The Soo, 2

After grounding the idea of flying onward from the Soo that afternoon due to thunderstorm activity, I found a hotel called the Water Tower Resort in town. The owner is a pilot and goes out of his way to welcome travelling pilots. This was the best place yet - pool, spa, jacuzzi, great restaurant and a free ride to/from the airport for <$100.


While I was waiting for a ride, I talked to a couple of pilots that were doing a cargo run to Sudbury. I asked them what about the thunderstorms? and they replied that they had weather radar onboard that allows them to dance and dodge between them. But they said the storm was a line sitting right across Sudbury, so it could be more work than usual. Definitely not what they taught us in groundschool!

The hotel driver was quite a character, full of stories of the Soo, and offered to take me down to the Bush Pilot museum in the center of town once I checked in. So we went down there and he dropped me off and told me it would be a 25 minute walk back. However, the museum was closing at 6pm (in 15 minutes) and the cashier let me in for free anyway. Just had a quick look, but it's done up really well with ~15-20 planes restored and setup so you can poke around inside. But that 25 minute walk back was more like 1:20 and uphill in 35 degree heat. I didn't see a single taxi or bus during the walk back.

I haven't been able to take as many pictures, since I'm a little busier in the cockpit by myself.


At the top is a picture of a nice beach on Lake Superior between Wawa and Sault -- it looks like it could be in Mexico. And a goose statue across the street from the Wawa airport -- people have the strangest ideas of what makes a good town mascot!

I kind of screwed up the breadcrumbs for day 6; my GPS receiver got turned on by accident when I packed up the night before in Thunder Bay; the battery was dead when I tried to start it before takeoff. But I was able to charge it a bit in Wawa during lunch - so I've only got breadcrumbs from Wawa (after takeoff) to the Soo.


GPS-Wawa-SaultSteMarie

More T-storms

Should have talked to the weather briefer before I posted that last one. Thunderstorms are building within 25 miles of my planned route to North Bay, so scratch that. But tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day of weather. Now to find a hotel..

The Soo

I've arrived in Sault Saint Marie, which everyone calls "The Soo" or something like that. It was a very smooth and calm trip over from Thunder Bay -- Pete seems to get all the bumpy legs! I had a fairly significant tailwind most of the time, about 15 knots, and made good time.
I ended up not stopping in Marathon, because despite all my planning I forgot to call ahead and give notice (PNR) to the airport operator (I was having a nice chat with the flight specialist about the weather when I was filing my flight plan and I forgot after that). So I stopped in Wawa instead - another 50NM to a nice easy strip and the operator was very friendly. Gas was (only) $1.55 which makes it in the middle of the prices we've been paying. But the guy got every millilitre of gas in there he could, which I can load now that Pete isn't affecting our gross weight.

Enroute the weather was very hazy until I got towards Wawa. There are some spectacular beaches on the shore of Lake Superior between Wawa and SaultSteMarie.

The airport at Sault is quite a ways out of town, and the weather and winds are still really nice, so after a break I'm thinking of going to fly another 200 NM to North Bay and stay there for the night. I talked to a pilot who was doing fire patrol out that direction and he said it was an easy flight from here.

That should put me within flying distance of Quebec City tomorrow maybe.

Detour on the Roadtrip

I've had to take a short break on the road trip and return to Vancouver to attend to some personal things, so Bob will be playing the Willie Nelson tapes solo in C-FPAK for a while. I'll be rejoining him shortly to continue the roadtrip back, but I'll be bring some "Box Car Willie 8-tracks" for the way back. Bob will try and get further east, but it will be dependant on the weather as the last post shows.

The stay in Thunder bay was needed because the the four day dash from Boundary Bay to Thunder Bay was pretty tiring. Flying in the rough air and high temperatures does make it more draining, but there's all the up front planning required when you're flying in a totally new geographic area where you arent familiar with the locations mentioned in NOTAM's or METAR/TAF reports.

