I have finally completed the last major task on the road to getting my Canadian CPL: The 300nm cross-country flight.

Transport Canada requires that you fly to a point 300nm from the airport of departure, with two stops along the way. I decided to do better and chose Moncton, which is 410nm from Montreal-Cedars. Our two mandatory stops were Sherbrooke and Fredericton.
James came with me, and flew the return for his CPL (that’s right, we only have to fly ONE way)

Our plan was to leave Montreal Sunday afternoon, around 1500 local, arriving in Moncton at 2100 where Mike O. would be waiting to show us around the ACC. The chosen aircraft would be C-GSDD, my favourite Cessna 172, which has a decided liking for altitude.
Unfortunately the great oaf who had taken SDD to Mont-Joli the previous evening arrived TWO hours late which completely upset our plans. Further delay was caused by a faulty intercom plug which took 10 minutes to fix in CSS3, and the flaps being stuck down in CYSC - another 30 minutes.

The flight itself was very enjoyable. We cruised along at 9500ft with a nice 10kt tailwind across South-Eastern Québec, Maine and New Brunswick. Unfortunately I only got one worthwhile picture, but what a picture...



We arrived in Moncton at 23:40, and were infront of the gates of the ACC just passed midnight. Mike was good enough to show us around, even though his shift was up and the Centre was in night mode.
The atmosphere there had nothing to do with Montreal - at all. The decoration was actually livable with beige desks and pleasant lighting, and the atmosphere was rather stress-free, as if most of the people there actually liked their job - but then again rush hour had long gone.

Monday morning we trudged back to the airport for the flight home. This was James’s leg.
Just before leaving the college where we had parked SDD I got a glimpse of the airplane with which I earned my PPL: C-GTRA. It looked the same old mess as it always did, but the memories did surge up. I still have more hours in that plane than any other one.

The return flight was somewhat bumpier than the outbound, with moderate chop below 9000ft over the US. We ended up climbing to 10500ft to get a smooth ride, and had some fun with the little puffs of cloud at the same time.



We also had a sturdy headwind which gave us an extra hour en-route. We still landed 15 minutes ahead of schedule in Cedars, from where we bolted to Trudeau airport where we both had shifts (actually I’m still on mine, and will be until 5:30 local)

All things considered we had a superb trip, though never again would I do such a flight in a Cessna. Any more than 3 hours in a 172 and the risk of insanity becomes severe.

I don’t plan any other flights before leaving Canada (in 11 days!) so this could well have been my grand finale. And what a finale it was.

S.

Dearest readers, I have a rather huge announcement to make. Some of you may already know about it, but it’s official now.

I am moving to the UK at the end of the month, Oxford to be precise. I will be joining an intensive ATPL course which will lead to a flying job with an airline over there. And by airline I mean real airline, not 50-year-old-Navajo-operator-based-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-airline.

This move obviously means some big changes for me, quite a few of them somewhat hurried. The whole thing feels almost unreal to be very honest. The thought of spending the next 6 months in quasi-house-arrest in the middle of England still hasn't fully settled in yet...

Guess I'll have to rename the blog too.

S.

Today I went flying through the Alps with Martin. It was a flight I won’t forget anytime soon.

We arrived at Hohenems. (LOIH), our departure airport, just after noon. The aircraft for the day would be D-ELHA, a Piper Cherokee 140.

The plan was to fly to a little airfield by the name of Zell Am See (LOWZ) via Innsbruck (LOWI) on the way out, and southern Germany on the way back.

Preflight complete we boarded and went through the pre-take-off checks. Martin was the pilot flying for this leg, with me in my favourite seat.

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(click to enlarge)

We departed LOIH on runway 05, then turned south towards the Kummenberg reporting point, which is a hill that was cut in two. We then southbound to join a valley route towards Innsbruck climbing to FL115.

The scenery scenery was spectacular ... Such a contrast to the flat, boring, brownish Montreal area I’m used to.... Words can’t describe the view, so here are some pictures.

30 miles from Innsbruck we attempted to contact Wein Information. I say attempted because we didn’t get much out of the lady on the other end of the radio.

She was kind enough to transfer us to Innsbruck tower for clearance through the control zone. We gout our clearance direct INN NDB and nearly ran into a glider circling over a mountain peak. I say nearly, but the glider was maybe 1000ft below. The sudden appearance did startle us somewhat though.

Tower transferred us to Radar who cleared us out the other end of the control zone towards our destination. We were eventually transferred back to the lady in Vienna who asked us to report commencing descent - only to completely ignore the (3) calls when we started down.

