Big Three Days!!!....continued

So sorry I have been so long getting the rest of this posted up here, it has been a busy last couple of days here for me, and if my posts seem to drop of here in the coming three weeks, its because I am studying for the written exam for my Commercial License. I am writing in tentitivly on the 20th of Nov.

So the day after our trip to Duluth, I took the warrior, which i had just gotten checked out on during the trip to Duluth, and decided to familiarize myself with it a little more, seeing as how i was taking it on a 7 hour journey the next day ( being the third big day!! ) So I headed in over Winnipeg city, and circled there for about 15 minutes getting some pictures of the city from overhead. A few of which I have attached below.

This third day, myself and one of the guys living the the trailer with me, embarked on a cross country to The Pas. If you have never heard of it, its okay, because its about 300 Nautical Miles ( 555 KM ) north of Winnipeg. This flight was to fulfill another criteria of the commercial license, which is a 300NM cross country from the point of departure, with a minimum of three stops on route. So we departed Steinbach at about 9:10, and flew direct to Easterville, about a 2hr and 15 min flight. Now easterville is a tiny little fishing community up north, so you can only assume, they don't have much of an airport. You can see for yourself via the pictures below, that that assumption is 100% percent correct. ( its the picture that more or less looks like i'm parked in the middle of no where ) As you can see, the "runway" is about 15 feet wide, and gravel, and actually turns into a road that goes into the little town if you backtrack to far with the airplane!! So upon getting our wheels up in easterville, we were then enroute to The Pas, which was about another 55min flight further north. We landed in The Pas no problem, until we got insdie the terminal by pushing a little red button, and then could not get back out to our airplane, because there was a number pad on the inside that we didn't know the code for! So after trying a couple of phone numbers that were supposedly the "Call for Fuel" numbers on a pay phone that was charging 50cents for each local call, we ventured over to a Environment Canada weather reporting station, in which the guy working inside called up the fuel truck for us, and within about 20 minutes, our airplane as filled up and ready to go. We finish having a little snack we had brought with us, because there is no food within 30 miles of the airport, and then headed back down south! Upon leaving The Pas, we were headed for Gimli, made famous by the Gimli glider in 1983 when an Air Canada flight made an emergency landing there. Upon landing in Gimli we were met by nothing other then some very nice old DC-3 airplanes owned by a company that use to fly cargo to the north, until Transport Canada shut them down. Other then that, the airport was very quiet. From Gimli, we ere headed on our last leg of our 7 hour trip, to St Andrews, Harvs Air's other campus, where the Warrior is based out of. We landed at St. Andrews at 5:45 making for a rather long and enjoyable day of flying! We were then picked up by one of the dispatchers from Steinbach, and driven back to Steinbach.

We even got so see a Northern Lights show on our drive back!!! It was a first for me!

I will try to keep you up to date, on progress in and amongst my studying, but I have alot to

study, so we will see how things go!!

This is the Red River flowing through downtown Winnipeg!

This below is a picture of the Esplanade Riel Bridge, one of the few of

its kind in the world, and it even has a restaurant in the middle of it!

This building below is the Manitoba legislature building.

The is the desolate little runway in Easterville, yes, that little gravel path on the left is the runway!!

We were amazed how nice the water looked on our way back home!!

Looks almost like tropic water!

DC-3s in Gimli!!

Big Three Days!!!

So over the last three days, the events have well made up for the uneventful last little while!

Tuesday started at 4:00 am for myself, my instructor (Chris) and Matt Lehmann, another student here who is working on his instructor rating. We departed here at 5:45 after devouring some Tim Hortons that Chris brought for breakfast we jumped in the plane and headed for Baudette Minnesota, where we had to clear customs. Five minutes after landing customs was dealt with, we went inside to file a flight plan for the remainder of our trip to Duluth International. The sun had risen while we were on the ground in Baudette, which was a good thing, as we started to run into some weather as we got closer to Duluth. The ceilings just started forming above us, and basically just kept forcing us down, lower and lower all the way into Duluth. We ended up making the airport, after requesting special VFR ( Visual Flight Rules ) to get in. Upon landing we were marshalled to our parking spot, and had a carpet laid out so step on,upon exiting the plane. We then got on the bus, and they drove us across the apron, maybe 800 ft, to the terminal building!! Upon exiting the bus at the terminal building (FBO as its called) we saw 7 F-16 fighter jets taxi, and take off in front of us. We then went in, and got driving down the apron to the Cirrus factory! We went in, introduced ourselves, and let her know we were ready for the tour, as we were the only three getting a tour, and then she directed us upstairs to the customer lounge, where we helped ourselves to one of the many complimentary drinks in the fridge. We were then met by our tour guide, taken to a board room where he presented a little slide show on the history of the company, and a few specifications on the airplanes, and then took us to the factory, which was across the parking lot. The factory that is based in Duluth, it the final assembly factory, so the raw composite parts are produced at another facility in the U.S. and then shipped to Duluth where they are assembled and sold. We weren't aloud camera's inside the facility, but I do have several pictures of their aircraft from outside. After the tour of the factory, we went back to the FBO and signed our their courtesy car, and headed downtown to the city of Duluth. We were recommended to go try food from Grandma's Saloon. It is the name of a fairly popular chain restaurant in Duluth. We went and ate there, after noticing that there are alot of things name "Grandma's (something)" apparently Grandma was pretty popular. After lunch we headed back to the airport, grabbed a starbucks on the way, because Steinbach doesn't have one, and then went back to our airport. We waited for the weather to clear up to we could get back out of the airport, and headed to sky harbour from there. Sky Harbour ( photo attached) is a small little airport, on what looks to be a sandbar that was made as a wave break to protect the Duluth Harbour! We then headed back home, stopping only in Pinecreek to clear customs, the only ACTUAL international airport. It just so happens to have half the runway in Canada, and the other half in the U.S. Each customs office is also on its respective side of the border. This is only day one, but I have to run, so I will complete this post with the two days following soon.............