Some other things we found so far were;

• using the fuel consumption figures in the POH is optimistic. For FPAK, the figure in the POH is 7.6 US Gallons/Hour at 65% power setting, but we are getting a little over 8 gallons per hour leaned as per the POH.
• similarly, the fuel consumption for the climb is optimistic.
• check fuel prices at airports in advance. This can be found at the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association (COPA) web page, and you can get significant savings if you can plan it out ahead of time.
• having Internet access at your stops is invaluable. You can check the weather, NOTAMS, GFA's, etc., the night before your flight to get a reasonable idea of the next days weather, then check the current data just before the flight against the previous nights info. We also can check the Weather Office (Environment Canada) site for the current and predicted conditions for cities along a route where the are no METAR's aor TAF's available. It certianly makes things a lot easier.
• we have an EXCEL spreadsheet Navigation Log we designed where we just eneter in the route the night before, then update it with winds from the FD's and any other pertinenet info. This has been really usefull for flight planning purposes as well as use enroute.
• Bob bought in inexpensive ink jet printer to take along so he can print the Nav Log out after the final data in the Nav Log has been updated. That way we have a Nav Log plus printed weather info without ever having to be depend on the NavCanada kiosks. It's also a lot quicker than transcribing data by hand.
• all that map reading an navigation stuff they teach you in Ground School, well it really is usefull when your flying on the prairies and in Ontario. Its not like flying around Vancouver where landmarks are relatively easy to indentify.
• practice your cross wind landings. I dont think we've landed yet where there wasn't at good crosswind component. In Springbank, the cross wind was at ninety degrees to the runway in use, and the preferred runway was closed due to maintenance. The majority of the other airports we landed at had only a single runway so you have no options about the landing direction.
• if the Taxi driver cringes when you tell them the hotel/motel your going to, you might want to reconsider your selection of accomodation.

Solo

(Wrote this early morning, but forgot to post)

Pete had to return home yesterday, due to personal family issues. We hope he may be able to re-join me later, but we don't know yet.


Meanwhile, today, Bob is planning to fly solo from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie around the top of Lake Superior, a distance of 300NM. Without Pete, I plan to take shorter legs and longer rest stops. I'm just waiting for the morning fog to lift all along the lake shore so I can see where I'm going, and it's expected to be very hot and humid today.


I plan a refuel stop in Marathon, at the northeast corner of Lake Superior. This is an unattended airport with self-serve fuel. It's PNR (Prior Notice Required), which means I have to call ahead and tell them I'm coming. There is also a current NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) for Marathon that warns of Bird Activity, so I'll be prepared to skip this one if it looks questionable and go on to Wawa.


This is a picture that Pete once sent me of someone who had the misfortune to fly into a goose. I'm not sure who was worse off - the plane or the goose!

Grounded by weather

Looks like no flying today. The weather forecast is for thunderstorms east of Thunder Bay. Was hoping to fly to Sault Ste. Marie, but weather looks better for tomorrow.

The weather at Thunder Bay itself is still clear, warm and humid. I may decide to do some circuits later in the day.

Below is the current weather observations over an abandoned airport on our preferred route. You can see how quickly the weather is changing over 1 hour and where the thunderstorm arrives and passes through.

METAR CYTJ 301200Z 28003KT 15SM SCT032 BKN036TCU 18/17 A2995 RMK CU3TCU2 ABANDONED AERODROME /R03 AFT 2921UTC/ SLP146=

SPECI CYTJ 301221Z 00000KT 15SM TS SCT032 BKN036TCU RMK CU3TCU2 ABANDONED AERODROME CB EMBDD=

SPECI CYTJ 301236Z 12002KT 4SM -TSRA SCT018CB BKN036TCU RMK CB4TCU2 ABANDONED AERODROME=

SPECI CYTJ 301236Z CCA 12002KT 4SM -TSRA SCT018CB BKN036TCU RMK CB4TCU2 ABANDONED AERODROME=

SPECI CYTJ 301255Z 00000KT 10SM TS FEW018CB SCT036 BKN120 RMK CB2CU2AC2 ABANDONED AERODROME=

METAR CYTJ 301300Z 00000KT 10SM TS FEW018CB SCT036 BKN120 19/18 A2996 RMK CB2CU2AC2 ABANDONED AERODROME SLP148=

For non-aviators, this means the weather sucks - cloud down to 1800 ft, 4 miles visibility, with the attention-getting thundershowers.

Thunder Bay

We're in Thunder Bay today, having flown from Kenora to Thunder Bay on Saturday. We decided to take a day off and check out the local wildlife. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Saturday morning we had a fire alarm go off at the discount motel at 6:30am. I was in the shower, but I figured there was a pretty good chance that it could be real at this place. The firetruck, the ambulance, the police all showed up soon, and checked the place out but couldn't find any problem. They had to decide whether to break down doors or wait for the owner to get out of bed and bring a master key. Luckily for many of the hungover guests who refused to do more than peek out their windows, they waited for the key. However, there was one guy who came out of his room with nothing but his portable electric beer cooler and the clothes on his back. Got his priorities figured out.

