Week 2 in the West - My First Professional Flight

The Calgary Flying Club Hanger (and Clubhouse)
on a cloudy Monday Morning

We'll, I must admit, I haven't updated this as frequently as I would have liked to, however there really hasn't been all that much going on until yesterday (Monday 28).



My first week at the Calgary Flying Club has been very uneventful. I settled into Calgary just before the weekend, but that weekend and for the next 9 days, we had a low-pressure system sitting over the American west, which pushed up some very very moist air from the gulf, right along the Rockies, creating extremely low level clouds, freezing fog and freezing drizzle! Below are a few screen-shots of the aviation weather forecast for both Calgary International Airport and Springbank Airport - For those of you non-aviators, it is telling us that at the airport its Overcast with a 500 foot ceiling and light snow, calling for lots of freezing drizzle and freezing fog with Vertical Visibility of 100-200 feet in the short-term forecasts (FZDZ FZFG). This weather also put a fair amount of strain on the International airports with their flights Arriving and Departing with the weather at some of the airlines 'bare minimums.'

I went in for my first day to write some aircraft exams, ensuring I know all the different systems on the different aircrafts that the Calgary flying Club flies. Doing that administrative work was good for me - one of the few things I got paid for around here! Now the money is nothing to hee and haw about, but who said Instructing for that! We are only paid for the time we spend with students briefing on the ground, or instructing with the engine running. - Apart from that, its really just a bit of waiting, until the next student, or until someone shows up that says 'I want to fly!'

Tuesday (26th) I was introduced to the DA-20 Diamond Eclipse, a light and sleek training aircraft which is built in London, ON. I went up with another one of the instructors, when we saw a slight break in the clouds - just to get familiarized with it. I haven't got any pictures of flying it, or even of the aircraft itself, however that will be soon to come! Apart from that, most of the time was spent at home, going over my briefing and ground-school instruction notes; trying to be as prepared as I possibly can.


Throughout that week, I was introduced to two of my new students. Both are looking to join the Mount Royal University Aviation Program in the fall, and one of the requirements is a private pilot's licence. One has started with me full time and the other will be starting with me full-time once he finishes his university courses in April. It will surely be a great opportunity for more learning, both for my student AND myself.




With Pilot training, what we try and do, is as much teaching as possible on the ground, then go demonstrate that exercise and allow the student to practice it in the air. The more they grasp and understand the concept on the ground, the easier it becomes in the air (and the less expensive it becomes for their bank accounts at the end of the day). It is a lot easier to teach something on the ground, as opposed to the loud environment of the aircraft where there are many more things going on, all at once.

The Springbank airport - an Aerial shot from the circuit

This week has sure brought some better weather (and I hope it sticks around for a LONG, LONG while!) Yesterday, I was taken up by Tom, the Chief Flight Instructor when the week long fog finally started to dissipate. We flew south, to a small town called Bragg Creek: A place we take most of our Introductory flights, where we allow them to have control of the aircraft and get a sense of what flying is really all about. This flight allowed me to be 'checked out' to take Intro students up, allowing the dispatchers to put prospective students into my day, giving me the opportunity to fly more.


Today also marks a very monumental day - my first professional flight as a pilot, where I was paid to fly the aircraft, not paying to fly! Sure was a magnificent feeling! I took my first student go up for his first lesson 'Attitudes and Movements' - teaching him the very basics. It also happened to be his first flight in a small aircraft. It went great, he was very receptive to the coaching and sure got a lot out of it. Once we landed I asked him how he liked it - to quote him 'It was like driving a Ferrari.... but better!' I guess that means it was pretty good!

I have a few flights booked for tomorrow now, so I'm off to prepare! I will update with more pictures as more good weather comes our way!

View of the Foothills, which have been immersed in fog
and low level cloud for the last week and a half

All settled into the 'Heart of the New West'

no, there's no foliage just yet - I found this picture on the net

Well, I've just spent the first weekend settling into my new place in Calgary. I am renting a room from a long-time friend of the family, who lives in the Northwest part of the city. It's perfect, as I will be working about 15km west city at the Springbank Airport.

I have myself a new ride, which I definitely feel much better about driving. I know this one would be legal to drive on roads in every province and territory and that it would have no problems passing any sort of emissions test! I have much more confidence that it's going to start when I get up to go to work tomorrow morning, and that I will ACTUALLY make it to my destination, without having to take my battery inside so its strong enough to endure several cranks!

