My New Perspective

Holy smokes, it's been over two months since I last posted anything on my blog. I suppose, those of you who still check in with me are probably wondering just what I've been up to. Well, the last two months have been pretty exciting for me. In the month of September, I did my upgrade training and a PPC ride in the left seat of the Beech 1900. This was quickly followed by the writing of the two Transport Canada ATPL exams that I'm required to pass in order to receive my Air Transport Pilots License. Following that, the kind folks at TC studied my logbooks and satisfied themselves that I have completed all the necessary flight time in order to obtain the ATPL and I got my license. After a couple weeks of line - indoc I was cut loose as a captain on the Beech 1900 on October 14th. My first trip as captain left Vancouver early in the morning to go to Kelowna - Kemess - Prince George and then back to Vancouver. I did two more days out of Vancouver, which saw me fly to Smithers, Terrace, Bob Quinn Lake, and Dease Lake. Since I was upgraded, the majority of my flying has been on the 1900 and the Caravan, so I've seen lots of Williston Lake and Kemess.

The week before last I got a last minute charter to Grande Prairie, where I had yet to go. As we were driving out to the airport it began to snow. By the time we pulled the airplane out of the hanger to fuel it, the snow became fairly heavy. We spent a fair amount of time sweeping the wings and applying de-ice fluid to insure the wings stayed clean while the plane was fueled. Finally, after a good dose of fluid, we quickly jumped in the plane, fired up and taxied out. We taxied for runway 15, waited a a few minutes for an arriving 737 and Beech 1900. Cleared to taxi to position, we got the before take off checklist done, took a good look at the wing to make sure nothing was sticking and we were ready to go. Once airborne had a good tailwind going east ,so the flight was much shorter then I expected. We planned a straight in Localizer backcourse onto runway 12 in Grande Prairie but ended up with the airport in sight before turning to intercept the localizer. The city of Grande Prairie lit up the sky once we broke out. It's a much larger place then I expected, or at least the city lights made it look that way. We landed, taxied and parked infront of the Shell dealer on the field. We ended up waiting for almost an hour for our passengers. When they arrived, they didn't arrive all at once, which almost became somewhat of an issue. When the first group arrived, I turned on the battery and a bunch of lights so people could see as they boarded the airplane. My first officer and I went about loading their stuff, which turned out to be quite a lot. We would get one groups stuff loaded when another group showed up, so we stayed consistently busy. After we had most of the gear loaded and the stragglers were just tying up loose ends, it occurred to me that I've had the airplane's battery on powering a bunch of lights for the last 20 or 30 minutes......... Shoot.... I quickly ran inside to check the condition of the battery.... 23 volts, just enough for a battery start.. whew. So we loaded everyone else up with minimum lighting, and fired up the right side engine, brought the ride side generator online and recharged the battery for a couple minutes before starting the left side. Once all ready to go, we contacted Grande Prairie Radio for our IFR clearance and their advisory. We departed runway 12, turned south, south westbound, and headed for Voles (a fix on the ILS instrument approach for runway 15 in Prince George). My first officer flew an excellent ILS onto runway 15 in Prince George. We unloaded our passengers' gear, finished the paperwork, put the plane back in the hanger and we were done for the night.

The Williston Lake sched has proven interesting in last couple months. With fall bringing in changing weather, I've spent more then a few hours flying the Caravan through the snow going to Tsay Keh and Fort Ware. While the lake itself is not yet frozen over, the ground around it has been covered in snow for at least a month now. Twice we've had to get the people from Fort Ware to drive to Tsah Keh because we just couldn't make it to Fort Ware with the weather. Once we had to do the opposite, because their was close to a foot of fresh snow on the runway in Tsay Keh because the grader that plows it was broken. It all makes the day interesting.

The next two days I have off, then starting next week, I do one month of night flying. If you've been reading long enough, you'll remember this time last year I did a fair amount of time flying Canada Post mail out of Vancouver. This year I'll be flying the Canada Post run out of Prince George. Fours nights a week I'll leave Prince George around 2130 and fly to Vancouver, over to Calgary, back to Vancouver, and back to Prince George to arrive around 0600. Although not a huge fan of being up all night, I do look forward to the month. The schedule is great, I'll get about six hours a night, and flying in the night is different so it'll be a neat change. I'm also happy that my 1st twin turbine captain gig is to be quickly followed by my second. In the next two weeks I'll do upgrade training and a ride on the King Air 200 so come January I can relieve some of our current King Air 200 captains to allow them to do training on our new medevac machine, set to arrive in the new year.

So that's what's been keeping me busy. I hope to not leave the blog unattended for so long again. Thanks to everyone who still writes me and leaves comments.

Cheers.