After that, we had breakfast down the street and took a cab back to the airport. The taxi driver told us a little more history of the place, not all is suitable to repeat here, involving people who come in from out of town to rent a room just to do some heavy drinking, but he did say there was a knifing a couple of weeks back at the place. Hey, remember, this is Pete's pick.

We had an uneventful takeoff and flew direct to Dryden for more fuel for the next long leg. I remembered reading something about a discount for COPA members somewhere along here, and it turns out we got about a 10% discount (one of the many reasons for joining COPA). So far, gas is costing about $1.65 per litre, and we have spent close to $1000 for gas. A typical re-fuel costs us $100-$150 and we try to re-fuel by the time we get to 1/2 tanks. The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.


After that we followed Hwy 17 until it disappeared and navigated by radio over land that was scattered and broken lakes. At times it was ~50% water. We passed one area called "Lac de Mille Lacs", which literally looked like a thousand islands in the lake. It was quite bumpy, with scattered clouds at ~6500 feet. We were still encountering updrafts where we'd quickly climb 1000 ft/min and be 500 ft off our planned cruising altitude.

There was still a lot of chatter on the enroute traffic frequency, but most pilots were referring to their route by local lake names, but we had no idea where they were. The enroute frequency covers a very wide area, and there are literally thousands of lakes on the map, and not all have names printed.

We thought we saw an oncoming aircraft with it's landing light on heading straight for us, but after quite awhile we realized it was a train off in the distance on the ground.


We approached Thunder Bay and could see it from quite a distance away. The CFS procedures have a confusing note about not going below 2500 ASL on approach until cleared by ATC, but the airport elevation is only 600 ft. There was lots of traffic the ATC was handling, and he eventually cleared us direct to threshold on the downwind well before we normally would have turned base, so Pete did a very steep kamikaze descent to try and make the field but we ended up overshooting and going around. Second time, the ATC told us that circuit altitude was 1600 ASL, not the 2500 in the CFS. We had told the ATC we were unfamiliar with the area -- every time we've mentioned that, the controllers have done a great job getting oriented and in.

After that, we got great help at the Shell station for finding hotels and we found a hotel at the opposite end of the spectrum. We even qualified for the Seniors discount - a first for both of us! This is a true Retirement Beta Test.

For dinner, we asked a cab to take us downtown to a restaurant area. He said "what downtown?" but took us to an nice area near the marina. We walked around a bit, dipped into Lake Superior and saw a head-banger band festival in the park - like Pablum meets Megadeath. They also were playing "human foosball" -- basically a small court where they have strings across the court, and the players have to hold on to a sliding ring and can only go sideways across the "table" to kick at the ball.


We walked around looking for a restaurant and settled on a quiet sports bar/restaurant called "Tony & Adams". It very nice, quiet, the prime rib and beer was great. And then suddenly the environment became "target rich", as Pete puts it. About 45 scantily-clad young women between the ages of 19 and 22 descended on the place like lawyers to a traffic accident. They were clad in various costumes and less, to raise money for heart research. It definitely wasn't a pub crawl, the bartender told us, because that would be illegal. After having a few drinks, they all left again in a school bus. I think they must have forgot to collect any money for research.

Today we didn't fly, but rented a car for the amazing price of $27/day. We toured some of the local sights, like Kakabeka falls (the 2nd biggest after Niagara), and went Fort Williams historical park, where they have actors that re-enact the local scene of 1815. It was actually quite interesting... did you know you could skin a beaver by taking it's insides out it's butt, with no other incisions? It ends up being a hollow tube, like one of those hand-warmer things you used to see in winter. The whole tour was really entertaining. And again, we got the Seniors discount on admission.

Up to this point, we've flown about 1495 nautical miles (1719 statute miles or 2750 kilometers) and accumulated almost 19 hours of flight time in C-FPAK. It's very different from flying in the lower mainland area of BC. One thing that is very striking is that we here a huge number of people giving Traffic Advisories on 126.70, but we have seen very few aircraft in the air. It's almost the opposite of the situation in the lower mainland.