As we started our descent a little late we ended up somewhat high on our final into Zel Am See’s runway 08. No problem, I demonstrated a forward slip and we were down in no time. Martin experienced his most violent wheel shimmy on landing (a crosswind surprised us and we landed somewhat sideways - Martin is laughing at my use of the expression)

(a typical traffic pattern in Austria... We arrived via W and departed via N1)

We had lunch, then departed for home. Our route took us north to the German foothills of the alps, then west to Lake Constance and south to Hohenems. I took the left seat for this leg, giving Martin his first ever right seat ride in a light aeroplane.

The München Information people were a little more helpful than Wien was, though everybody was instructed to squawk 7000 and ident. I wonder how on earth they are able to track who is who if all the transponders are on 7000?! If someone knows doo leave a note.

We had to change our plan to cut across the mountains southbound due to some uncooperative clouds. It’s quite amazing how fast one gets addicted to the mountain flying - we were both bored to tears within 5 minutes of leaving the peaks and flying over the comparatively flat foothills.

We arrived at Hohenems via the Northern SENDER reporting point, and again much MUCH too high. This time I used the idle-power-with-flaps-30° method and managed to get down in time to turn final, with a glider on our heels.

I don’t think I’ll be able to top this flight for a long time. A beautiful aircraft, stunning scenery, glorious weather (including some nice little puffs to fly though) and a great pilot sitting in the aircraft with me. I will undoubtedly be back to do this again in the not too distant future.

S.

Saturday James, Ben and I went to see Air Canada’s brand new 777-300ER, which was on display at the Air Canada base in Trudeau airport.



I have seen and flown in 777s countless times before and therefore know that a 777 is big. But when you’re standing underneath one it’s HUGE. The wheels go up to my waist, I would need a ladder to plug the GPU, and the engines .... no comment.



We loitered around the aircraft gasping at the size (with James muttering about how he was supposed to do the various tasks associated with loading/unloading this machine) while waiting for the huge line of people wanting to take a look subsided.

Half an hour later the line was just as long, so we decided to join it anyway, and 15 minutes later we were on board.

The coach cabin sported the new Air Canada seats which were remarkably comfortable. More surprising than that was the legroom! Probably the most I have ever seen on any airline - I had enough room to stretch my legs without hitting my knee on the seat ahead of me. The IFE was in idiot-mode but looked promising, there was a USB port in the seat ... no idea why. But the seats were in that disgusting 3-3-3 configuration which I loath so much. Really, the person who thought of it should be hanged!

Business was much less pleasing than I would have imagined. The seats were about 30° offset to the direction of travel, and rather uncomfortable. They were far too narrow in my opinion, once seated I felt like I was in a bucket, and converting the seat to bed mode proved dangerous for the feet unless special care was taken to move your feet away as the seat closed the gap with the footrest.

The toilets were quite large, nice colours, a tile motif in the linoleum on the floor, and even a full length mirror for the ladies.

They didn’t let us into the cockpit to “keep the flow going” which was not nice, so that will be a separate episode for another day. Once outside again we went to look for something to eat (ended up with some cheap Air Canada cake) then had a peek inside the old L-10 that Air Canada keeps somewhere for special occasions.



We then went to Skyservice where I showed James and Ben one of my dirty smelly old Convairs, then went home. A very nice day.

For more pictures of the new 777 click here.

S.

The cougar (Puma concolor), also known as the puma or mountain lion, is a New World mammal of the Felidae family. This large, solitary cat has a vast range, extending from Yukon in Canada to the southern Andes of South America. An exceptionally adaptable species, the cougar is found in every major New World habitat type. Due to overhunting and continual human development of cougar habitat, populations have dropped in many parts of its historical range, although recent conservation efforts have allowed numbers to improve in some areas.

The Cougar is also a twin engined airplane which my school happens to operate, and today I had my first flight in one.

The Cougar, being a twin, has double-everything relating to engines, which makes for a rather busy panel. It also means that everything in the checklist related to engines happens twice.

Starting the engines was remarkably easy. No reluctant croaking, hesitating or other such reticence that I have been used to on the single-engined aircraft I have flown - but that could be me.
Taxiing this plane was the next surprise. The cougar itself isn’t huge, it’s a four seater twin with a MTOW of 3800lbs, but it feels very different from the above mentioned singles. The rudder pedals are very heavy, and don’t even try to use wind inputs, you’ll get a cramp from the weight of the controls.

