rig trip up to Conklin AB,CET2 , which was quite interesting. I was a little nervous about getting behind the yoke again after such a long time away and not much previous experiance, but for little reason as the flight went great. We departed Saskatoon, YXE, at 1030 local time and headed off into a bright and sunny day, which I was happy for because the flight planning was a lot easier when you don't have to worry about weather not letting you get in. The flight planning was pretty interesting also since CET2 is just north of Cold Lake, which has a bunch of restricted airspace that we couldn't fly through. So I ended up flight planning CYXE D> BOBNO D> N52 68 W111 17 (which was actually an abandon airport named Round Hill) D> CET2. This plan sent us south of Cold Lake to BOBNO, which is a high level airspace fix, then straight north to Round Hill and then back east to CET2. This allowed us to stay out of the airspace, and included changes in altitude from 16000' down to 6000' so we could stay under more protected airspace. It isn't often you do such a large 180degree turn in the air. So I'm sure I'll remember this flight for a long time. The trip went great and it was on the way home at 15000' when that great feeling of "I-love-this-job" came over me and got me excited about all the adventure ahead of me in my career. The photo is from www.flightaware.com, it's my real time track of my flight. I added in the waypoints, altitude and flight direction. If ever you'd like to see where I am go to flightaware.com and type in wew170 .

BC Bound

2006-02-01T13:01:00.000-06:00

The sun still was sitting below the horizen when we blasted off of runway 27, cutting through a thick layer of low stratus clouds on our way up to FL200. The King Air performed handsomely up to about 16000 ft where it started to dog abit in the thin air. We scraped it up to FL200 and then decided that that was a complete waste of time since the winds weren't doing us any favours. We called up Winnipeg Centre and asked to go back down to 16,000. Soon enough though we were settled and leaving Saskatoon behind with Fort Nelson BC in the KLN90B GPS flight plan as our destination with a stop in Red Deer AB to pick up some passengers. It was 2.5 hours to Ft. Nelson(YYE) from Red Deer(YQF). The weather is down to 400' AGL (above ground), looks like it'll be the straight in (b/c of our GPS) ILS 03 approach into YYE. The approach was done smoothly and we were on the ground, we excorted our passengers to the "FBO", if you can call it that, it was more like an Atco trailer with a fuel bowser parked in front of it, no markings or anything. But I guess it was still better than alot of places out there. After re-fueling, paying, watching a fight between a drunk miner and the FBO operater, we found our four passengers amoungst the crowded place and boarded our plane. A bit of a hold for RWY 21 while a Twin Otter landed and then we were off back to YQF to drop one passenger off and taste the +7C temp before heading home to Saskatoon and the cold weather that is Saskatchewans best friend for 8 months of the year. The flight home was smooth and we ended up doing a contact approach onto RWY33 and holding short of RWY27. The walk back to the hanger felt good it had been over a 10 hour duty day with more than 8 hours of it spent flying. A good first day on the job.

Slow Times

2006-01-28T15:28:00.000-06:00

Just got back from a Ground school for the KingAir 100, I've already completed my ground training and flight training, but I just haven't flown for two and a half weeks and I'm quite bored sitting at home so I figured I'd join in on the Pronto Airways KA100 ground school. A refresh of memory, wasn't to bad, probably good for me, I'm still a very low time pilot with only about 255 hours logged.
Ground school was about two days, Transport Canada (the cop of the air) wants 20 hours in the class room, we where pretty close to that. We went through aircraft systems such as : frame, engines, flight controls, speed and weight limitations, pneumatic system, and so on.
Looken forward to getten' flying.

Just Beginning

2006-01-28T00:22:00.000-06:00

Umm, just was inspired by another blog. Thought I'd like to share my career with others who are wondering what certain paths in life would look like and where they could lead.
I finished up my commercial multi IFR pilot licensing two and a half years ago. Got a job working in Regina Saskatchewan fueling airplanes and working the ramp (kinda like a parking attended for private airplanes and small jets). I actually got this job six months before I completed my Mult IFR. I worked there for 3 yrs (sorry if the times are confusing you) while waiting for my oppertunity to fly for the company I thought was the ideal one to work for. While on the ground I had many urges to leave and find flying work, it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes, but I stuck it out, often with many questions to why I was still sitting their waiting. But it paid off...tell you about that in a minute. First I'd like to say, though my time on the "ground" seemed long and was sometimes frustrating and disencourageing(if that is even a word, guess it is now), I kept a poitive outlook on the whole situation. I never had to worry about weather, besides the -40C days, I could go to work tired and not worry about thinking about numbers and angles and such, I made friends in Regina, one of which turned into a wife. Had many other good experiances, so my time on the ground was good.
A month ago, aprx., I was finally hired on to fly a Beech KingAir 100 as a First Officer! Ahh, finally, see it did pay off! So I did my training and ride(flight exam) which was a good time and stories to be told their, but that'll be for another day. That was all about two and half weeks ago, I'm now sitting at home, as I have been for two and a half weeks. Yep, I haven't flown since my ride, the reason, two new captains were trained on the plane and they have been working to complete their line and dock. I would like to be flying, but I'm not complaining about not either though. I'm on salary, not much, but hey, for the amount I worked this month it's pretty good money, ha, as I said, I like to see the bright side of things. Anyways, I've been spending my time fixing up the house my wife and I bought in a small town.
Well, I'm looking forward to seeing my career start Flying Upwards. You're welcome to come along for the ride.