I've managed to upload all our pictures so far at www.nymble.ca/photos. I found this great freeware web photo gallery software that does thumbnails, slideshows, and album organization.
And the Kenora-to-ThunderBay breadcrumbs are here.

Kenora, part 2

(This is yesterday's post, delayed because the motel in Kenora (which Pete picked) didn't have any internet connection, to say the least).

We seem to be lucky with the weather - it was damn good decision to wait out those 8 wet rain-delay days in Vancouver. The sky has been clear, with just the occasional fluffy cloud ~1000 feet above us. We occassionally get a big thermal updraft where the VSI hits 500-1000ft per minute until you correct for it. I kind of look forward to them, because our normal climb rate really sucks being fully loaded in the hot weather. Today, I asked the Winnipeg controller to continue a climb from 4000 ft to 5500 ft, and tried to climb after he gave permission. He came back on a couple of minutes later and re-cleared us and asked the type of our airplane; I guess because his radar was showing that we weren't climbing much!

From eastern Manitoba on, the terrain has been getting really nice. Thousands of little lakes and big lakes surrounded by trees, and very little civilization (not that it was all that crowded on the Prairie!). But there are fewer roads and fewer railways to navigate by - we are trusting our skills with the radio navigation a lot more. However, the GPS is just too easy once we got it figured out -- it tells us desired direction, current direction, distance to go, time to go, distance off track, ground speed, and whether to fly left or right to get back on track. But it doesn't play MP3 tunes.

The common radio channel use is a little different than we are used to back home. At home, there is a couple of frequencies called "FISE" - flight information service enroute. There is a flight specialist that will answer specific queries for weather, or take note of position reports, etc. Out here, it's like AM talk radio -- everybody is broadcasting "traffic advisories" of their current position it seems like every few minutes. Worse than Glen Valley on a busy day. It got so bad from one girl who was literally talking every 3 minutes about being "2500 ft enroute to Lake La Bonnie" that someone else came on channel and told her that a traffic advisory every 15 minutes was enough! And this is the same channel that is used for talking to the flight information centers -- there was another fellow that came on and said he was diverting to Kenora because of a shudder in his engine. The flight specialist came on and asked whether he needed emergency assistance standing by at the airport (he didn't), and prompted him for other info essential for possible emergency rescue scenario (current position & altitude, estimated time of arrival, etc). Thankfully everybody shut up while this was going on. But this one channel is used via relay stations over a big big area, so it's common for 2 people to be talking at the same time, yet cannot tell they are stepping on each other - but us in the middle get a big squeal in our headphones when this happens.

Pete just mentioned we've seen very few other airplanes in the air during our trip. One guy passed overhead in the rockies, and a couple of planes in the circuit near airports.
Tomorrow we'll head to Thunder Bay. There looks like 230 NM of nothing but woods and lakes between here and there, so we are planning a slight dogleg to stay close to Hwy 17.


Today's breadcrumbs are here; pretty much a straight line for 4.6 hours, with a stop for gas.

GPS-Regina-Kenora.kml

Regina Sask to Kenora, Ont - Three Provinces in a day

We spent the previous evening with Pete's sister Valerie and her husband John. So this was my subset of family reunion for the trip. We did Friday's trip planning and got everything planned out to depart Regina and then Pete flew from Regina direct to Southport Field at Portage La Prairie via Brandon Manitoba. We landed at Southport after being in the air for just under three hours. You don't really get an idea of how flat the prairies are until you see them from about 4000 above the ground for over three hundred miles. We had a few small bands of cumulous cloud above us and a bit of haze, but other than that it was just lots and lots of prairie. The Ground Controller directed us to park next to a bunch of Military training aircraft to get some fuel and have a bio-break. Apparently this was a no-no on the part of the controller, but we followed his instructions. Apparently we were supposed to be directed to the "civilian" portion of the airport. I sure all of the Armed Forces Trainees were suitably impressed at the sight of the mighty Cessna 172 with its massive engine developing raw gut wrenching 160 Horse Power.

The next leg was from Southport, directly over Winnipeg International, direct to Kenora Ontario, then on to Dryden Ontario which Bob flew. Again, more and more very flat prairies. Once were past Winnipeg, we started to see less and less civilization. We used a combination of GPS, VOR, NDB, and old school map methods (which work extremely well). On the way to Kenora, we didn't have any cloud, but we did have some mist/haze along the way, but otherwise it was great. Once we got near Kenora, we decided it might be an idea to take a break for the day rather than proceed on to Dryden. It was now about 4 PM Ontario time and we were pretty tired after all the planning, preflight, fueling, flying, navigating. We're putting in over five hours a day of flying and probably about the same amount of time doing the other non flying stuff.

