Summerized..

Hello all!

I haven't been on this blog for quite some time, and now I feel compelled to write a post on my summer travels. What a busy time of year...

First off, since my last post there hasn't been too many exciting flights.. Every flight is exciting in it's own way (at least for me), but there were none that come to mind that were unusual or strange. I like it that way though. The less "exciting" the flight, the more I enjoy it! Excitement can be a bad thing, or if it's not a bad thing, it's usually weather related and that makes me work harder! Call me lazy, but I like being able to look out the window while I'm flying instead of being face deep in an approach plate or in a very rare event, the QRH if something VERY exciting happens. For those who don't know what QRH means, it stands for Quick Reference Handbook. We use the QRH in abnormal or emergency situations to help us fix a problem, and also to make sure we did all the correct memory items that come with certain emergencies.

Anyway, this summer was busy like I said before. I was lucky enough to get three weeks off between the end of July and the middle of August, so my wife and I planned a trip home to Ottawa and to Newfoundland for family stuff. It was AWESOME. I also was able to attend Oshkosh 2013, and I'll talk about that part of my trip (since this is an aviation blog)!

We started our trip to Oshkosh in Arnprior, ON, where I did all of my time building to get the job that I have now... I love being back. When I worked as a jump pilot, I had so many awesome times there! My father, his friend Dave, and one of my best buddies Ernie came on the trip with me. With a borrowed Seneca 2 that I flew a couple years before, we departed (with me in the left seat for a change) for customs clearance Saginaw, Michigan.

After about an hour of waiting for our IFR slot for Oshkosh, we took off for the greatest air show in the world. I must say, flying in a light twin at low altitudes and slow speeds made me wish I was back in the King Air, but I couldn't be happier to be flying with my dad again. The best thing would be if he or I could win the lottery.. Then maybe we could zip around in a King Air together! Never the less, the Seneca did that job just fine, and I remembered how to fly it!

Once we arrived at the air show we parked the plane and went in search of beer.. I love watching the air show and walking around the planes with my buddies, then going to find a beer somewhere and talking more airplanes! It's heaven for an airplane geek like me. Endless airplanes, endless airplane talk.  I can't really get tired of it, and neither can my buddy Ernie, so we always have a wicked time at Airventure.

It was a short trip, only three days, but there were a bunch of highlights. We saw some cool new airplanes, talked to the Beechcraft sales people and dreamed of buying a King Air, watched a private Harrier do a full show (COOL!!!), and saw so many P-51's fly that it would make any airplane lover's head spin!

Departure from Oshkosh is an experience that can't be duplicated anywhere that I know of. Being in a place with thousands of people and several hundred (if not thousands) of airplane is cool, but departing with a bunch of them at the same time is even better! The big sky theory really works there. You might take off with three airplanes on the same runway, and as soon as everybody is off the ground and turning on their own course, they disappear.. It's awesome.

With all of that excitement out of the way, I returned back to Saskatoon and then left for Wichita. I did my recurrent simulator training early this year because we'll be moving into our new house around the time that I was supposed to go. FlightSafety was fun, as usual, and now that I'm back in town, things are back to normal. I'm flying a bunch, off a whole lot, and building all sorts of stuff for the new place in my free time..

Life is good, and I have nothing left for this post!

See you in a month, maybe!

Soaring Spring.

          As I sit here in the flight planning room with the air conditioning keeping me cool, I look back on the winter and feel happy that it's over! This was my first winter in the prairies, and I can say it was vastly different than the winters that I am accustom to.

          It isn't so much the weather out here, it's the way the city handles it. Saskatoon's city management, in their infinite wisdom, decided that plowing the roads after any snowfall wasn't necessary. As you drive down the roads you have to make sure that you stay in the ruts from other cars... They get so deep after a few snowy days that the car can bottom out and you'll get stuck. It made me crazy driving here.

          Now we're rounding the corner from spring to summer, and it's a beautiful thing. The airframe icing conditions that we have to deal with during the winter months have given way to thunderstorms and turbulence. I enjoy the fluffy cumulus clouds and finding ways to dodge the bumps. It reminds me of the jump flying I did for so long. Every day I flew jumpers was about finding an efficient way up between the clouds, and locating an open spot for the jumpers to get out. I miss that job!

