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Well,
summer is winding down in the western U.S., which unfortunately means
cooler weather (read snow, ice and highs in the 20F range) and no more
sunny afternoons lounging around the pond with a cold beer. The upside
is that there will be far fewer chores around the ranch and more time
for flying, which is a good thing considering that Fearless Flounder and
his cohorts have had us hopping all over the globe the past few months.
Last month found us in beautiful Venezuela for a smorgasbord of airborne
adventures and sunny, warm weather.
When
I checked in to get the next assignment, I learned that it was to be
hauling camera-laden vacationers from Seattle to Victoria
BC. Now normally, doing a short haul with a bunch of people in
Bermuda shorts and wingtips isn’t my idea of high adventure but a) Ron
said he’d send Bill to paint my house if I didn’t do it and b)
Victoria is one of my favorite places, so how could I refuse? Besides, I
love floatplanes. The last time I was in Victoria was a few years ago
when six of us rented a 40’ Beneteau
and set sail for three weeks in the San Juans. We sailed into Victoria
Harbour and rafted to a 55’ motor-sailer right in front of the
Empress. The three days spent in Victoria were some of the best times of
the trip discounting of course, the truly obnoxious bagpiper who
reported for duty at 07:00 each morning to pipe his way back and forth
across the harbour front.. By the way, anyone who has spent any length
of time on a sailboat will appreciate the fact that Victoria Harbour has
the best public showers around.
The
first order of business was to get from Venezuela to Seattle. As luck
would have it, I was able to pick up a cargo route on my virtual
airline, Pacific Airways flying
a DC-10/30 (Pic 00) into KLAX from Maiquetia. Since FSFC doesn’t have
any facilities in Los Angeles and most of the guys were off having a
life anyway, I did a quick turnaround and hopped a Shuttle by United
flight for Seattle (Pic 1). Once in Seattle I decided to unwind in the
Pilots Lounge and whom should I run into but Flounder himself! I was
about to go over to congratulate him on not inadvertently deleting
anyone for several months when I noticed that he had his wife Tracy and
two daughters with him. I figured it would be a poor career move to pick
this particular moment to embarrass him and just went over to ask what
he was doing there with his family.
“I
figured since Peter was off sunning himself on Australia’s Gold Coast,
Bill was gallivanting around Asia trying to talk people into letting him
sign his book for them, Hans just got back from a Swedish holiday and
who knows where Rik is, I wanted in on some of this vacation action”.
“Planning
to do tea at the Empress
and a day at Butchart
Gardens?” I asked.
“Whaddya
crazy dude? We’re headed for British Columbia’s wild side to do a
safari and then hit the streets of Victoria for some action. I’ll send
you some pictures when we get
back.”
As
this was a side of the Family Flounder I hadn’t seen before and
wasn’t quite sure how to respond to, I decided to just smile and nod
as I told him that I needed to excuse myself to go check on my plane. I
headed over to Lake Washington to see if the Twin Otter Ron had leased
from Air BC was there yet. Now, most floatplane operations in Seattle
originate from Lake Union
but since we were carrying a group from Mercer
Island (Bill Gates’ little shack is in the neighborhood), we were
requested to depart a little closer to home (who says the rich aren’t
different?).
Everything
looked shipshape and the passengers were happily in their seats, so we
taxied to the middle of the lake and began our takeoff run to the north,
getting a nice view of the Seattle skyline (Pic 2) on the way. The water
was pretty smooth and we broke the surface at about 90 knots. After
establishing a climb rate of 1,200 fpm and clearing the floating bridge
(Pic 3), we made a little left turn and climbed out over Mercer Island (Pic
4) to intercept the Penn Cove 324 radial and climbed to 2,000 ft. As we
passed over the island, I could hear some of the passengers commenting
on various things they could see their neighbors doing in their back
yards. You gotta love this job! Within a couple of minutes, we could see
Bellevue out the left side and were flying directly over Microsoft
headquarters (Pic 5) in Redmond (the other one besides Oregon’s). When
it became painfully apparent that Bill was not going to come out and
wave to us or otherwise acknowledge our presence, we went ahead and got
clearance to climb to our cruise altitude of 10,000 ft.
As
we continued our climb, we passed the town of Everett and Paine Field
where Boeing has conducted most of its test flights for the past sixty
years. It looked a little quiet down there since the Boeing exec’s
packed up and moved to Chicago. The weather was clear and we had a
beautiful view out the right side of Snohomish County and the Olympic
Mountains out the left. Man, this is great! No turbulence, clear skies
and the passengers were too busy stuffing their faces with the
complimentary Beluga Caviar that every TooMuchFS flight offers and
reading the copies of Get Real! placed
in each and every seat-back pocket to complain about anything.
After
crossing CVV (Penn Cove), we turned right to 022 and picked up the
Skagit NDB. I have to say, its great to ditch the GPS/FMC and just fly
the VOR’s and NDB’s. It kind of reminds you of what pilots do. At
Skagit, we turned left to 317 and the WC (White Rock) NDB and took in
the view of the San Juan Islands out the left window. As we passed Orcas
Island, we could look out the right side (Pic 6) to see Bellingham,
Whatcom County and Lummi Island. As we crossed WC, we made a turn to 229
and began to prepare for the descent into Victoria. At this point, we
actually turn south into Canada from the U.S. Victoria is one of the
very few Canadian cities that lies south of American cities.
We
crossed AP (Active Pass) at 5,000 ft and began a descent for 1,500 (Pic
7) at YJ (Victoria) and our approach to Victoria Harbour. With the
airport in sight (Pic 8), we made the turn to 220 and final onto the
Harbour. We crossed the harbour front at about 500 ft. (which probably
gave start to a few tourists) and put down about 300 yards out. After a
short taxi back to the docks beneath the front of the Parliament
building (Pic 9), we shut down and wished our well-healed Mercer
Islanders a pleasant visit.
The
Flounder had suggested a continuation on to Prince Rupert (Which is
gorgeous), but a special mission required me to island hopping through
the San Juans. I caught a double decker over to the airport where the
WoodArt Design Baron 58 (Pic 10) was waiting for me. The first leg of
this route took me out over the islands (Pic 11) to beautiful Orcas Island. If the winds
are from the south, you have a very easy approach to the north side of
the island but if the winds are from the north, you have to circle
around the east finger of the island and make a tricky approach up the
inlet and negotiate some inconveniently placed trees (Pic 12) to get in.
The rest of the trip was great fun, but I’m afraid you’ll have to
read about it another time (stay tuned).
This
month’s FOTM was not a great big aviation challenge… just great fun!
Ron, thanks for sharing your vacation with us.
Tony
Radmilovich
tony@toomuchfs.com
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