I've temporarily placed my camera in a location I do not remember, however, it will be high on the priority list to find it tonight to bring it along with my on my first day of work, which is tomorrow! From what I have been told about what to expect for the first few days is that we're going to over some company documents, and do a flight or two to the 'practice area' to get familiarized with the areas surrounding Calgary, and the procedures for training in it's airspace. Now, the weather is calling for snow all weekend and next week, but hasn't been right to date, so lets hope the snow and clouds hold off until my days off!

Surely will have another post up (with some pictures) tomorrow after the first day.

Next Stop: Calgary

Well, after a weeks trip down to southern Canada and a road trip later around Ontario, the Maritimes and Alberta I've come back with some good news: a job instructing, getting me in the air! I will be starting to instruct at the Calgary Flying Club in Calgary, AB in the later half of March which is very exciting! Don't worry for those interested... I will be continuing this blog as I progress and move / fly to different places.

As for the new job, I will be starting out by working in the mornings on the ramp and the afternoons Instructing until it becomes busy enough to support another full time instructor. It's the basic progression of most flight instructors to start out on the dispatch desk scheduling flights or on the ramp, fueling, de-icing and moving aircrafts. It will be good for some extra money to live while building my client base from the ground.

The Drive from Calgary, west to Springbank Airport

The Calgary Flying Club is located at the Springbank Airport, which is a very busy airport just on the outskirts of the Calgary area. The airport is known mainly as a training airport, supporting 5-6 different flying schools.

I am very excited (can you not tell) to move to Calgary and actually start flying, however I will miss living in the North and will hopefully get a crack at some flying up here, later on in my career. The cold days and winter past times, the true 'Canadian' locals, my co-workers and especially those who took me into their houses when I was scrambling for places to stay.

In the past month, there has been a few interesting trips which have come up in and around Smith which we've had to deal with. The day before going on my trip to the south, I had to prepare the Turbo-Otter for a trip far north for some Caribou hunting well North of the treeline. On top of putting the aircraft to bed with all of its heaters plugged in and covers on the airfoils we prepped different things like fuel drums full of Jet-A inside the cabin to ensure there was more than enough fuel to make it back safely, along with many other safety and emergency 'just-in-case' items. Whether it's pushing 30 or 40 below, the aircraft has to be ready to go when it's supposed to, regardless of how much time it takes to prep the aircraft outside in the cold.

As for this trip, and many similar trips which come up on a regular basis. The people up here charter the aircraft and spend the day, or days at a time going up to remote locations where the animals run free, getting these animals as a source of both food, and income. They use all of the animal's meat to feed their families or to sell, along with Hides, which can sell for quite a price, if cured properly.


Apart from the many hunting trips, we had some visitors come to town from other parts of NWT, including Yellowknife and Hay River for a skating competition. We a few of our Jetstream aircraft chartered to go pick them up to bring them into town, then back again at the end of the weekend. We also had one of First Air's ATR aircraft land, bringing in young kids and their parents into town. With Northwestern being the only operator at the airport, we were called in to unload and reload the aircraft when they came in and when they left at the end of the weekend. Things like this, keep things constantly changing and don't allow it to get boring for too long on the ramp.

Loading bags into the First Air ATR

The past week has brought some magnificent sightings of the Northern Lights, however my camera does not have the proper shutter speeds to take pictures of these glowing bands illuminating the North Sky. In the last week they have been brighter than usual, lighting up the entire sky - I just wish I had these when I first started and was riding the bike to and from work in the black night.

That's all for now, I will surely be continuing my blog as I move south - to Calgary!

North Wind is Blowin'

Aircraft Engineers preparing the engine to run it up and balance the Propeller before

Well it's been a few weeks since I have updated the blog. It has gone from -40 up to +5 and now back to 30 below. The cold isn't all that bad, regardless how cold it gets - it's the wind that makes it truly cold. Things have been rather slow up here; we've changed up our schedule allowing work on the ramp a seven day schedule rather than a Monday - Friday gig. Because of the coverage needed on a daily basis - everyone has a different set of two days off in the week, which is good - but when you are the only one in the company that needs to get up for work at 6 AM on Saturday, it sure looses its fun!

Last week I was responsible for receiving fuel; every few weeks we receive about 50,000L of Jet-A, which is trucked up from just outside of Edmonton, AB. After talking with the driver for a few hours he was telling me those truck drivers bring in some good money each month. He works 6 weeks on and has 3 weeks off after, working as much as he can in those 6 weeks. He told me that during the summer, the truckers haul fuel from Edmonton to Yellowknife to store in the Fuel Tank farm at the Yellowknife airport, which holds millions of litres. In the winter, the truckers then truck it up to the Diamond mines when the ice roads are open.



February is the beginning of Cariboo hunting season and our Turibine Otter has just been put onto skis. It took six of us to push out and took some serious maneuvering as it just barely fits inside: It's our cargo work-horse which has a 2000lb payload (meaning a lot of Cariboo!).