We're here on Friday and we're in Kenora, Ontario. Neither Bob nor I have any relatives or friends here, so we had to grab a Motel for the night. When we landed at Kenora, we started phoning around for places to stay. After we found found the first six places totally booked for the weekend, we started lowering our acceptance criteria. We finally found one that had some rooms, so we reserved them and got a cab into town. When we told the cabbie where we were going, she kind of shivered a bit and then drove us to the Motel. This was a bad sign. We went and checked in at the desk, and while this was going on a Hells Angels dude walked into the bar in full colours. Another bad sign. Then we went a checked our rooms. All I can say is that we have reset our Motel meter to zero again. At least they fixed the doors that people have kicked in over the years.

Tomorrow, we're thinking of Thunder Bay and beyond.

The photos above are from the Regina to Southport and then to Kenora. The first one shows us flying IFR (I Follow Roads/Railways//Rivers, bu actually it was VFR). It was really easy to check our desired tracks using the raods, railways, rivers, lakes, towns, etc. The VFR Navigation charts were suprisingly good. This photo is also pretty much like we saw most of the way.

The second phot shows me turning from base onto final at Southport just outside of Portage La Prairie. This is proimariliy used for military traing activities, but there is some itinerant traffic as well.

The tird photo Bon took of a Golf Course way out in the middle of nowhere. I guess there really isnt an issue with a shortage of land on the prairies, so why not build a Golf Course.

The aircraft is working reall well, but we have discovered a few little idiosynchracies. The heading indicator tends to drift more than usual, so our course tends to deviate a bit from desired heading at times. Also, the 8-track tape player isnt providing the kind of fidelity we expected from the Willie Neslon cassettes.

More to come tomorrow.

Regina

Just time for a quick update. Yesterday we flew from Calgary to Regina, with a gas stop at the "Bar XH Air" gas station in Medicine Hat and a quick full stop at Swift Current. As you can see from the picture, it's pretty flat for miles and miles. Pete's sister Val picked us up at the Regina airport and hosted us overnight. Onwards...

Today we expect to try to get to Dryden, Ont, via gas stop in Portage La Prairie. Weather is still looking good. More to come.

Oh yeah, yesterday's google earth breadcrumbs are here:

Calgary-to-Regina

Prairie run

Today we plan to fly from Calgary/Springbank to Regina, via stops in Medicine Hat and Swift Current. The stops are so I can fullfill the cross-country requirement for the Commercial Pilot License (300NM radial from origin, with 3 stops not including departure pt). Plus we'll refuel at Swift Current. Should be about 5 hours.

The weather is looking awesome.

We're using the facilities of the Calgary Flying Club. Very nice club. They even have valet parking for the planes! (a guy comes out with a little lawnmower-like thing and drags you to a parking spot).

Google Earth GPS breadcrumbs

I've uploaded to GPS breadcrumb files that show our actual track enroute today.
If you have Google Earth installed, you should be able to just click on the links below and Google Earth will open and zoom down onto our track. Then you can follow along... don't hit any mountains ;)

BoundaryBay-to-SalmonArm
SalmonArm-to-Calgary

Rocking across the Rockies

Well, after all the delays due to weather, we finally started the first day of the roadtrip. Bob and I departed Boundary Bay at 8:30 and flew a routing of Boundary Bay. Hope, Lytton, Spences Bridge, Ashcroft, Kamloops and Salmon Arm. I flew the first day and Bob handled navigation, maps, radio, and putting Willie Nelson 8-tracks into the tape deck. Weather in the Fraser Valley at the start didnt look all that great, but once we got to Hope it was excellent. We had spectacular views of the Fraser River all the mountains on the way. We arrived in Salmon Arm, got fuel, and then started the next leg to either Golden of Calgary/Springbank. We were going to make our decision based on the predicted weather in the Calgary area.

