Ticket renewed... what a day..

After a good hour of grueling interrogation on aircraft systems, company procedures and air regulations, I finally stepped into the aircraft.

Myself and another pilot were going to both be tested at the same time on a new procedure our company has recently been approved for (GPS approaches to airports). The examiner (a company pilot) would be in the back of the plane observing and telling us what to do for the testing. The plan was to go and have the other pilot do his flight test up in Red Deer, AB (20 min flight north of Calgary). After that we would land in Red Deer and I would then become the pilot flying and do the same procedures for the GPS approaches, and then I would continue with the rest of my recurrency training at the Red Deer airport and then transitioning back to Calgary.

Well holy hell. Bumpy as shit, bad weather in the area and a very busy airspace everywhere we went. It all amounted to a very stressful couple of hours, we were really sweated out during the testing, during my section especially because it was my yearly retraining. Imagine every possible thing that could go wrong on a flight, roll it all into one, and you've pretty much got what I went through. Multiple systems failures while attempting to execute tricky approaches to airports without the ability to look outside until the last couple of hundred feet.

In one scenario we attempted an approach to the Red Deer airport but upon reaching the lowest safe altitude the approach goes to (318 ft above the airport elevation) the examiner told us we had no visual contact and so we initiated a missed approach procedure. Simple enough procedure, where we abort the approach and climb away from the airport and go to a fix to either try again or head off to another airport. Well, as I was climbing away from the airport, the examiner reached forward and pulled the throttles back to idle and informed me that I just had a complete engine failure. Training kicks in and I cranked the aircraft back towards the airport while at the same time running through the emergency memorized checklist to properly set the aircraft up for an emergency landing with no engine. It was great to see that it all worked out as I was able to maneuver the aircraft back to the reciprocal runway at the airport successfully.

After finishing at Red Deer we head back to Calgary dodging growing thunderstorms and showers in the area, we were being vectored all around by the air traffic controllers because of a crazy amount of air traffic around Calgary. Then on the approach into Calgary I had all of my navigational systems failed on me except the very bare assed minimums to complete the approach.. a stressful event for sure. However, I must say, my landing back in Calgary was one of my best!

In any event, the flight test was over and we went back for a debriefing.

The end result (if you hadn't already figured it out by the title of this blog entry) is that I passed.

-GPS approach certification PASSED
-Company/Aircraft yearly certification PASSED
-Bi-Annual Instrument rating RENEWED (this was an added bonus, a very costly thing to get done on one's own.. we did enough training and flight testing that the examiner was able to also renew this... woo hoo!)

So.. there you have it... safe to fly the skies again. Legally that is... always safe... ;)

Now I'm absolutely exhausted... off to bed for me!

Time's running out on my ticket!

What's my ticket you might ask? My ticket is just simply my yearly currency for the type of aircraft I'm flying.

So as of September 1st I will no longer be current to legally fly the plane. It will take a flight test for me to continue to be current. Not really a problem, except that time is running out! The weather needs to be good so we can do some certain training items (steep turns, stalls, emergency maneuvers).

So, I'm tentatively scheduled tomorrow.. so lets hope it gets done!

If only you guys could see the training that goes into a pilot's recurrency and initial training on aircraft types. It should comfort ppl to know that they put the plane's completely thru its paces. To have the planes nearly falling out of the sky and sometimes nearly sideways just so they know what to expect in the event of a real emergency. Of course with most larger aircraft this is all done in a full motion simulator, otherwise it would be WAY too expensive to just take a 737 up to do some training. Whereas our Pilatus is very cost effective and we do all the training in the actual aircraft... which is usually lots of fun for us, but would likely scare the crap out of even the most seasoned flyer. :)

Wow... busy busy.

After my last set of days off (when Natalie was in town) I have flown a lot. Much more than average. Which is great in that's exactly what I want to be doing - getting lots of hours under my belt. But at the same time, it's quite exhausting!

Since August 14th I've flown a total of 44.6 hours. This is JUST the time spent in the plane, and does not include the pre-flight and post-flight duties and any waiting around inbetween for passengers.

That 44.6 hours equates to approximately 21,400kms worth of travel! Here's a breakdown of just how hectic my last few days have been.