I spent sunday evening cleaning out the Cessna 185 after it returned back from its first Cariboo Hunting trip. The animal was all cut up already to maximize the aircrafts pay load, so they didn't have to bring unusable parts back. Frozen blood was everywhere, inside, outside, underneath, on the seats and under the seats - you name it, and it was there! It sure would have been a lot more fun cleaning up, if I had done the hunting myself!



At the end of next week, I will be heading South-East to do some flying. I'm sure looking forward to that!

Winters Back

What I wake up to every morning

Well, another week has gone by and the weather has become more 'seasonal' once again. 40 below is the daytime high, and the average temperature until the end of the 5-day forecast, which leads me to believe that this is the 'real winter' which people speak about - where its -30 for an entire month at a time. When the temperature rises close to 0 (in May), I feel it will be t-shirt weather!

I've been keeping my truck plugged in constantly, and when I am not driving it for a few hours, I pop the terminals off the battery and carry it inside with me. Although the oil is like molasses at those temperatures, even with the block heater working, my car been getting me to work every morning while others have had to beg for rides when their cars are frozen solid. Even though my truck starts, it sure drinks it's fair share in gas, and digs deep into my pocket. In the 3 months that I have had it, I broke my first 1000km on it yesterday, yet am filling up almost twice a week! It sure is reliable for 25 years, but it definitely has some inefficiencies in the engine and exhaust system!

I'm not too sure if anyone caught the season premiere of 'Ice Pilots' which is a show based on an airline similar to ours called Buffalo Airways, flying out of Yellowknife, NWT. The greater majority of our flight crew and ramp staff all got together at Troy and Andrea's house last wednesday evening to watch it. it's funny how pilot's would love to watch that, even though its the exact same thing which we live every day. Anyways, in that particular episode, they were on the Northern tip of the Canadian Mainland stranded in the cold as they forgot to bring their 'Herman Nelson', which is a huge deisel-powered heater to warm up the engines and aircraft if it's shut down for any period of time.

That same day at work, before I got together with everyone I was helping a Twin-Otter Crew of South Nahanni Airways, from Fort Simpson, NWT. We were getting their aircraft and engines warm enough with our Herman Nelson, after it had been sitting on the ramp in the freezing cold for several days to depart on a return charter up to Yellowknife. We use it frequently when something happens and our back-up aircraft needs to be heated for a quick departure

Blowing Warm air in through the flight deck window early in the morning

Buffalo Airways and Northwestern Air Lease are similar companies in terms of their day-to-day operations. Buffalo provides scheduled service to many remote communities in the far north from Yellowknife, which is the hub for the north, and keeps their aircraft flying (and making money) by doing mainly cargo charters, in the far North.

At Northwestern, they connect Fort Smith with the North and the South (as it is predominantly a government town) by providing service to Edmonton and Yellowknife several times daily. Our aircraft are kept busy by doing charters to the diamond mines, as Fort Smith is home to many miners, as well as many other on-demand passenge travel. We have recently picked up a large contract with a company called Aluma out of Fort McMurrary. Northwestern is doing 3-5 weekly flights from Fort McMuray to Edmonton and Calgary for the to transfer the rig operators up north on their rotations. It's a big contract for the company and the pilots love it as it is alot of extra mileage (which is how they get paid - A Base salary + mileage).


To add to our Jetstream charters, our single engine aircraft do significant flying in the spring summer and fall when the ice roads are not open, flying in weekly supplies to places without road access (quite common up here).




Above is a picture of the Cessna 185 on Ski's leaving on a food run to a place called Kozo (I'm not exactly sure where it is) but they are delivering food to the prison up there - they get steak and ribs on a weekly basis. At Christmas they shipped up several turkeys and hams. Doesn't seem like such a rough life afterall. I've even seen sushi being sent up.

The New Year

Little Buffalo Falls

Well, the New Year also brought up a special visitor to come spend time with me and enjoy and explore what the North has to offer. Heather came up for a week and a half and rang in the new years in true Canadian style: in the trailer park. We were also able to go for a little hike with some of my friends outside of town and checkout the Northern Life Museum, which is home to the ever-so-popular stuffed Wood-Buffalo. It sure was nice to have company up here, although I was working for the greater majority of the time.

Myself, Heather, Andrea, Sunny, Troys Grandma & Troy
Troy, Andrea and Sunny (missing Adam in the picture) were the people I stayed with in November

"It feels like summer" is what I was told as I was greeting passengers arriving from Yellowknife last week (no, not Heather - Although I'm sure it felt like summer to her). I chuckled to myself before I realized it actually isn't all that bad here.