Run up was much like on the arrow, except twice. Cycle the props, test the feather, suction, alternators, idle, etc.

Take-off was unlike anything I have ever flown before. We rotate at 60, climb at 95. The feeling one gets when lifting off is hard to describe - but it feels like you’re moving through the air rather than floating in it.

We climbed to 2000ft (in 90 seconds) and set course towards the training area. I had a hard time adapting to the new position of the horizon. Not having an engine in the nose means that the window is much lower, and you feel like you’re diving when actually flying straight and level. It would take me the whole flight to get used to this.

We did a few normal and steep turns (at 150 knots no less) and some slow (80kts?) flight then turned towards home.

The circuit and landing were (you guessed it didn’t you?) unbelievable. Downwind at 140kts, base at 110kts, final at 85, slowing to 75 for the touch-down. You really have to plan ahead in this plane as you speed is much higher, and things happen faster, but the immense stability of the aircraft is so agreeable. And I did my smoothest landing ever ... took me a second to notice I was no longer flying!

We did another circuit, then called it a day. My first 1.2 hours in the ‘MULTI’ section of my log-book! And a new addiction: speed and power. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fly a 152, or even 172 again.

S.

For those of you who just arrived from their vacation on the moon, I passed my Commercial Flight test! I-AM-NOW-A-COMMERCIAL-PILOT (almost)

Got to the airport at 10 this morning to prepare my aircraft for the day: GZCO (Zed-co)

I did a few circuits in the morning to test the air, and warm up the plane. I wanted NO surprises on the actual exam.

We started just after lunch, did the oral portion. I did rather well, but tripped on the loss-of-elevator-control emergency. To be very honest I had no idea there was a published procedure, but then again there’s a published procedure for everything isn’t there?

With that over it was time to go flying. Uneventful walk-around followed by some dreadful questions about the airframe. I say dreadful because I dislike everything technical - I’m a pilot, not an AME.

Time to go flying. We did a short field take-off from 07, then turned westbound towards Cornwall. The simulated navigation was to Toronto via Kingston, a route I know rather well - especially the first half.
The navigation wasn’t ideal. I was looking at the wrong planning sheet initially, which was ... hum ... yeah. I got the correct one out and we continued towards the first checkpoint.

Next came the diversion - to Ottawa. 45 miles. I dropped down to 600ft AGL and circled around a town planning the diversion. After 10 minutes of planning we turned on course - and arrived at my first waypoint EXACTLY at the predicted time. And it was all mental approximation.

The next exercise was instrument flying. Full panel (easy) then partial panel (not as easy) and finally VOR navigation (too easy)

We then climbed to 4000ft and did the stall, slow flight, steep turn and spin. All went well well. he next exercise was the forced approach/engine failure. I found my field immediately (underneath the aircraft), completed all the procedures with loads of altitude to spare, and was told to overshoot turning base. That’s how accurate I was ;-)

We did an oral precautionary landing, then the circuits which went well.

The verdict? 123 on 132, or 93%. Satisfactory. Now I can forget all about these VFR jokes, and get on with real flying -> IFR.

S.

(apologies for the rather abbreviated of nature this post ... Still under the effects of advanced euphoria)

Since the Wednesday Sherbrooke excursion on I flew to Pembroke (CYTA) on Saturday with SDD, and to Peterborough (CYPQ) with James Sunday, again in SDD.

Total time flown: 11.6
Total time logged: 6.3

S.

We both taxied onto Sherbrooke’s tiny apron. James decided to fuel GGEU for the return, and I called for a transponder code just incase our formation plans fell apart on the return leg as well.

We decided GGEU should take off first again, the theory being that we would have no trouble catching up. We planned to meet over the nearby town of Sherbrooke. It turns out we didn’t even have to do that.
We took off just after sunset, and spotted GGEU’s strobes instantly, about 3 miles away passing 3000ft. 3 minutes later we were alongside, separated by about 1000ft horizontally and 100ft vertically.
We held this formation all the way to Ceders, occasionally switching from the left to the right, and experiencing the 152's wake turbulence. Don't laugh, it creates noticeable bumps ... And gives a vague idea of what a larger aircraft could do. Once the sun set and the sky had become really black I increased spacing to about a mile and dropped another 100ft so I wouldn’t loose GEU’s lights in the city.

Words can’t describe how fun this flight was, we were grinning like idiots all evening talking about it after we landed.

The only setback was not having a camera, which means we’ll have to do it again.

S.