Flight Planning

We have finally finished our first job here, finally. We had a long stretch of bad weather, and then a broken airplane so we had to wait for an AME to arrive with a replacement part, but after 3 weeks of sitting we finally finished the job. We have another job in Nunavut that is an hour flight south. We're still tecnically waiting for authorization from the client to demobilize, so in the meantime we've been making the 50 minute ferry flight south to survey the blocks on the next job.

We might have a job coming up on the other side of Hudson Bay in Eastern Northern Quebec, so they asked me to plan a flight from our current location so they could do a cost estimation. It was an interesting problem to solve.

First of all the most apparent problem is that a direct route would take me directly across Hudson Bay. Obviously in a single engine airplane that's out of the question, so the question became whether to take the northern route over the top of the Bay, or go south all the way down around Hudson and James Bay. The northern route is almost 600 miles shorter - 900 nm vs 1500 nm. That's a huge difference. The problem, there are only a small number of communities where I could potentially land and refuel. I looked all of them up, and none of them had Avgas except for Iqualuit. The flight from here to Iqualuit would be a grueling 6 hrs. The airplane could do it, but that's almost a full hour longer than I've ever done in one leg. Furthermore, the northern route would require crossing a number of stretches of water between the islands that would be well beyond gliding distance. Legally it could be done if I brought along the proper survival equipment, but even with a liferaft onboard and a maritime survival suit I'm not sure I'd want to have to swim in Arctic water. The southern route was longer but it seemed safer and better.

Even heading south I can't just pick the most convienent place to land and expect they will have fuel. A lot of airports up here are little more than a stretch of gravel and a small terminal building with limited operating hours, so you have to do your research if you expect to land and just pull up to the pumps.

At the end of it I came up with 2 stops, one in Gillam, MB, and the next in Moosonee, one airport I know VERY well...

I'm not sure if we'll even get that contract out east, or if we do I'll be flying from where I planned it from, but it was a fun scenario to plan out.