From Salmon Arm we followed the Trans Canada highway (after all, this is a roadtrip) at an altitude of 9500 feet to Revelstoke, which was pretty spectacular. We got a report from FSS about the weather enroute and in the Golden and Calgary area. Calgary was looking pretty good and they didnt forecast any major convective cloud, thunder, hail, animals falling from the sky, etc. We decided to press on to Golden and get a weather update there and make decision on Calgary or spend the night in Golden. It was a little bumpy on the way to Golden, but what a spectacular view. Once we got to Golden the DRCO wasnt working, so we made a decision based on the previous predictions for Calgary and the fact that we could see any large Cumulus formations developing in the area. Plus we could get another report at Banff and if things went south we would backtrack to Golden. We pressed on. Well that part of the leg was quite a challenge. We were wrestling with moderate mechanical turbulence in most of the way between Golden and Banff, lots of thermal activity, and all the things you get flying in mountains on a hot day. Once we got Banff, the weather at Calgary/Springbank was looking pretty good, with convective activity reported to the North of our planned track to Springbank. We proceeded more or less to Springbank and were assigned a runway with winds at 90 degrees most of the time. Thank god for the crosswind landing training at PFC. After we landed I felt like I had just wrestled with mountain Gorilla.

We got down and decided to partake in the hospitality of the Calgary Flying Club. We fueled up there and they gave us free parking for the airplane for the night. If you're in the area, check them out. It's a very nice facility, and lots of friendly people.

Bob's brother Gary met us at the airport and put us up for the night. Bob's daughter Michelle happened to be in Calgary as well, so he had a subset of a family reunion.

We got lots of great pictures flying through the mountains, but it's easy to get a reflection off the window. This is one of the better ones, taken just outside Field just before we turned towards Lake Louise.

The second picture shows just how fast the weather can deteriorate -- here is a storm that blew in at Springbank about 45 minutes after we landed. No warning on the weather forecast!

Tomorrow we're off to Regina...

Fantastic first leg!

Well, we got off the ground about 8:50am today. We're now in Calgary/Springbank, waiting for my brother to come pick us up. The weather was great and Pete did a great job of smoothing out the bumps through the Rockies. More later...

Looks like a go!

Finally. The weather has broken, at least in BC. Still have to watch the formation of thunderclouds near Calgary thru Regina, but that seems to be occurring after 3pm. Departure is planned for tomorrow morning. We'll be prepared to stop or return to Golden overnight if the Calgary weather fails while enroute.

Still Delayed

Bob and I have looked at the weather for Tuesday July 24, and have cancelled once again. Planned departure is now Wednesday July 25.

This rainy weather is really turning out to be something of Biblical proportions. Noah is still down at the end of block loading the Ark with animals.

The GFA for today (Monday) is shown in the figure.

The NavCanada TAF's for Vancouver and Abbotsford are for Tuesday morning were;

CYVR FM1200Z 10010KT P6SM SCT015 BKN030 TEMPO 1216 3SM -DZ BR BKN015

CYXX FM1200Z VRB03KT P6SM SCT005 BKN030 TEMPO 1216 2SM -DZ BR BKN005

To non pilots, these basically mean ceilings of 1500 feet in Vancouver and 500 feet in Abbottsford between 7AM and 11 AM on Tuesday, with light drizzle and mist, and visibilities from 2 to 3 statute miles. In a nutshell, these conditions are definitely not suitable for flying even from Boundary Bay to Abbotsford.

The ASEP for Tuesday is predicting low cloud enroute between 1000 and 10,000 feet, and the potential for Moderate to Severe turbulence between Revelstoke and Springbank. There also some very significant upper winds between 18 and 52 knots predicted. Throw all of this into the Pilot Decision Making equation, and the result is delay another day (Until Wednesday) and smell the coffee until then.

Another Day, Another 50 mm of Rain

I'm not sure, but last night I think I saw my neighbour Noah marching pairs of various animal species into a large Ark at the end of the block. This is a bad sign.

The rain has once again postponed our planned departure date one more day to Tuesday July 23, which is one week past our original departure date. That's what you get when your hobby is so intimately tied to the weather.

The images above are the ASEP for Monday July 22 and the Environment Canada 5 day forecast, so Bob and I delayed based on these. The predictions are calling for improvements in the weather starting Tuesday/Wednesday, so hopefully well be airborne towards the east.

It's Summer in Vancouver where you don't tan, you rust!

Well, the weather on the wet coast has continued to keep our two intrepid aviators feet planted firmly on the ground. It's starting to look like the Road Trip at 10,000 feet might only be possible by road. We have delayed yet again until the morning of Sunday July 22 hoping for better weather. The NavCanada forecasts for tomorrow (Saturday July 21) are predicting pretty much the same kind of weather as we've had the last few days.

