Contingency Plans

We have a short survey to do up in Kuujjuaq, QC.  For those who don't know where that is, its on the southern tip of Ungava Bay in Northern Quebec.  Its really a bad time of year to go up and do a survey there, but our client is in a bind, so we're going up anyways.  It has not been a good start.  We got out of Toronto ok, and met up with the 206 crew in Val-d'or for the night, as they had some parts in the van that we needed to take with us.  The next day the weather was good enough to get to Chibougamau, which is only about an hour flight NE of Val-d'or, but beyond that the weather had turned sour.  So we stayed here for the night.  A little progress at a time is better than none.  Our next hop however is going to have be in one go all the way up to Kuujjuac, which is 540 nm, or about 3.5 hrs, the only airport that is even remotely in between is La Grande-4 (CYAH) - you know, the one next to Lake Katatipawasakakamaw.  Yes that is a real lake, and the spelling is correct.  Anyway that's not even really a real airport, just an airstrip to service the generating station.  There's certainly no Avgas available..  But it looks like we're going to be hanging out here in the "Chiboug" for a bit as the weather for the next few days is going to be crap.

We actually had a CHANCE that we could have made it into Kuujjuaq yesterday, and I'll elaborate on that in a bit, but first I'm going to change topics.

I've started reading a book recently called Bravo Two Zero.  Its about a British SAS team behind the lines in Iraq, and their mission to go blow up some SCUD sites and communication lines.  I'm only about a third into it now, and up until this point its just been build-up, mostly about planning the mission.  He goes into excruciating detail on how they did their mission planning, and I actually find it quite fascinating to learn how they operate.  He describes how they have a contingency plan for every possible scenario.  If some of their guys go missing on patrol, they will rendezvous at such and such a place at such and such a time and wait for a defined period of time.  If the RV isn't made by the deadline, they have further procedures laid out to follow.  The order at which they exit the helicopter is preplanned so when they get dropped off they are able to follow certain procedures in case they end up unloading under fire.  They even have procedures to follow in case they have a communications failure with home base - they will RV with the helicopter at a specified time and place, down to the details of how the team leader will approach the helicopter and exchange radios and the signals to be used in case the heli has an urgent message for the team leader.  They have a plan for every possible scenario.

I'm sure by now some of you may see where I'm going with this.  Flying is done in much the same way, especially IFR flying - every possible contingency is planned for.  In IFR flying we try to plan for every possible contingency with the assumption that nothing is going to go right.  With IFR of course the assumption is always that the weather will be IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions).  So what if we have an emergency immediately after takeoff, such as an engine failure or fire, or other malfunction?  Of course we won't be able to return for a landing visually, so we better already have our Nav instruments tuned so that we're ready to conduct an instrument approach to land at the airport we just departed from.  That way there's no scramble to re-tune everything in what is already going to be a hectic cockpit environment.

There are also standard procedures laid out for a communications failure at any phase of the flight so that both pilot and controller already know what to expect from the other.  Controllers when they issue instructions or clearances, such as a hold, they'll include a statement at the end that says, "... expect further clearance at [time] (for example 12:36)".  That is more than just for the pilot's convenience, it is so that if a comm failure happens at some point following the last issued clearance, the pilot will then know for how long to continue his hold for before he can then automatically continue on to the next step, and he can do so knowing that ATC is expecting this.

Of course I also have to mention the contingencies that are in place regarding carrying extra fuel.  Even though IFR flying is intended to give the ability to fly and land at your destination in bad weather, there still exists the possibility that the weather will be SO bad that we won't be able to sight the runway even if we're flying an instrument approach.  In this case before we even take off we've included in our planning an alternate airport.  This alternate airport must have weather that is forecast to be significantly better than what would normally considered to be IFR weather minimums.  It is for this reason that the regulations state that we must carry sufficient fuel to:

1)  Fly to our destination
2)  Carry out an instrument approach, AND a missed approach (which is the procedure to overshoot and climb back to a safe altitude if the runway isn't visually spotted)
3)  Fly to our alternate and carry out an approach there
4)  Fly for an ADDITIONAL 45 minutes

These requirements are actually pretty restrictive, but its all designed so that we have a plan in place for every possible scenario, which is key in managing unforeseen circumstances that are out of our control.  In Southern Ontario or most of the United States these fuel restrictions would actually be no big deal most of the time, because your options for finding an alternate are many, so chances are you'll be able to find an airport that's not too far out of your way that has good enough weather to land, and also has gas available to refuel.  In the north however, airports are few and far between which means your alternate is going to be a LONG way away, and you better call first and VERIFY that they have fuel available, cause many times even though its listed as having fuel in the publications, it may be in drums.  If it is you better be carrying a pump with you.  Even still they may not even have some in stock.  This ain't no USA where you can land anywhere and have your pick of where you buy your fuel.  Planning is even more critical in remote areas like Northern Canada.

There's FAR fewer legal restrictions on VFR flight planning.  We only legally require to have an extra 30 minutes of fuel onboard, and much more is left up to the pilot's best judgement in regards to how to handle communications failures and the like.  This means much more freedom, but also requires an equal amount of more caution and good judgement.  In our case at this moment, if we were to file IFR to Kuujjuaq, we'd be able to penetrate the weather that is grounding us right now, but we wouldn't actually be able to carry the legal minimum in fuel.  At our current weight we're only able to take 5.2 hrs of fuel with us, but to file IFR we'd need 3.5 hrs to get to Kuujjuac, roughly another 0.3 to complete the approach and missed approach, and then from Kuujjuac the best alternate I can come up with at the moment that has fuel (just by taking a quick look) is 315 nm away, which is another 2.2 hrs of flying including the approach, and then add on our 45 minutes reserve fuel.  That's a total required fuel load of 6.8 hrs!  Almost double what we're actually going to burn, and WAY more than we can physically carry.  IFR isn't always a feasible option.

Of course the flip-side is that if we fly VFR we can legally make the flight without having to have enough fuel to go somewhere else - that's a big extra freedom - but we better be dang well sure we're going to be able to land when we get there, because the fuel we'll have left in the tanks won't be enough to take us to the next nearest place that has avgas available.  So its nice that we have the freedom to do that flying VFR, but it requires that we play it extra conservatively with the weather.  Which brings us full circle all the way back to yesterday:

When we landed here in Chibougamau yesterday and checked the weather, the Kuujjuac weather was reporting 1 1/2 miles visibility with 400 ft vertical visibility (not a cloud ceiling but snow that was thick enough prevent visual contact with the ground above 400 ft).  That's certainly not VFR.  The weather forecast however was saying that by the time we got there it would have cleared up to marginal VFR weather conditions, which would allow us just enough leeway to land.  BUT - without enough fuel to go somewhere else, do we put all our cards on the weather forecast and bank on it clearing up?  I think not.