          As far as stories from winter flying goes.... I don't have many. It was a fairly uneventful winter. The one super cool memory I have was landing one night in Saskatoon. I was on the way back from somewhere up north and we were picking up the ATIS in preparation for landing. We heard the RVR reported as 1200 feet, which isn't good. Our operation needs 1600RVR to land from an ILS, so it looked like we were going to need to head to our alternate. Before we made the decision to do that, we called Saskatoon Radio to get his impression of the conditions and if he thought it was clearing. He reported that the RVR for runway 09 was variable between 1100 and 1600. No good. But, the visibility to the east was unlimited, and runway 27 had no RVR, so it was game on!

          The winds were calm, and my captain was setting up the FMS for the GNSS overlay NDB on 27. I could see where the airport was, and I could make out the first third of the runway. Turning final it became clear to us that the majority of the runway was completely obscured by fog, and the first few hundred feet of 27 was completely clear. Perfect! I planned on touching down in the clear and rolling into the fog. My plan worked out perfectly and I touched down about 200-300 feet down 27, and rolled into the soup. It was so cool! To go from super clear VFR to the worst IFR ground conditions I have experienced so far, blew my mind. The way the runway lights cut through the fog when they're at strength 6 is wicked. I was pretty pumped after that and I wanted to go do it again. The airport went to zero zero about five minutes after we landed, so we got very lucky.

          That's about my only story from the winter. I can think of a few more cool things that happened, but that was by far the best. I'm looking forward to a nice summer season of flying, hopefully to some cool places. Next up, summer vacation! Ottawa, Oshkosh, and Newfoundland.

Blue skies!!

Space Storms.

Fall has arrived here in Saskatoon. It brings the usual cool weather, nice colours on the trees, and for the last few nights, unbelievable displays of the Northern Lights. Being from Ontario, I haven't spent too much time far enough north, where you're able to see the Aurora on a regular basis. The flying has been even more visually rewarding than the usual sights can be!

Speeding down the runway in Saskatoon at midnight, we're headed off to Stony Rapids. This is a pretty long trip on a regular day, but tonight we're taking a paediatric team with us to retrieve a sick baby. More people on the plane means less fuel, and on top on the lighter fuel load, we have a strong headwind to fight. All things considered, we're stopping in La Ronge for fuel on the way up, then riding the wind back home via direct.

Flight Level 230.

Cruise power is set and the gauges are green. After all of the checks are done and I've finished the paperwork for the first leg, I get to have a nice long look out of the heated glass. I knew from the night before when I flew to Flin Flon that the Northern Lights were active, so I decided to bring my camera along to try and snap a few pictures. There was a nice display going on, but at 23,000 we were still cutting through a small layer of cloud, so I needed to wait until our next leg for pictures.

On final, runway 36.

Gear is down, 3 green confirmed. La Ronge radio tells us as we are on final that the runway may be icy due to some snow that melted during the day. On landing we found that the runway was as advertised. The braking action was poor, and the taxi back to the ramp was slick. Steering with beta helps a lot. A few hundred pounds of liquid dead dinos later, and we're on our way.

Flight Level 280.

Once again, off the ground and heading to CYSF. This time we're high enough to see the Aurora in all it's glory! I love the unique vantage point. Seeing the dancing green and purple light from that high, it feels like they are going to come right through the windows! Up here at  FL280, we have a 65 knot headwind, so I'm able to watch the show for a long time.



FL280 between YVC and YSF.

Down and clear in Stony.
The medical crew are on their way to the hospital, it's 4am, and I'm lying on the ground taking pictures of the airplane with the lights above. This is a truly Northern experience. It's cold, clear, and the wolves are howling! I may look silly in the middle of the night, lying on the cold ground, but it is the coolest thing looking up at the sky. It's fascinating and beautiful.



Unreal.

