Need Advise From Ontario

[happyfeet]

I have done the X country about 20 times over the years, straight through to Vancouver. Whatever you do avoid that pesky weapons range close to Moosjaw. That would definately get you in doo doo..Avoid Hope BC, always crap weather! Expect the flight over the rockies at a min altitude of 9500'-10,000 and keep an eye out for lenticular clouds that can ruin your day. and check the winds, before proceeding on the next leg. If you end up flying into Castlegar, its a really nice 2500' foot per minute decent and down at the bottom of the valley. Watch out for stiff wing crazies.

 

It's a rather uneventful trip, until you hit the Rockies :up: Enjoy the flight, and make sure you have a VISA or Mastercard. Fuel cards don't work everywhere and they let you know after they fll you up.some fuel guys are independents. If you don't have an airmiles card get one.Airmiles, in Kenora and most FOB's. St. Albert only takes credit or debit last time i was through. Personally I prefer the larger airports, its good practice for you if you havn't got alot of experience in controlled airspce, just remember that the frequencies are listed in order of use. You should be fine.

 

Have a safe flight!!!

 

HF

[snowedin]

Have not done Ottawa Suds, so dont know how it would go range wise, but the Shell guy in North Bay is great (Brian). Should be able to make Sudbury Wawa rather than Chapleau?? Good guys there too and will be there, they keep regular hours. (Heinz or Darryl) Chapleau can be hit and miss. Then good to top up in Marathon ( credit card self serve) as Terrace no longer sells fuel. Sandra has moved to Marathon to do the wx station there as Terrace is shut down completely. If you can make Wawa Thunder Bay great, but i find L3 can do Marathon Dryden direct unless big headwind and you will avoid T Bay airport completely if you dont like to be on the radio. Best Western is the best option in Dryden, and I believe their yard does show up in the CFS too....

 

If wx is good the leg from Wawa to Marathon is best flown on the coast, some of the best flying east of the rocks. If wx is down though Chapleau Geraldton is good, but I agree that the people at Nakina are great, and usually quite a bit cheaper JetA than Geraldton.

 

Hope that helps a bit...

 

and sling you would be best advised to listen more and type less imho, regardless of which language is your first. I might not be able to speak french as well as i would like, but i also dont pop up on french forums mangling that language either. And being a lowtimer does not help your case. If I have to go west I do my homework ,but wont hesitate to ask those in the know....

 

Have a good trip Mike

 

 

 

 

[dimit]

Hi Mike,

 

Brought a 407 from Mirabelle to Victoria in Nov 2008. 407s probably not as good as yer L4 for long flight legs, but here's where we stopped for fuel: Sudbury-Wawa-Marathon-Thunder Bay-Kenora-Brandon-Regina-Speedy Creek-Lethbridge-Cranbrook-Penticton.

 

Hope you have a good one!

 

Dick

[chicken_lifter]

ah, the drama.... and the valuable info.... awesome.

 

sling, your comments definitely seemed out of place - Whether you meant it to sound the way it came out or not, it was (or seemed to me) the definition of 'bad attitude'.

 

I don't know much, but I know that humility goes a LONG way. The smug remarks from the higher time guys on here are excusable for obvious reasons, but from a low-time guy... if that remark was made in person and your chief pilot knew about it, I would hazard to say it would affect his perception of you in a negative way.

 

Anyway, that's my two-cents. From a guy who reads but never posts.

[treetopflyer]

Watch out for the fog in Wawa.

 

Terrace Bay had turned there runway into a drag strip last time I was there (3 years ago) so definitely call ahead if you're heading that way.

 

I'd overnight in Thunder Bay if you need to do a stop in the area. Make sure to start your next day off at the Hoito restaurant for the best scandinavian pancakes in Canada.

 

Have fun.

[treetopflyer]

In Thunder Bay try not to fly too close to the CHL-EMS Air Ambulance hangar....the boys get a bit grouchy when they're woken before the end of their shift.

