Flashback to memory lane

Just getting ready to leave this great freaking hotel here in Whitefish Montana. I don't want to leave!!

Anyways, I was just recalling back on the long day of flying I was doing before this trip. We went to Abbotsford, Oliver (in the okanagon by Osoyoos) and Sechelt (just north east of Vancouver on the Sunshine Coast). Coming into Abbotsford I was flying and we were in and out of the clouds as we were being directed by the air traffic controllers to get lined up for the appraoch in the airport. But this means that you bypass the airport and fly up around Richmond, then by White Rock and then into the approach landing eastbound in Abbotsford. Well, anytime you can break off the approach it's going to save you lots of time. So we started to get some ground contact and eventually we could clearly see the ground and around us. So we got permission to proceed on our own and scoot under the clouds and head on in. Well, in doing this we got nice and low right over Highway #1. As I was lining us up for landing I couldn't help but chuckle how much it reminded me of my Traffic Watch flights I used to fly doing low level over the highways.

Then later that day we were enroute to Sechelt from Calgary and we were being routed over the North Shore mountains and then over the Second Narrows bridge and then to fly up the coast eastbound towards Sechelt. Well once again, we were over Highway #1 and the other pilot and I had a good laugh as we had been doing it all day.

Ahhh memories. :) It's very methodical to take-off go up to altitude then descent down and land. It adds a lot to the flight when we get to alter that up especially when the weather is nicer and we can fly more scenic routes on quick short hops. That's going to be something I'll miss once getting onto the Jet fleet, as they can't operate into any of the smaller airports that I currently go into on a near daily basis. But, there are also other tradeoffs that I'm looking forward to. Such as getting to Palm Springs just shy of 3hrs instead of the just over 5hrs it takes in the PC-12 aircraft I fly now.

Well, time to get dressed and go flying! The next few days look very busy for me as we are short staffed with other pilots off on training. Should be interestingly busy!