Flight Level 210, direct Saskatoon.
On the last leg of the trip the views are still killer. I feel lucky to be able to see these shows on a somewhat regular basis. The weather in Saskatoon is snowy by 6am, so we'll be doing the ILS for 09. I'm PNF on this leg, so I am in charge of the radios, FMS, and all kinds of other stuff. Both jobs are busy, but I'd say the PNF job has a slightly higher workload. Luckily the weather wasn't all that bad and we picked up the runway at the beacon, so at the end of an all night shift, it was nice to not have to worry about going around!


A little fuzzy but still awesome.

It was another awesome night on the job. Life is awesome, and so is the flying!

A blast from the past.

Occasionally we all have days where we are reminded of fond memories from years past. As I get older, I look back on the experiences I had when I was young, flying across the country in small aircraft with my dad, and I remember how much fun it was to see the world from a few thousand feet up. The reason I'm feeling so nostalgic is simple really. I was lucky enough to relive a small portion of my youth at work!

Years ago, my father and I would fly his company aircraft to meetings all across Canada. We made multiple trips from Ottawa to various western locations, and made stops everywhere in between. These trips are some of my best memories now that I look back on them. I can remember the first trip we took out west in a Cessna 182. I was completely amazed at the size of our country, and the variety of geography. On every trip I would see something new and exciting that would keep pumping up my love for aviation.

Fast forward to July 29th 2012.
 I'm sitting in the lunch room at work enjoying an imported tea from London, England that one of my coworkers brought in. This was a pretty slow day at work up until the PACC coordinator walked into the room, and said that she had a call come in for a flight to London, Ontario. I was quite excited to go on this trip so I started flight planning right away and got my stuff into the plane for our overnight stay.

We only head to Ontario a few times per year, and since that's my home province I was thrilled to go! My flight plan had us going from Saskatoon to Thunder Bay for fuel, then on to London. The weather on route was pretty nice apart from a cold front that we had to work our way around near Winnipeg, and a few cells near Thunder Bay.

FL270, 300 knots, and a smooth ride. Heading east to Thunder Bay and around the weather was pretty simple today. Once we were past the cold front we had mostly clear sailing into London, with a few puffy clouds to avoid.

July 30th 2012.

After an overnight stay in London we're heading back to the airport for our return trip. This is where my nostalgia started. A year earlier I had flown to London with one of my best friends and my father. When I parked the King Air the night before I picked a spot on the ramp that was pretty close to where I had parked the Seneca, so just before we jumped in the plane for our flight back home I had our nurse snap a photo of me with the 200, just as Ernie had done a year earlier with the Seneca. Once I saw the picture my brain went into fond memory mode. The rest of the day was a blast from the past.



One year later and quite a bit has changed!

FL280, 240 knots, smooth. Our flights were going to take a little longer today with the wind right on the beak, but not to worry! The AM radio was tuned to small town stations just like the ones I remember from being a kid in the 182 with dad. 

My PFD.

I couldn't help but smile as we cut through the sky in this Nintendo video game plane with all the latest and greatest technology, listening to the things like hog futures and the price of corn on the radio. I remember times spent with dad, floating above the green trees and blue lakes of Canada. As I sit in pressurized, air conditioned comfort with the autopilot flying, I feel extremely lucky to have been able to share those days with him. It's those trips that I will remember for the rest of my life, and it's those trips that got me to where I am today!

It's pretty hard to call what I do for a living work, and I totally didn't expect to be taken on a nostalgic journey through the past!

Thanks dad!!

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...!

Approved for line flying.

 Well it's been a long time since I've posted anything on this blog, and lots has changed! Where to begin.. Since my last post, I have completed all of my training, flown the Level D King Air 200GT simulator for 14 hours, and passed my check ride. My type rating is now displayed proudly on my licence, and I'm now fully in the swing of line flying!

All of my work that started in February was very much worth the time and effort expended. The training department here is top notch, and we left FlightSafety with a detailed knowledge of the 200 that I draw from every day. It's a beautiful flying machine. Sexy lines, smooth handling, and she smells of the sweetest perfume, Eau de Combusted Dino! Let me take you on a journey through a typical day on duty...!

