3 Flights, 2 Planes, 1 Day

November 18, 2012

Of course our demob falls on a Sunday.  It always seems to happen like that.  Sundays are the worst days to  travel on:  Places are closed down for the weekend, key personnel aren't working, and we have minimal support from our own office if we need it.  Nonetheless today looks like our only weather window for us to get out of here.  Unless we stop at the hunting lodge on our way back again, like we did on the way up, its going to be a 4 hour flight to Chibougamau for our first fuel stop.  We'll only stop at the lodge if we have to.  There's a few different cloud layers reported on the weather charts for our first leg.  They all look ok.  The Icing chart is forecasting possible icing from the surface to 3000 ft.  If we get stuck scud running again, we might end up having to descend into the icing.  Its actually kind of a crapshoot.  But if we run into icing we can turn around and go back to Kuujjuaq.  It'll be a real bummer if we fly for 2 hours and have to turn around and fly another 2 back, but that's the chance we'll have to take.  Today's our only option for several days.

Our itinerary dictates a stop in Val-d'or again, as our 206 has been left there for maintenance, and the office wants it back in Buttonville for the winter.  So I'll hop out in Val-d'or, my colleague will continue on in the Navajo and I'll come back in the 206.  I'm told (after double checking), that all the paperwork is in order for the 206 and its all ready for me to just hop in and go.  I don't want any surprises when I get there.


We head out to the airport while its still dark.  We gave our gate key back yesterday, so we're hoping we can get in through the construction fence that is left unlocked and can be swung open.  We drive up and I hop out to swing it open.  No luck.  The bottom of it is stuck in the crusty snow.  I can't open it for the life of me.  Now what?  Its early Sunday morning, there's nobody around, even the main terminal building is locked.  There's a crew house that straddles the airport fence, I hop out of the truck and knock on the door, hoping someone's home and can let us in.  No luck, but I go around to the side of the building and see a light on in one of the rooms.  Its a guy sitting in what looks like the lounge watching TV.  Sheepishly I knock on the window to get his attention, and motion towards the door.  Success!  He meets me a the door and I explain who I am, and he lets us through.  He doesn't have a key for the main gate, so we can't bring the truck through, so its a good thing we have already packed the plane, and we just have our own personal bags to bring through.  We unload what we do have and my colleague goes off the park our rental truck and drop the keys.

The sun is coming up now.  Preflight is done, our cargo is tied down, we've checked the weather one last time by huddling up against the terminal building to grab the wi-fi signal there on our phones.  Its time go.  Ten minutes later I'm pulling back on the controls and we "slip the surly bonds of earth".  Gear up, flaps up, power reduced a tad, emergency fuel pumps off, and then a visual check outside to make sure there's no fire or spraying fuel.

There's multiple cloud layers pretty much as predicted on the GFA (weather chart).  We keep a running dialogue on which ones we should go over top and which ones we should duck under.  If we go over top of them we risk trapping yourself on top, unless we're sure the cloud layers clear up before our destination, we go underneath, we risk getting pushed lower and lower and possibly into the icing layer that was forecast.  We spend the first half of the flight in uncertainty analysing the cloud layers and hoping we don't encounter any icing.  We go through a few snow showers, but overall everything goes smoothly.  We land in Chibougamau, fuel up and check the weather.  The weather south of us looks good still, so no overnight here with $7 beer pints.  Onward to Val-d'or!  Another hour's worth of flying and we touch down in Val-d'or.  We're making excellent progress, considering how long it took us to get up to Kuujjuaq a month ago.

We spend about an hour sitting in the Val-d'or FBO checking the weather again and each doing our flight planning from Val-d'or to Buttonville.  By now its 2 PM.  The weather looks promising.  Another 3 hours (at a Cessna pace this time) and I'll be back in Toronto.  Kuujjuaq to Toronto with 2 stops in between in one day is a pretty good day!  I'm really itching to get home too, this last month has been a frustrating one, and the thought at getting all the way back to Toronto in one day is an exciting one.

I start pre-flighting the 206.  Check the fuel, throw my gear in, and check the logs to make sure everything is indeed in order - except that its not.  There's no maintenance release in the Journey Log.  A maintenance release is the paperwork by the shop signing off that the maintenance accomplished has in fact been completed and the aircraft has been "released" back to service.  That is proof to the pilot that the airplane is airworthy.  Even if everything has been physically done on the airplane, if there's no maintenance release, the airplane can't legally fly.  I can't believe it.  I specifically asked if it was ready to go, and its not.  And its also a Sunday afternoon.  The people I need to track down now aren't around.  Suddenly my hopes of getting home today start to fade...

