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Flight
of the Month – February 2003 Date:
Feb 10 Weather:
As per Peter’s set-up Departure
Time: 12:48 Aircraft:
Leg 1, Cessna C-185 Skywagon
Leg 2, Beech Baron 58 (Flight Club) First
off… I’m not even going to TRY to pronounce the names of these
places. All I know is that President Fearless Leader Ron told me that if
I didn’t come up here and haul some boxes back and forth, he would
have Bill say things about me that would make my dead relatives (the
three that liked me) cringe. So with proper motivation, I headed for the
Great White North for my date with Dudley Doright. When
my sled team arrived at Pangnirtung, I was surprised to see Bill
still there, shoveling moose pies off the runway. I guess that answered
his question about retribution. After a fascinating conversation about
the differences between the relieving habits of moose and kangaroos and
a detailed account of the itinerary he had lined up for Ron’s next
visit to Perth, I decided it was time to get out of here. Hans
had kindly left a jar of his “special” hot cocoa and a piece of
strudel behind in the 185, so I got my flightplan filed and pre-flight
duties out of the way so I could get back to enjoy them. I’d bribed a
couple of Mounties to load the boxes for me and they were just putting
the last ones in the cargo hatch when I finished my pre-flight. I warmed
up the engine (1) and taxied over to the end of 7. I waved at Bill as I
passed him, but he was too busy piling his quarry into some sort of
shape to respond. I
bounced down the runway and got airborne with no problems. After getting
a good rate of climb, I turned left to 069 (2) and picked up the outbound
YXP NDB. Pretty soon I was in the clouds and remembering Peter’s
admonitions about terrain, I kept it right on that course. I climbed up
to 6,500’ to get out of the soup and hopefully see any mountains
BEFORE hitting them. Once I leveled out at 6,500, I sat back relaxed a
bit. About 15 minutes out of CYXP, I tuned to the YJI NDB and followed
it in. I figured I was about 20 minutes from Broughton and calculated a
descent to cross YJI at 4,500’. I leveled at 4,500 about a minute and
a half before the ADF needle swung around and I made my turn to 110 and
started down to 3000. I flew 110 for two minutes, made my turn to 260
and began my final descent. The topo map I had showed no terrain between
the JYI NDB and me so I turned to 280 and an intercept course to set me
up for final. I broke through at 1,500’ just before YJI, lined up for
21 (3), dropped the last notch of flaps brought it in at about 80kts. When
I taxied (4) over to the warming hut, I was a little shocked to find that
someone had left the Club Baron up here! I found a note taped to the
side window from the Fearless Leader, saying that he was too busy trying
to line up Bill’s next gig to deal with getting it back to Pangnirtung,
and asking me to fly it back. Sure, why not, it has a better heater. By
now, it was almost two o’clock and starting to get a little dark, so I
figured I had better not doddle around. The boxes were already on board
so I Warmed the Baron, tuned my radios and taxied (5) back out to 21. I have
to say that the mountain dead ahead caught my attention. I didn’t plan
to fool around with too much altitude before making my turn to course.
As it turned out, the mountain was farther than it looked and wasn’t a
factor. I
got the Baron off the runway with a few hundred feet to spare and made a
small turn to 249 (6). I had YJI right behind me and I continued to track it
as I made my climb to 9,000’. Just as I passed through 6,000, I
noticed a slight break in the layer below me and at about the same time,
the top of a mountain passed just under me. Nothing on the topo map
about this one... Heilige Scheisse! Looking forward to a change
of underwear, I continued on up to 9,000. By
the time I neared Pangnirtung, the ceiling had risen to 2,000’ so I
figured my descent to bring me through 2,000 about the time I crossed
the tip of the fiord. When I broke through (7), I was over water with a nice
mountain on my left. I looked up ahead and could just make out the
strobes at the airport and flew down the fiord towards it. When I was
within about three miles of the runway, I came in a little closer to the
hillside (8) and got the baron configured for a short final. I turned toward
the runway (9) at about ¾ mi. out (10-11) and noticed I was a little high. After a
quick 1,200 fpm “correction” I was nicely lined up. Ahhh, a nice
soft touch (12)… That was fun! As
I rolled out, I couldn’t help but notice that Bill was still alongside
the runway working on his “project”. Getting closer, I began to
notice that his pile had now taken a familiar form. What is it? It looks
like… no it can’t be… it is! Bill’s collection of moose pies had
been transformed into a life-size statue of Ron! Amazing! I guess he
took that Pendelton thing a little harder than I thought. Great flight Peter! I had good fun flying the Baron down the Fiord and making that tricky little approach to Pangnirtung. I’m going to come back and fly it in the Dash-7 and maybe the YS-11 for fun |
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