Work starts either at 0700, 0900, 1900, or 2100 on scheduled work days. We work twelve hour shifts that could take us virtually anywhere in western Canada or the United States. On this particular day, I reported for duty at 0900. I start every shift with the same routine when I walk in the door. Firstly, say hello to the people in the building, all of them are fine individuals who share the same love for the job! Part of this greeting with my coworkers involves a shift handover briefing. This is basically just a summary of how their shift went, what the aircraft status is, and they let us know of anything that might be a concern (weather, NOTAMs, etc).

After my chat with various people, I take my headphones and jacket, and head into the hangar to inspect my aerodyne. The preflight on our King Air 200's is pretty typical of most other airplanes. We do a cockpit setup to make sure the various aircraft systems are functioning (autopilot, fire detection, oxygen, etc) and then we make sure the medical systems are in their proper configuration for flight. The exterior check is just like checking out any airplane, general condition of the aircraft, fluid levels, tire inflation, and all the other stuff.

Once the walk around is complete, I head into the pilot office and check the weather for the western half of Canada, and when that is complete, the waiting begins. It didn't take too long on this particular day for a call to come in. Being on the 9 o'clock shift, we are the second crew on call for the day. The 7 o'clock crew gets the first call that comes in. Today the first crew was out on a trip when our call came in. I don't recall where they were, but since they were away from base, it was our turn to fly.

Lifeguard 4, ready for another mission.

The phone calls are received in the coordination centre at the other end of the hangar. The person staffing that position is a qualified flight nurse. When the calls come in, they assess the situation and determine if our aeromedical team is needed. If they decide that we are the best option for patient care, we are put into action. Coordination pages us on company phones, and I go to work planning the flight. As I'm spinning the numbers for the flight, the Captain is usually in the hangar pulling the plane out and getting it ready for the trip.

Today's trip was to Pinehouse, a small community in the north of Saskatchewan. Once the flight plan is filed, we head out to the plane, and set out into the great blue! The trip to Pinehouse was very smooth. It was a nice day for flying! I can't tell you what the patients problem was, but we were a much needed ride.

Upon completion of this trip, we were told that we'd be heading to Vancouver. I was thrilled to go out and smell the ocean air! The variety of this job can be amazing. One trip into a small gravel strip, then next into one of the busiest airports in Canada! 

28,000 feet above the mountains!

Nothing really beats this job. I get to fly awesome aircraft, and I feel like I'm making a difference in the communities that I serve. It's a great feeling to help as many people as we do. In most cases, we are the only option for critically ill people in isolated communities.

That about sums up a great day in the life of an Air Ambulance pilot. I love my job...!

On to the next chapter..

Well I should know by now that the aviation industry is a strange one, that throws curve balls at you from time to time! Now I find myself writing this from Saskatoon in my apartment with just an air mattress. I'm waiting for the moving truck to arrive with all of my worldly possessions. What caused this move across the country?

I was on a tour of the War Museum in Ottawa with my Fiancee (who arrives here on April 4th) and a friend when my phone rang. On the other end was a gentlemen from the Saskatchewan Air Ambulance Service. This came as a surprise to me as I had sent my resume in for consideration more than two months earlier. Usually if you hear nothing for two months, it's safe to say that you didn't get the job... Needless to say this was not the case. They invited me out to Saskatoon for an interview the next week. Fast forward...

The night before the interview was painful. I studied for 3 weeks leading up to this moment. When I woke up the next morning it was go time. The interview process involved a written test and about one hour of questions asked by two operations managers. I was nervous as hell right up until I flipped the test over and noticed that the studying had paid off right from the start! The rest of the process was smooth sailing, although it still had my nerves on edge.

A few weeks later the job offer came through and I accepted.. I'm now employed as a King Air 200 First Officer here in Saskatoon and I've been here for a month. With my face buried in books preparing for the PPC and such, it gets busy.. The first week was all about company paperwork and procedures, and now we're digging into the aircraft systems and SOP's. What a great experience so far! Very educational.

So stay tuned for updates as I get checked out on the 200 and learn all about the health care system here in Saskatchewan.

This will be exciting...!