Port Hardy

Many airlines, large and small, find it operationally necessary to have their flight crews spend the night at locations away from their homebase. This is why, when you see flight crews walking through the airports, they tend to have some luggage in tow. Almost all of them offer per diems (money for expenses) to crew that are required to overnight. Most have hotels that offer them special rates where they book individual rooms for each crew member, others will repay their crew the expense of the hotel. At some locations the company may have a crew residence. This is almost like a hotel for the crew, except it's run and maintained by the airline, and the only people staying there are airline personal (and there's no restaurant or lounge near the lobby). Skyward had crew rez's (as we call em) in Rankin Inlet, Cross Lake, Norway House and Island Lake. The length of stay at the crew rez would range anywhere from a couple of days to two weeks. I only had the pleasure of staying in the crew rez in Rankin for one night. The company I work for now has only one crew rez in Port Hardy. Instead of staying for possibly weeks at a time, they usually only require you to stay for one night, maybe two. There are other locations where they may have you spend the night, however, with no crew rez, the crews stay @ hotels.

So yesterday we left Vancouver on the eve of another gorgeous day, and headed off for Port Hardy where we were to spend the night. We flew over the water almost all the way up the Georgia Strait, past a big cruise ship, over Alert Bay, and past Port McNeil. We were hoping to see some whales on the way up as they stop to run their bellies along the bottom of an inlet around 3/4 of the way up Vancouver Island, but as luck would have it, they weren't there.

The Port Hardy airport has a history like many of BC airports. It was constructed during the late 30's or early 40's to help protect North America from the threat of Japanese Attacks. It shares the triangle runway set-up familiar to many airports in Canada with a military history. These days, though the Canadian Armed Forces still stop in on the folks in Port Hardy on a regular basis, the military has no control over the airfield. One large difference between Port Hardy and may other Canadian airports is that Transport Canada still operates the airport. Transport Canada used to run many of Canada's airports. However, in the 1992, the Federal Ministry started the transfer of control of many of the airports it operated to local airport authorities, Regional Districts, and municipalities. In 1994, The Government established the National Airports System

The National Airports System

The National Airports System includes the airports that Transport Canada considers "essential to Canada's domestic prosperity and international competitiveness." They are all the airports that, in 1994, handled at least 200,000 passengers and those that are in the national, provincial, and territorial capitals. In 2003, these 26 airports handled 92 percent of Canada's air passengers.

with this they also established a framework by which many of the airport authorities operate today. Transport Canada still owns the airports and is providing the not-for-profit organizations running the airports a 60 year lease (hence the "airport improvement fees" we're all accustomed to). At the end of the lease, if an agreement cannot be reached between the airport authority and Transport Canada, the government will retain operation of the airport and reap the benefits of all the upgrades at no charge. In BC, the only airports still operated by the Federal Government are Port Hardy, Sandspit and Penticton. Some financial support is still given for smaller, regional airports, under the Airports Capital Assistance Program.

Wow, that's probably more info regarding TC's involvment in Canada's airports then anyone wanted to know. I woke up early this morning to watch a beautiful sunrise over the Coast Mountains, then departed back to Vancouver, flying over top and along side some of the peaks of Vancouver Island. After a brief break at the busy Vancouver International Airport I was off again for Campbell River and Comox. In Campbell River I watched a women, forty years old, in a quest for her private pilots license, doing some circuits solo, while her instructor looked on from the ramp. After our stop we launched for Comox where we shared the circuit with a P-3 Orion as its crews did some training. My final leg of the day saw me pass over Texada Island, past Point Grey in Vancouver, and not so smoothly but not roughly onto runway 12.


I hate shooting through the window. Northbound up the Georgia Straight 


Evening in Port Hardy. Hardy FSS in the background 


Grumman Goose 


The Bandit @ Sunrise 


Sunrise in Port Hardy 


Gorgeous 


Hanger With three Grumman Goose