After about a half dozen phone calls I manage to track down the guy that I need from the shop here that can issue me a maintenance release.  Long story short, 2 hours later I've got the paperwork I need, and I'm ready to get on my way.

It'll be dark in an hour.  Its a good thing the 206 is equipped for night flying, and I can legally do it, so that's not an issue.  By 16:30 I've blasted off for my final 3 hour leg into Buttonville.

By 6:00 PM the sky is pitch black.  I'm still north of Algonquin Park, and there's very little civilization around, so the black hole effect is in full force, and I'm flying on instruments.  I see a flicker of mist go over my head, and I wonder if I'm going into cloud.  I turn the landing light on which will reveal any cloud vapour. I'm just skirting underneath a thin layer, so I drop down a couple hundred feet just to be sure I don't go IMC.  I've got the red cockpit map light on and my VNC (VFR Navigational Chart) on my map, following along my progress as best I can.  Highway 17 is just about to pass under me, and I can see the lights of the occasional lonely car winding its way along.  I look out my right window towards North Bay and while I can't see it directly, I can make out the faint glow of the city lights.  That also means I can probably tune into the automated radio weather report that the North Bay airport broadcasts.  Sure enough its reporting a scattered layer at 3000 ft, which just about matches up to the layer I'm passing under.  I check my map to make sure my altitude of 2500' is still above the MOCAs (minimum obstacle clearance altitude) for the sectors I'm flying through.  Barely, but it is.  MOCAs account for clearance above the highest terrain or man made obstacles in a map sector plus an extra couple hundred feet.  It would be very imprudent to descend below the MOCA while flying on a dark night when the ground is nothing but blackness.

I watch as the highway passes beneath me, and I know I'll be over Algonquin Park shortly.  I can only faintly make out the differences between the little lakes and forests passing underneath me.  It would be a very bad time for an engine failure right now.

Twenty minutes later I see Huntsville off to my right, which signifies my exit out the south side of the park.  Civilization is starting to appear more and more, which is comforting as now that I can make out more and more ground lights I can transition back to visual flying.  Soon enough I'm skirting along the eastern shore of Lake Simcoe, and the glow of Toronto comes into view.  I look out over the simcoe region and take in the patchwork grid of streetlights and small communities amid the darkness.  Night flying really is stunningly beautiful in a really lonely way.  I wish I could get to do it more.

I expect Buttonville airport will be fairly sleepy after dark, as most flight training is done during the day.  Boy am I wrong.  I tune into the tower frequency and once again its rapid fire radio calls.  Approaching the zone I'm cleared for left base for runway 15 behind a Cessna 150, with an altitude restriction to stay above 2000 ft.  I look for the 150, and also for the airport.  Buttonville airport is notoriously difficult to find visually at night, hidden in among all the city lights, but I can see highway 404 so I know where it SHOULD be, and according to my GPS I'm lined up for a good base leg.  Its likely I'll find it when I turn to light up with the runway.

Soon enough I'm turning final, and I still haven't had my altitude restriction cancelled.  In between the radio chatter I manage to squeeze in a request for confirmation that I can descend freely, which I'm granted.  I dump the flaps and pull the power off.  This plane will sink like a rock if you want her to.  Its been a while since I've landed at night.  Its a matter of feeling your way down into the flare ever so slowly until the wheels touch.  The tires rolling onto the pavement catch me by surprise.  My night touchdowns usually do.  For some reason I always think I'm a littler higher than I really am, but they're also almost always buttery smooth.  I suppose I should be happy it was such a good landing, but it doesn't feel satisfying when it happens before I'm ready.

I taxi in and find a parking spot.  With perfect timing my colleague pulls up in the Van, I guess he decided to wait for me after all.  What a guy, its nice to have a welcoming party.  Toronto here I am!  Its been a long day, and I still find it hard to believe I was in Kuujjuaq just this morning.  That's some serious mileage behind us in one day.  We really lucked out with the weather.  I think that's actually the furthest I've flown as the crow flies in a single day.  We check into our hotel for the night.  Tomorrow we'll stop by the office and square some things away.  While this was the last job of 2012, I'm in the process of being promoted to Chief Pilot, so I'll have lots of desk flying to keep me busy in the downtime.