The Mail Must go Through.....
FL180, 46 miles Southwest Edmonton, Direct VARSY, enroute Edmonton to VancouverThis week I'm flying a regular run for Canada Post. Four nights a week, Monday through Thursday, most of the year, we take mail from Vancouver, up to Edmonton, down to Calgary, then back to Vancouver. This time of year, so close to Christmas, we actually have two aircraft doing trips. One leaves Prince George, comes to Vancouver, goes to Calgary, back to Vancouver, then back to Prince George. I flew this trip twice last week. The other trip, which I'm on this week, leaves Vancouver, goes to Edmonton, then comes back to Vancouver. This is my first steady middle of the night flying. I've finished many a day well into the evening, but never started my day when most people are thinking about going to bed. I arrive at work before 2100 and start flight planning. Shortly thereafter the first truck full of mail shows up and we head out to load the plane. We normally leave around 2300ish local out of Vancouver. It's about an hour and forty-five to a two hour trip to Edmonton, depending on the upper level winds. It takes roughly twenty to thirty minutes to unload and load the mail, then another near two hour trip back to Vancouver. We pull back into YVR usually around 0330ish local. Unload the mail, put the plane to bed, and we're done.
The night skies are usually pretty empty, with the exception of cargo/courier/mail flights. The normally steady squawking of the radio, with the many pilots and controllers playing our game of air traffic control, is replaced with an almost eerie silence. We'll check in with one controller and hear nothing from him or her again until they hand us off to the next sector. I've had nights where I could count on one hand the number of other aircraft I hear in the sky. The upside of this silence is that you can pretty much request anything from air traffic control and get it. This results in much more direct routings. Departing Edmonton for Vancouver we would normally end up flying towards a point 50ish miles Northeast of Vancouver called BOOTH. From there we would end up flying a published arrival into Vancouver (oddly enough known as the Booth arrival). In the middle of night however, most aircraft are given direct to VARSY, an intersection just off of Point Grey (near UBC). By the time we get there ATC usually has us down at 5000' and we've got the airport in sight, making for an easy visual approach onto 08 right.
Last night was my first night of eight, I'll do this trip for the next three nights, have the weekend off, then do it all over again next week. With each passing day closer to Christmas, I'll sure be getting my exercise in (I'm in dire need anyways)
The night skies are usually pretty empty, with the exception of cargo/courier/mail flights. The normally steady squawking of the radio, with the many pilots and controllers playing our game of air traffic control, is replaced with an almost eerie silence. We'll check in with one controller and hear nothing from him or her again until they hand us off to the next sector. I've had nights where I could count on one hand the number of other aircraft I hear in the sky. The upside of this silence is that you can pretty much request anything from air traffic control and get it. This results in much more direct routings. Departing Edmonton for Vancouver we would normally end up flying towards a point 50ish miles Northeast of Vancouver called BOOTH. From there we would end up flying a published arrival into Vancouver (oddly enough known as the Booth arrival). In the middle of night however, most aircraft are given direct to VARSY, an intersection just off of Point Grey (near UBC). By the time we get there ATC usually has us down at 5000' and we've got the airport in sight, making for an easy visual approach onto 08 right.
Last night was my first night of eight, I'll do this trip for the next three nights, have the weekend off, then do it all over again next week. With each passing day closer to Christmas, I'll sure be getting my exercise in (I'm in dire need anyways)
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