Up in The Air: March 2006

Friday, March 31, 2006

Saturday, March 18, 2006

This past week I completed my fourth PPC ride in ten months and renewed my single pilot IFR rating on the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan. With my Line Indoc (where a pilot with more company experience comes along to show you the operations) completed, next week I'll take to the sky all on my lonesome once more.

The bulk of the flying I'll be doing on the Caravan will be on one of NT Air's two only "scheduled" runs. Leaving Prince George, I'll head North to Williston Lake, stopping as required at Mackenzie, Ospika, Fort Ware, Tsay Keh, and possibly a few other strips along the route. Other then Mackenzie and, of course, Prince George, all of the strips are turf and gravel, perfect for the Caravan. While the Caravan is also capable of pulling quite a load off of short strips, the majority of the strips are lengthy and well with the aircraft's capabilities. I felt that I was just starting to really enjoy the 208B when the whole Skyward fiasco went down, so I'm happy I get another chance at the controls of this airplane.

The Williston Lake area is basically one long trench that was flooded in the 60's to create a reservoir for the W.A.C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River. Mackenzie, named for famous Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie, sits on the south end while the First Nation community of Tsay Keh sits on the North end. The First Nation community of Fort Ware or Kwadacha, lies 70 kms up the Finlay river from Tsay Keh. The area has is fueled economically by forestry. Logging roads carve through the forest all over the place while Mackenzie itself has multiple sawmills, pulp mills, and specialty wood production facilities.

C-GDOX in Fort Ware

Cruising down the Finlay River Towards Tsay Keh from Fort Ware

Cruising in the Caravan

Ospika Camp

Ospika Arm, Williston Lake

Cruising over the Rocky Mountains enroute to Fort St John

DOX in Dawson Creek

Monday, March 13, 2006

"Rupert Radio, Thunderbird 929"

This past Saturday I found myself out at the hanger in Prince George renewing my groundschool training for the 208B. As we ended the ground training with the walkaround, headsets plugged in and tug hooked up to tow the aircraft out for my recurrency training, a call for a charter came in. The details vague at first, the on call dispatcher came out to the hanger to ask us if we would mind putting aside the training for a bit and heading to Prince Rupert. The weekend here in Central BC offering nothing but sunshine from Peace River to Langara Island, we were more then keen to offer our aviator services to get some folks to the North Coast. What started as a drop off, quickly turned into a hold, then an overnight. So we jetted on home, packed an overnight bag, and before a matter of two hours were up since the initial call, we lined up on runway 33 in Prince George, received our clearance from the tower, and we were on our way. We climbed leisurely up to Flight Level 220, pulled back the power to the cruise setting and headed West @ 350ish miles and hour.

Although Prince Rupert does owe some of it's history to the Second World War, I was surprised to find out that the airport in Rupert, unlike so many of the airports in BC, was built much after the war. Aviation itself, however, did have a place in Rupert during the war. In a bid to defend the Western end of the CNR line and the port of Prince Rupert, the military moved into town and set up fortifications, sub nets, army and naval bases for both the Canadian and American armed forces, and created Canadian Air Force base Seal Cove, a float plane base on the Northern end of Kaien Island. After the war, the Seal Cove Air Force base closed down and commercial float operators took the area over. For some time, the only way to fly from Prince Rupert to Vancouver was to take an amphibious plane from Seal Cove, over to Sandspit on Haida Gwaii, and grab a Canadian Pacific flight from there. Today the float plane base at Seal Cove still exists, it is the home to many float operators, helicopter companies, as well as a Canadian Coast Guard base, and a Nav Canada Flight Service Station. Apparently, though I haven't been there for over twenty years, some of the hangers built for the air force base are still around and used.

During the 1950's, the Department of Transport searched around the area for a suitable spot to construct a runway and a full service airport. When nothing could be found on Kaien Island, the island Prince Rupert sits on, they decided on Digby Island, just five miles West of the town. It was 1961 when the P rince Rupert / Digby Island airport was given an operating license and opened for scheduled flights.

The interesting thing about the Digby Island airport is that there is no bridge connection to Prince Rupert. So once flown into town, one finds themselves on a bus which drives 3 minutes to the east side of the Island, boards a ferry, and after a 10 minute boat ride, unloads on the waterfront in Prince Rupert. IF you come in on a charter flight you pay $5 a head for the 3 minute van ride to the east side of Digby Island where a (hopefully) pre-arranged water taxi will come pick you and your companions up for the ride to Prince Rupert.

On the crystal clear day that it was, we could easily see the coastline and Digby Island as far back as over Kitimat. After about 50 minutes of flying we started our descent into Prince Rupert and a setting sun. The whole flight took just over an hour. One quick van ride, and a boat ride, and we were standing on Kaien Island and the waterfront at Prince Rupert. I had lived in Rupert as a little boy, but as I moved away just after my fifth birthday, I remember little about it. So the whole experience was new to me. I do remember is rained quite a bit, however, we were blessed with clear skies the entire time we were there. Unfortunately, we didn't get to do much sight seeing. We were straight to the hotel where we had dinner and breakfast the next morning, and were gone by 10am.