Ottawa

I flew from Sault Saint Marie to Ottawa today, with a stop in North Bay. Again, the air was excellent with a screaming tailwind of 20 knots. During the first leg of the trip, I flew at 3500 ft altitude, because it was quite hazy (ground visibility was better) and the winds were supposed to be not quite as strong. But it was very smooth. The picture is of Sudbury off in the distance and you can see the smoke blowing off the mill stack in the direction of my flight. Actually, the haze makes it hard to see in this picture, but it's there on the horizon just behind the wing strut.


North Bay is on the shore of the Lake Nipissing, which is north of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. The airport is also a water bomber base for the summer forest fire season.



I ran into another pilot who flies a Cessna Caravan for small cargo around. He basically repeated the same story about thunderstorms as the last guys. He said with weather radar, keeping a 10NM distance is more than enough. The only time he figures he might get into trouble is if he is steering between 2 storm cells and not being able to see what's behind them on the radar. Again, definitely not what they teach in groundschool! But don't worry Robyn, I'm not tempted :)



After North Bay I turned towards Ottawa, with the intention of stopping at the small airport near downtown on the river called Rockcliffe Airport. It's home of the Rockcliffe Flying Club and the Canadian Aviation Museum.

I started flying at 5500 feet but found an occassional small cloud exactly at my altitude, which made it a little choppy as I steered around them. So I descended to 3500 feet and found it a bit bumpy so I decided to climb again to 7500 feet. It was nice and smooth here, and the tailwind was terrific. At points the GPS told me that my groundspeed was over 130 kts, while my airspeed indicator was reading ~95 kts. (Pilots will know that the true airspeed is higher than indicated, depending on density altitude) But still I figure I was getting >20 knots of tailwind.


The prospect of coming home again in that kind of headwind is nothing to look forward to - maybe the weather will change.


The terminal controller at Ottawa did a great job of steering me towards Rockcliffe and around the flight path for Ottawa International -- the airspace here is as complicated as Vancouver, with several small airports in close proximity to each other and there is no large scale VTA chart. And Rockcliffe is a unicom radio, which means that there is no NavCanada ground person to let you know about traffic, winds or field conditions. So at 5NM 3000ft, the Ottawa controller said goodbye, good luck and please turn to the broadcast frequency for the airport. At least I could see the right airport in the distance. There were 2 planes in the circuit; I announced my intentions and joined the downwind for a smooth landing on runway 27.



After landing, the flying club unicom radio operator told me I could taxi directly over to the museum and park outside the museum hanger. I slipped in the back door of the museum and had a good look around. Much larger exhibit than the Bush Pilot museum in the Sault, but they aren't as interactive. They have a good collection of WW1 and WW2 planes, some bush planes and some Canadian Airforce jets. My dad would really enjoy this place - he loves old WW planes.







Tomorrow I'm going to go at least as far as Quebec City, maybe farther depending on the weather. I was hoping to stop and stay with my cousins in QC, but they're not home from their vacation for another 2 days yet. So I'm playing with the idea of getting to somewhere in New Brunswick. I'll make that decision in the morning after I get the latest weather forecasts. It seems my world is dominated by the weatherman right now.


The google earth breadcrumbs are here; the second leg won't convert to google format for some reason, so all I can post is the SaultSteMarie-NorthBay leg.