August 14th

Calgary to Calgary - Maintenance Test Flight
Calgary to Saskatoon
Saskatoon to Calgary

August 15th

Calgary to Inveremere
Inveremere to Kelowna
Kelowna to Sechelt
Sechelt to Vancouver
Vancouver to Inveremere
Inveremre to Calgary

August 16th

Calgary to Kelowna
Kelowna to Calgary
Calgary to Inveremere
Inveremere to Calgary

August 18th

Calgary to Penticton
Penticton to Vancouver
Vancouver to Seattle
Seattle to Calgary
Calgary to Red Deer
Red Deer to Calgary

August 19th

Calgary to Salmon Arm
Salmon Arm to Vancouver
Vancouver to Calgary

August 20th

Calgary to Reno
Reno to Calgary

August 21st

Calgary to Salmon Arm
Salmon Arm to Vancouver
Vancouver to Seattle
Seattle to Kelowna
Kelowna to Salmon Arm
Salmon Arm to Calgary (Springbank)
Calgary (Springbank) to Calgary

August 22nd

Calgary to Reno
Reno to Calgary

So as you can see... it's been quite a busy time! And although I was in Vancouver quite a bit, they were always quick turns there. I was supposed to be staying the night on the 18th when we got the call to go to Seattle... grrrr... oh well, that's the job.

Now it looks like I've got a couple of days off, which I need to use to get updated on some paperwork and prepare for some recurrency exams and flight tests which are approaching rather quickly.

Vancouver Layover

Heads up! I'll be in Vancouver Thursday afternoon until Friday afternoon. For any Vancouverites that wish to meet up at some point.

And here's a neat pic of a mountain peak near Inveremere with some glacier action that I snapped the other day flying through some mountain valley's as we approached Inveremere from the West:

NAT Attack!

I had a visitor in Calgary this past set of days off. Just after returning home from Wyoming, the next day Natalie arrived at the Calgary airport for a 3 day visit! She had spent the last couple of weeks in Vancouver and was on her way home to Toronto when she took a small detour and came to visit.

Unfortunatley the weather was not it's best. Rainy and cold when she arrived. But we attempted to make the best of it. As she entered the house it was only then that she recalled that we have 3 cats, and only then that I found out she was allergic!!! Oh boy. Luckily it didn't kill her, but certainly added a little complexity to the trip. She was sniffling most of the time in the house.

Here's proof she actually did visit.. see, Calgary in the background!


The second day we took a day trip out to Banff! It had been a while since I had gotten to drive for more than a few mins, so I enjoyed the drive out there immensely, especially as you start to get closer and closer to the Rocky Mountains... some great views to be had!


We did the tourist thing and checked out a good chunk of the sites... the bow river falls here where pretty darn cool:


The nicest hotel in all of Banff is the Banff Springs Hotel (a Fairmont Hotel) quite the place I tell ya. There was a big premiere conference going on at the same time, we didn't see any of the premiere's but did see a lot of the media covering the events. Here's me in front of this posh Banff resort:


Later that night upon our arrival back into Calgary we headed off to the airport to see what it is I do here in Calgary. We went and checked out one of our airplanes that was parked outside on the tarmac. Checked out the posh interior's.. played with some of the bells and whistles (and very loud warning annoucements of which I'm sure Nat can attest to). Here's Nat posing with one of our planes (perhaps a new employee??)


We hung out at the house at night, drank a little booze as it is one of the few times I'm able to drink (on days off) and watched one of her favorite movies that I've been hearing so much about over the years... "Newsies". Not a bad flick, an older Disney musical that she has fallen in love with due to one cast member in particular.. :)

Then on the day of her departure we shopped around for some cheap booze for her to take back to Ontario and took a little cruise around the outskirts of Calgary. My house is right up in the far north of Calgary and therefore it only takes a couple of minutes worth of driving to reach the city limits, and then the prairies begin.

It was great to see her as it had been a long time, and later last night she was back on a plane Toronto bound.

So... when are the rest of you buggers gonna come and visit!?!? :)

Ahhhh... Jackson Hole WY

At first read of that town you might think it's a bit of a dump... but oh how I was proven wrong.

It's a massive tourist type town like Banff or Whistler... nestled right up against some massive mountains and deep down in some valleys with spectacular views of the surrounding terrain. So great in fact that we saw AirForce 2 there with vice prez Dick Cheney and we were also told that Tiger had recently bought some property as well. It really was quite the place.

Very expensive as well. We stayed in a VERY basic motel and it went for $110/NT US! The whole place was very touristy so that also added to some extra expenses for the trip.

The best thing about this trip was we had 2 aircraft with 2 crews down at the same time. It was a rather large group of ppl that wanted to go and they had us staying there for 2 nights. So we really got to live it up the first night, we actually lived it up far too much... far too much. We went to a couple of different bars, the first of which was a bit of a cowboy bar and had a lot of bikers around! We had a little dinner and 4 rounds of drinks there. Then it was off to wander the town looking for something to do. We found another bar that had a bunch of pool tables. There's where it got out of hand. The pitchers kept coming.. 6 in total! And after a couple of shots it was bad news bears. I'm not sure how we made it back to the hotel, but we did. We were all hurting the next day after a night on the town. It hurt to move up to about 4pm the next day. The other crew got called away to get some extra maintenance done on their aircraft, so they had to fly to Denver the next day for the night... poor bastards, if I had been required to fly it wouldn't have been pretty. We did however find a really good pizza place that was very very busy, it was the perfect thing to be eating after that gongshow of a night.