[Guest Angry Egg Driver]

Hey BM....Is this an addition to your first L4 or are you replacing that one?

 

And Sling it seems kinda funny that you are giving someone a hard time about asking advice on here.Wasnt but a few days ago you were asking advice about a winter drill camp and everyone seemed more than willing to help you out.With your attitude and your amount of hours the best advice i can give you is to shut up and listen cause that mouth of yours is going to get you into a lot of trouble in this business....

[R22Captain]

Well said AED....

maybe it's the language barrier.....be careful what you say (type) :shock:

[sling]

Hey BM....Is this an addition to your first L4 or are you replacing that one?

 

And Sling it seems kinda funny that you are giving someone a hard time about asking advice on here.Wasnt but a few days ago you were asking advice about a winter drill camp and everyone seemed more than willing to help you out.With your attitude and your amount of hours the best advice i can give you is to shut up and listen cause that mouth of yours is going to get you into a lot of trouble in this business....

 

The attitude was giving only to that one that keeps pissing me off. that guy keeps trowing at me and low timer or not, i had enough. Almost everybody in here are nice people, but , there's always a mean guy somewhere.

and yes I'm a low timer and got everything to learn, but I'm so far away from

but licking session . I'm a grown man and heaved succeed in life, i will lean and give all my respect to the others who haved been in the industry before me, but i will not band over for penetration.

And yes i made a mistake by misunderstanding Black Mike request, but I've already made my apologies, i thought that was another low timer asking a basic question that i could get oriented.

Black Mike once again sorry for the offense,thats a misunderstood.

 

 

 

 

[Black Mike]

The attitude was giving only to that one that keeps pissing me off. that guy keeps trowing at me and low timer or not, i had enough. Almost everybody in here are nice people, but , there's always a mean guy somewhere.

and yes I'm a low timer and got everything to learn, but I'm so far away from

but licking session . I'm a grown man and heaved succeed in life, i will lean and give all my respect to the others who haved been in the industry before me, but i will not band over for penetration.

And yes i made a mistake by misunderstanding Black Mike request, but I've already made my apologies, i thought that was another low timer asking a basic question that i could get oriented.

Black Mike once again sorry for the offense,thats a misunderstood.

 

Sling,

Again. no offense taken.

I have a story for you as well as others, if anyone cares to listen, may be off the topic a bit but i will pass it on anyhow,

 

Along time ago- (I think Jesus was still alive) 2 grubby miners, one prospector and one driller showed up at a large helicopter companies hangar looking for a heli to rent. Being all covered with grease and uncombed hair, torn clothes-etc. the XXX helicopter base manager said: "we are way too busy to fly you guys, we have government contracts and lots of work so we cannot do it. Go see Black Mike Heli Company, he has an old hunk of s**t Bell 47 that can probably do what you want- maybe."

They show up and I fly them that fall a little, in my hunk of s**t G3B1- nice guys- didn't look much different than I did except older. They explained how rude XXX heli base manager was to them with his smart a$$ comments.

That winter we received a call from Canada Tungsten Mining Corp. with a 400 hour contract for a JetRanger for the next summer with additional work following year. In conversation with their exploration manager he said he would never again fly with XXX heli company as they were rude to their contractors. We bought a hunk of **t JetRanger and flew them the following 3 summers.

That was 30 years ago and B.M Heli is still up and running, XXX has closed the doors and left.

(We since replaces our hunk of s**t's with better heli's.)

 

You never know who you are talking to and who is listening, especially in this business.

B.M.

 

As for previous questions:

 

Bonjour Michel- hope to see you sometime- Les says you may have done the Australia fire thing. If so how did it go- you should be their now. Hope to see you up here next summer.

 

Angry Egg- we will keep 2 L-4's and see what happens with the world this summer. Got any jobs???

 

Dimit- may see you in P.G. april. Have to do PPC with "Uisdean the food processor" up there. VIH P.G. is doing completion on new heli mid april- we need to see how this high altitude tail rotor works- I guess we have the area to test it out.