03.09.2015: We returned yesterday from a six weeks holiday in Canada, which might explain the missing updated of my website. We travelled across British Columbia, Yukon and bits of the North West Territories, spending our time with camping, hiking and watching animals. Of course we could not resist taking some sightseeing flights, and of course we did so with floatplanes, and of course two of the three flights we took were with De Havilland Beavers.
We flew with Lufthansa via Frankfurt to Vancouver. Frankfurt was the best possible choice for the necessary stop, much better than Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle or any north American airports where catching a connection is always risky considering possible delays at the immigration.
From Frankfurt to Vancouver we flew in a Jumbo Jet, my first flight in one in many years. To my surprise it’s interior was practically identical to the Airbus A380 from Lufthansa I flew in to South Africa earlier this year, with exactly the same seats. So no “vintage” feeling.
Here a few other aviation related pictures from our holiday, starting with a fire camp we passed on our way through northern British Columbia towards Yukon. The camp consisted of a small “tent city” to provide accommodation for the fire fighters, and two helicopters. One of them was a Kaman Ka-32, which must have flown with Heliswiss during the earlier years of it’s career as it still carries the typical Heliswiss livery.
The other one was a Sikorsky S-61N, similar to the ones I flew in as a passenger in Greenland in the early 80s. It is operated by Coulson, the company which also operates the famous Martin Mars flying boats.
Then of course some pictures of the floatplanes we flew with. The first flight was from Whitehorse, Yukon, in a Cessna 180. We did a great tour with it into the mountains towards the Alaska border.
The second flight was from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, where we rented a Beaver for a tour across the Canadian Shield.
This is definitely technology from the 50s, and even issues like Mode-S or 8.33 kHz radios seem still to be far into the future.
When returning to the seaplane base we flew straight over Yellowknife airport, where I could see a Cargo Boeing 737-200 from Nolinor lining up below the right float.
Yellowknife has a bush pilot monument, which lies in the old town on a rock overseeing the floatplane moorings on both sides of the island.
Its a great spot to watch floatplanes, as there are a number of commercial operators based just at the foot of rock.
There are also quite some private floatplanes, which are typically moored straight in front of the houses of the owners.
The third floatplane flight we took was in Vancouver, in a Beaver again, operated by Harbour Air. They completely rebuilt the seaplane base in Vancouver since our last visit, with much more convenient docks…
…and a terminal that doesn’t lack any of the amenities provided at modern airports (with the exception of tax free shopping…). This is definitely one of the best places to watch seaplanes, as there is one taking off or landing nearly every few minutes throughout the day.
We took a tour into the mountains north of Vancouver, then over the harbour and the city and back to the seaplane base, where I even managed to take a picture of the Beaver we were flying in just before landing!
Here some other plane pictures I took during our tour. In Yellowknife some significant forest fires were burning, so when visiting the airport we saw two waves of three Canadair CL-215 fire fighting aircraft taking off. A rare chance to hear six radial engines at the same time outside airshows.
In Hay River we are also saw a Lockheed L-188 operated by Air Spray being refuelled.
And while we were there a DC-3 from Buffalo Airways landed. It operates daily from Hay River to Yellowknife and back in what they claim being the last scheduled passenger service in the world using DC-3s.
And of course we should not forget the best of all “aircraft”. Near Fort Smith, Alberta are the northernmost breeding grounds of Pelicans, not what you expect to see so far north.
12.09.2015: I spent the last two days in a training jointly organised by the Experimental Association of Switzerland (EAS) and the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA). This training is organised every two years for those EAS members who act as flight test advisor for those builders who finished their planes and start their flight testing.
The program started on Friday afternoon with a theory session on flight testing, in which we discussed the EAS flight test program in general, and the more critical and difficult flight tests in detail. On Saturday each participant then performed those more critical and / or difficult tests with a FOCA or EAS expert, using one of the Robin DR-400 from the FOCA fleet. This was then followed by a session in which we compared and discussed the results, and discussed possible measures to reduce risks and to get best possible results.
I personally found the training an excellent opportunity to improve the necessary skills to optimally support builders, and also to share experiences with other flight test advisors. One participant works as flight test engineer at Pilatus, and it was interesting to compare our amateur testing procedures with those performed in certification of new products.
Bern airport has a hotel right next to the terminal building, with very reasonable prices, so we stayed there during the course. I had a room towards the runway, which provides the chance to watch planes from the room. Bern is only a small regional airport, with around 20 daily departures. Only a few airlines operate from Bern, mostly SkyWork, but also Helvetic, InterSky and Lufthansa.
Even though there are only a few flights, operating hours are as in Zurich with the first flight leaving just after 6:00 and the last one arriving before 23:00.
In the morning I also saw some private pilots taking advantage of the great weather, …
…as well as a balloon in the background heading for the mountains.
I had taken the train to go to Bern airport for the course due to the very poor weather forecast, which was as wrong as it could have been, which was a pity as I had originally planned to come by plane. To go home Viktor, a fellow homebuilder and owner of a Dutch registered SportCruiser volunteered to fly me back to Lommis. His plane is stationed in Speck-Fehraltorf (LSZK), which is only 20 minutes from Lommis, and it was a good excuse for him to do a little detour.
When lining up on Runway 32 there was still a Citation backtracking after landing, which gave a nice picture.
Viktor flies “all electronic” without paper maps or approach charts. He therefore uses not only the Garmin 695 GPS installed in the panel, but also an iPad based flight planning software. As a backup he uses a second iPad, and he has both of them installed, which results in the ultimate “five screen glass cockpit”.
We were flying a little detour along the alps, with perfect weather on the north side…
…but clearly visible clouds bushed against the southern flank.
We also passed a large “hole in a mountain”, of which I had no idea it existed. I haven’t been able to find out where exactly it is, it’s somewhere between Engelberg and Brunnen. If someone knows what it is called or where exactly it is please let me know.
21.09.2015: Not having flown for eight weeks due to our longer holiday means I am behind my plan to fly my SportCruiser for 100 hours this year, so now I have to take every chance to get into the air to catch up. This afternoon I had the chance, but when I arrived at the airport I noticed a flat tire on the nose landing gear. Fortunately our maintenance had a spare tube available, so I spent the next two hours taking the wheel down, replacing the tube and putting the wheel back on. The tube had a hole next to the valve, which according to our mechanic happens when one flies with too low tire pressure.
For that reason my flight was cut short, but I still went flying for nearly two hours. In Lommis it was pretty hazy, but when climbing to around 5’000 ft the alps became visible.
The higher I climbed the better the visibility got, with perfectly blue sky above around 6’000 ft.
In the alps there were no clouds at all, …
…but looking back toward Lommis the layer above the “plains” was clearly visible.
It looks worse on the pictures that it was in reality, there was always good ground visibility even when flying above the clouds, and holes big enough to descent.
Below a picture I took when arriving back in Lommis, it’s clearly visible that many planes were out as a lot of people took the opportunity to go flying. That’s quite unusual on a Monday.
25.09.2015: I went flying again today, in similar weather as during the last flight. A low layer of haze and clouds, with perfect weather above.