The rest of the stay was fairly relaxing and uneventful. We just toured around the town and flew back home on Tuesday. A nice little trip. I'm going to attempt to post a couple of pics below.. wish me luck.



and another:



here's one of the town like atmosphere (this is one of the bars we visited that first night:

Speculation.. when in doubt.. speculate!

So my trip westbound was changed a bit, to include me pulling a very long day on Tuesday, the maximum allowable for pilots. 15hrs on duty with nearly 10 of it flying. We left Sechelt and headed off to Masset on the Queen Charlottes, but instead of staying, we were off to Vancouver to do another pickup and then fly to Calgary and later continue on to Saskatoon before proceeding back to Calgary to end the night.

Where does my title of this blog come into effect? Right about the time we landed in Vancouver. We walked into the executive terminal and the TV was tuned to the AirFrance crash in Toronto. It was only a few minutes old by the time we had arrived so information was little other than an aircraft had run off the end of the runway in bad weather.

What do I see/hear on the TV? The media/supposed eye witnesses and so called experts giving all sorts of opinions on to the "what coulda" and "this mighta" happened scenarios. They were interviewing people that had little to know experience with anything related to this event for their expert opinions. Asking a hobby pilot about all sorts of technical and specific information related to the conditions and aircraft involved. This person proceeded to explain how lightning could damage the aircraft's ability to operate the brakes and a few other ridiculous scenarios. All in all it was a gongshow for the first couple of hours before ppl really knew what was going on. Especially when people said it was hit by lightning as it rolled down the runway and many other things.

I find this to be all too common of an event when you take an industry like aviation where so many people are involved and effected by the daily ongoings and then everyone assumes they are an expert or can make good judgement on something that they know absolutely nothing about. I imagine this is similar to some other industries as well, but it is very evident with aviation. I heard one report that was citing the experience of the pilots. They judged that based upon the 10,700hrs of experience one of the pilot's had and based upon the amount of maximum flying a pilot can accomplish in a year (1200hrs) that this individual had approximately 10 years of flying experience. WHAT!?! EXCUSE ME!?? This pilot was 49 years old I believe, or at least somewhere in his 40's. He did not start in aviation when he was in his late 30's! It takes a lifetime to build up flying hours in excess of 10,000hrs just based on the type of flying that one starts to do as their careers advance. Such as those Air France pilots who likely flew on average about 40hrs a month just due to the type of flying (long haul) they would be doing.

It just irks me. Hopefully as time goes on we'll find out the true cause of this accident. My opinion is pretty simple, the aircraft hydroplaned upon landing after recent torrential downpours. Is it safe to fly in those thunderstormy conditions? Yes and No. The type of thunderstorms that produce that type of weather are generally isolated in their intensity. So where it may be chaos at one end of town, it is far less significant at the other. At one end of town it isn't very safe to attempt a landing and at the other, perfectly normal. Looking at the camera shots of the recent weather around the time of the crash it is bad weather but the pilots have a lot better of an idea of what lays ahead of them. The onboard weather radar can quickly point out to a pilot all of the weather hot spots ahead of them. It is their final decision if it is safe to continue during inclimate weather like thunderstorms. We do it all the time in my company. We approach in the vicinity of thunderstorms all the time, it's that time of the year to see them in Alberta and the Prairies especially. We use the information from reports of planes ahead of us, forecasts for the areas and our own weather radar on the aircraft to plot out the best approach or if it is not good enough then we will either hold for the weather to get better, or proceed to a more suitable airport.

Like I said, it's not just aviation, but it's such an easy one to make all these speculations on because everyone's been on a plane or seen a plane or known of a plane to do this and that and... well.. you get the picture.

But in the end, of course leave it to the media to blow everything out of proportion. I eagerly anticipate the findings of this incident and am glad to hear nobody was killed or seriously injured.

Another trip.. this time westbound

I'm off to Sechelt Monday for a night layover there on the sunshine coast and then I head over to Masset on the Queen Charlottes for a 4 night layover there. This should be a great little trip as there should be quite a lot of scenery and little things to do while we're there. After we get back then I'm off the next day to Jackson Hole Wyoming for a 2 night layover.. that should be an interesting trip as well. Jackson Hole seems like a pretty big place for winter fun and even summer fun, it appears that there are some neat things like white water rafting and huge tours and excursions in the area. The unusally neat thing about that Wyoming trip is that there will be 2 aircraft and 2 crew going as it's a big group of people so we are sending 2 planes. So there will be 4 pilots all hanging around looking for trouble.

Well, if I have internet I'll do some posting on the road, but not sure when that will be next as I don't believe Sechelt or Masset has high speed internet in house.