Sure feels like summer!

The temperature has been hanging around - 15C for the past few weeks, which has become quite comfortable, compared to Yellowknife which has been sitting somewhere close to -30C. So far it has been quite a mild winter here in Fort Smith when the weather should be very similar to that of Yellowknife. I've also noticed that other places in the north are a lot warmer than usual: Iqaluit has been above 0 for the most part of the fall and winter, there is barely any snow right now, not to mention Frobisher Bay is not even frozen.


I figured I'd share this picture above which is of my roommate, Thomas doing the fuel dips. On a daily basis, one of our tasks is to dip the fuel tanks levels and do fuel quality tests. We need to keep track of their levels, ensuring we never run out and ensure that there is no foreign debris or water going into the aircrafts fuel tanks, which could lead to catastrophic problems.

Up here in for Smith we have 3 tanks of Jet A Fuel and 2 Tanks of 100 Low-Lead General Aviation Gas holding 105,000L and 75,000L respectively. Throughout the winter, we do not use or sell AVGas all that much as it is primarily used to fill up our Cessna singles and the Water Bombers in the summer; however, we can use anywhere between 2000 - 6000L of Jet A fuel on a daily basis. One of the many reasons why we need to know how much is in each tank at all times.

Happy Holidays, Cat Notes and other Quirks

Last Flight returning from Edmonton on Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas to everyone! Well its been a few weeks since I have updated here. Things have slowed down a fair amount up here for this month. - Luckily that allowed me to get down to southern Canada for a few days for a wedding and to see my family and friends. However I have returned and just enjoyed a nice Christmas with my 'family' up here.

Well, the lead-up to Christmas up here has been filled with lots of spirit as everyone gets into the Christmas mode up here. So much so that very little business actually takes place the entire month because 'Christmas is coming'. Funny I know...

One quirk up here in the lead up to Christmas is that there is a Santa float which drives around the town every night before Christmas, full of lights and Santa and Mrs Claus Bundled up to bring in the Christmas spirit. It's quite a weird thing to see the first time, as it caught me off guard. Out of the darkness, this float full of lights and blaring music drives by the house slowly. After a few days, I was able to catch it on Camera to show! The pictures aren't the greatest, but it gets the point across!



Apparently all there are 2 similar floats and they alternate on a daily basis - I haven't been able to tell them apart yet, however I think its over until next December now! While I was down south, I missed Fort Smiths 'Christmas Parade' which consisted of our fire truck, the ambulance and Police car with their lights flashing, and the two floats, complete with two sets of Santa's. I'm sure that would have been something to see!


The picture above was a nice little surprise for my roommates and I from the people I was living with last month. As they were getting a Christmas tree for themselves, they were super thoughtful and cut one down, while getting one for themselves! Sure brought some Christmas Spirit into the house after returning from a long day at work to see it decorated and lit up!

Sun at Mid-Day

Apart from the holiday season, there are other good things sitting on the horizon ... and I'm not only talking about the sun (which is literally sitting on the horizon). We've passed the shortest day, so days are only getting longer now. - Not fast enough though!! Also, one of the Jetstream First Officers has just left and got another job working at Voyager Airways, flying a Dash 7 on a UN contract in Africa - moving the #1 spot to the flight line, and putting everyone else waiting, one spot up! It will still be a good, solid year before I see the flight deck up here, however it is nice to see the numbers finally moving up, and hopefully it continues to decrease in a timely fashion.

Today is also the 3-month mark of me living up here. I had my review last week before Christmas, and am now 'officially' a company employee. It's funny how fast time has flown, so far!


I snapped a few pictures in the Hanger before the Christmas Holidays of one of our Jetstreams going through an inspection.






All aircrafts have routine inspections, checking and inspecting different things, depending on the different Maintenance requirements for the company and at different levels; whether it is 50, 100, 500 or 2000 hours of air time.

The Aircraft above is going through its 2000 hour inspection where it has been almost ripped bare, being and inspected and being rebuilt with a lot of care. It has been down for a month and is only about half way through its inspection. I thought it was very interesting to see how much actually goes into these different levels of inspections.

For all of those who are interested in Smokey.. All of the Rampies, including myself got this letter in our mailbox 'from the cat'. Please don't mind the spelling and grammatical errors, it must be hard to type with those old paws.



So Smokey the cat is technically my superior, and since I am currently the most junior guy on the ramp, its my duty to take care of the silly cat! Luckily for me, they are planning on changing the way the schedule works up here with a few days on, a few days off are hiring another 2 pilots to work on the ramp - allowing me to pass on the wonderful job!

That's all for now, Merry Christmas!