Positive Rate.

These fine words mean that I have officially arrived in Paradise. Another great day at the office; so much that I wanted to share it with you.

This was my first of four shifts this week. All except one are 0900 starts. Usually the 9 shift doesn't get to do all that much in the way of flying, but today was a different kind of day! After the usual walk around and weather check, we were sent on our way to Île-à-la-Crosse to drop off a patient. This is one of our "usual" spots, and today it was beautiful. 26 degrees, sunny, and full of bugs! 

Upon our arrival in Saskatoon, we were advised that there may be a trip involving a pickup in Regina, over to Edmonton to drop our team and then back to Saskatoon. The plan called for about a two hour wait in each city and with the way our duty time for the day was looking, we would only have time for one delay of that duration.

Our phones rang and we were off to Regina to do our thing. It was a slightly longer wait than they thought, about 3.5 hours, but we could still make it to Edmonton to leave our team and head home empty.

Positive rate, gear up. Off we go from Regina to Edmonton. This one is my leg, so I get to have all the fun! As we get cleared on course, I fire up the weather radar to have a look at what's ahead. We could see some building stuff on the horizon ahead and we wanted to get the full story! It turned out that we were facing a line of VERY active thunderstorms along our route, severing our direct track.

 Deviations approved! The choice was to head north and try to pick our way around the cells, or head down south into clear skies then scoot around the backside of the 40,000 foot tall clouds. No thought necessary. South it was, to the tune of about 150nm off track!



Zoomed in on the action. 



This weather system was responsible for damage to power lines in the Saskatchewan that have yet to be restored, two days later. Places like Prince Albert have had to throw away all of the refrigerated food supplies in their stores!

Still deviating south of track at FL200. .

Once we passed the storm, we were cleared direct Edmonton City Centre. Now, I won't get all political on you, but I must express my thoughts about the scheduled closure of this airport. I do believe that closing CYXD is a tremendous risk to critically ill patients. Many of them can just barely tolerate the flight in to Edmonton, but riding in the back of an ambulance stuck in traffic for another hour from the International Airport... Let's think about that. I digress.

Cleared to land! Flying down the virtual glide path created by our magic machine, I'm in power management mode, assuring our speed stays in the acceptable range for approach and Vref. Through 500 feet AGL, autopilot OFF, full flap is set and final checks are completed, and I bring our medical team and sick person to the surface with a squeak!

Another flight down, many more to go...!