The image is the "Automated Supplementary Enroute weather Predictions" (or ASEP) for Saturday morning at 8 AM showing the predicted cloud coverage, and it gets worse after that. There are also reasonably high winds predicted between CZBB and CZAM, as well as between CZAM and CYBW (21 to 37 knots) at altitude.

So today, Bob is studying the Commercial Ground School material and I'm going to work on the watering system for the garden (kind of ironic, isn't it!).

Departure Day + 2, and still at Boundary Bay

Well here it is, planned departure day + 2 and we're still on the ground at CZBB (Boundary Bay). The weather in the lower mainland has been unusually poor the last few days, and the weather in interior has been just as wierd. Today the ceiling in the Fraser Valley was as low as 600 feet with rain and reduced visibility (1.5 miles). There is a Thunderstorm Warning for the South Thompson area with severe thunderstorms, wind gusts to 90 km/hr, heavy rain, large hail and intense lightning. This is the kind of weather where you just sit down with a warm cup of coffee and do something other than go flying. We'll just watch the weather day by day and wait for something reasonable before we depart.

Day 0. Departure Day Arrives, But Weather Departs

Bob and I finalized our planning on Monday afternoon (July 16) at Pacific Flying Club by getting an excellent preflight airplane briefing from the most excellent PFC AME's (Mike, Anthony, and Jeff). They took us through the runup procedures, reviewed cold and hot start procedures for the fuel injected engine, and showed us other stuff that would be usefull for the trip.

We reviewed all of the items we were taking, removed redundant things, collected stuff we would need for the flight (tie downs, oil, window cleaner, survival kit, etc.) and did a final weight for what we were taking.

Then we checked the weather and NOTAMS. The weather between CZBB and CZAM initially looked good, and between CZAM and CYBW was good and improving (especially at CYBW). A couple of the big things that got our attention were;

• deteriorating weather moving northward and eastward from the coast with low cloud and rain just before our planned takeoff time
• predicted very high winds in the mountains (22 to 46 knots between 6000' and 12000' according to the NavCanada FD's
• the aircraft is near gross weight and we would have a pretty poor climb rate (400 - 500 fpm) through the Fraser Canyon (if we ever needed to, and usually if you wind up in trouble you need it).
  

We decided to delay the departure. The actual weather at the planned time of departure worse than predicted the day before. At YVR the celing 3800' and visibility of 8 sm with light rain showers (I live north of the airport, and the rain was actually pretty heavy for a while), Abbotsford was deteriorating and had visibility of 10 sm and light rain, and Lytton was showing 2700' scattered with some rain prior to planned departure time. In addition, the weather at Clinton was deteriorating (scattered 2900', rain). It looks like we made the right decision. A section of the GFA for 1800 Z is shown above, and our planned departure was 1530 to 1600 Z.

So now, we now we sit and watch the weather and wait for an improvement before we head off.

Nearly ready to go

We went out to the hanger today to talk to the Club's mechanics while they finished the 100-hour maintenance overhaul on FPAK. This is the first time I've seen a small plane partly disassembled -- did know there are only 4 3/8" bolts holding the engine to the airframe? And the engine is pulling the whole plane along behind it with only these 4 bolts. I'm not sure I wanted to know that!

Mike and Jeff are full-time AMEs (licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineers) for the club and do an amazing job keeping the club's fleet of 24 planes in great shape. It very reassuring to be flying with a club that's able to employ several AMEs full-time on their staff -- there's never any doubt that any maintenance issue, however small, will be looked at promptly. That's Jeff, Pete and Mike below.

T- 3 Days and Counting

The planned departure date is Tuesday, July 17, weather permitting. Were flying C-FPAK, a Cessna 172R. The route is Bob and I are taking is Boundary Bay (CZBB) to Salmon Arm (CZAM), get fuel and have a bio break, then on to Calgary/Springband via Revelstoke and Golden. Both of these are the preferred VFR Routes.

Were busy planning, packing up our stuff for the flight, and realizing just how little weight we have available for everything other than essentials. I guess that's the price you pay for getting an aircraft with Bucket Seats and a full avionics suite. Too bad it doesn't have an 8-Track. Our intended route for the first day is shown in the map.

Stay tuned as our intrepid aviators fly their way across Canada.