Up in The Air

Saturday, October 28, 2006

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.

Nice looking day at the South end of Williston Lake

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.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Night Falls

As we expected, we arrived in Bella Bella on Monday morning without any troubles. Weather we picked up from Pacific Radio enroute was calling the ceiling 900' AGL, so we broke out the RNAV rwy 13 approach, expecting to have to break through the cloud at some point. On the descent we noticed that the cloud deck was broken up much more then we expected and didn't extend very much past the airport. As we flew down the Spiller channel, we elected to do a vfr approach, down the channel, under the cloud, across the Seaforth channel and onto Campbell Island. It worked out great. Twenty minutes later on departure, there were many holes to climb up through as we pointed the King Air Southeast for sunny, clear Vancouver.

The day previous was the first time in a while I had to turn on the panel lights in the King Air. Most days we're done our flying by 1900 local. However, every so often something important comes in just as we're wrapping up. Somebody in Smithers had hurt themselves bad and at 18:45 we got the call to go pick them up. We flew to Smithers via direct in the clear skies with the evening sun setting right in our faces. Even through the sun visor and sunglasses, that evening sun can sure make one squint. A quick VFR approach and luckily the sun became hidden behind Hudson Bay Mountain, making for a much easier landing. We waited at the airport for roughly an hour while the paramedics went in to assure the patient was ready for transfer. On departure we lifted off into a now moonlight sky, and flew through the darkness, 45 minutes back to Prince George.

The lights of Fraser Lake

King Air 200 panel

Monday, September 04, 2006

Blogging from the road

So using my Treo, I'm going to try to update my blog via email while I'm hanging out around airports waiting to get airborne again.

This morning I'm still in Prince George. We've been watching the weather in Bella Bella, waiting for it to improve. Often throughout the summer, airports on the coast of BC become shrouded in marine fog, which moves in from the ocean over night. Sometimes the fog hangs around so long that we might only have a few hours where the weather is good enough for us to get in before it closes up again.

Upon arrival at work this morning Bella Bella was 1 1/2 a mile and overcast at 400'. It's improved now to a visibility of 9 miles or better and has been flirting with the 500' ceiling that would be the minimum ceiling required for us to make it in. Feeling that the trend is upward, we're going to launch here in 30 minutes for the one hour flight, and we feel we'll have no problems making it in.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

A very busy end to a busy summer

Again I must apologize for the length of time it's been since I added anything to my blog. The summer has been busy, and my free time has gone elsewhere so the blog has gone to the wayside. It has been a fun and interesting summer. Although I have been flying the Caravan now and then, my time has mostly been adding up flying the King Air 200 and the 1900.

The King Air 200 has been lots of fun. WXB takes me all over the province with a mission to deliver number nine stretchers to every corner. Most days doing medevacs fetch at least five hours in the log book, which is pretty much perfect. New to my BC Airports list are Sandspit, 108 mile, and Creston, all very neat for different reasons. This whole province is just full of cool places to see.

Now I find myself cracking out all sorts of books. I've had the time to get my ATPL for a few months now but have yet to write the exams (there's a lesson here folks so pay attention). It seems my free time this summer could've been better spent (as per usual), as that ATPL is required for the movement of my rearend from the right seat to the left, and that left seat ride is in two weeks.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Enjoy the Long Weekend!!

Happy Canada Day Everyone..Also a Happy Independence Day to those south of the border. Hopefully everybody is surrounded by friends and family, enjoying the warm sunshine, BBQ's and cold drinks..
Not much on the story front, but here's some photos to chew on. Cheers!