That is our plane the closest one to me, and that is about how far we got driven upon arrival to the FBO!!

This is the exterior of the Cirrus Factory, with several new planes sitting on the apron.

Brand New cirrus purchased by a Canadian, being polished up waiting for its new owner to come and pick it up, and fly it home!!

This is Sky Harbour.

This photo shows you how close the runway is to the water!! With a huge crosswind from the left!

Skimming the Border

Over the last couple of days, since my last post at least, the weather has been on and off as far as being good enough to fly, normally better in the morning, and then deteriorating in the afternoon and evening. I have however still been able to get some flying in here and there! Yesterday I got out for 2 hours for a little cross country to the three little airports of Altona, Winkler, and Morden. All of which are within 15 Miles of the US border, Altona being the closest at only miles north of the Minnesota border. I did however refrain from sticking a wing tip over the border just to say I had done it. I am however planning a trip with Chris (My Instructor) to go to Duluth International Airport, for a tour of the Cirrus factory. Cirrus is a very nice modernly designed airplane that would cost you in the vicinity of $500,000.00 - $700,000.00 depending on the model. (http://cirrusaircraft.com/sr20/gallery.aspx?popup=true) The original plan was to do it yesterday, but Chris was getting back late from Vancouver, and the weather wasn't looking good, so we just decided to bump it for a week.

It is currently snowing here again right now, and it is forecasted for us to get 2-4cm again tonight. Due to the snow, I am not flying, therefore it is a study day for me, seeing as I still have my Transport Canada Written Exam left ahead of me. Just for those interested, this exam consists of 100 questions, and is broken up into four sections. Navigation, Airlaw, Meteorology, and General Knowledge ( engines, the working of systems, etc.) I have three and a half hours to write it, and the pass mark is 70%. 100 questions might not sound like much, but when there is this vast of a knowledge base to know, just to pass the exam you have learned ALOT because they randomly pick and choose questions from each of those topics.

I also have another couple photos from my trip yesterday!

The guy in this photo is the one I MIGHT be going to Calgary with...He tagged along yesterday just for the fun of it.

This is me in front of the plane while we got out and stretched out legs at Morden!!

Me with the Citabria!

This is the Citabria I went solo in!!!

These are some pictures of Steinbach North, an airport about 4 miles north of the airport I am currently at.

There is a nice golf course on approach!

First Snow!!!!

The photos below is what I woke up to this morning, after it snowing for about 5 hours last night....Probably somewhere around 4cm is what they were forecasting.

First, First, & First

Starting with yesterday, I did my first solo flight in the Citabria (Tail Dragger Aircraft). Which was awesome!!! I think the funnest thing to flying them is A) a little more of a challenge, and B) they have a stick, instead of a control yoke which anybody will tell you, it is much nicer flying with a stick. I will have pictures to follow, they just haven't happened yet. Then last night I did my first solo set of night circuits. I have done all the other prerequisites for my night rating, I just need 3.8 more solo hours. This was fun, but only as fun as doing circuits (Basically Circles) can be, within the next couple days I will be doing a solo night cross country, which will be alot more fun!! That was yesterdays news, and today I went for my first solo cross country since I have been here. I have attempted two before now, but the weather has not cooperated, and didn't look to good this morning either, but it ended up being a pretty nice day.

Todays cross country consisted of a stop in Lac Du Bonnett, which I know means basically nothing to you, unless you have been there, or live here. But it is a nice small little privately run airport, right on a lake, so being on a lake it as actually a fairly large float plane dock. Such float planes do alot of delivery of goods to remote lakes north of winnipeg to fishing villages etc, and other people just have them for personal leisure. Today when I was up there, there was what I believe to be a Beaver tied up, and it was having several 19gal water jugs loaded on board. (Photo Below). There was also a very nice Pilatus PC-12 parked up there! I also have photos of that attached below.

These first two photos are of the Beaver on Floats that is docked and being loaded!

This is the Pilatus PC-12!! A very well designed small executive airplane!

This here is Fort Garry, the oldest standing Stone fur trading post still intact in North America! I snapped this photo while I was on my way into Saint. Andrews! That is also the Red River you see in the picture. Here is a link with a little more history - http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/mb/fortgarry/natcul/natcul2.aspx

October 3, 2009

I figured since its been almost 5 days since I posted something I should get on that, then I was thinking as to what I could write about and realized that not much has happened in the last 4 days. The weather hasn't been very good, although we have managed to get up and do some instrument work. Otherwise it has been a pretty slow 4 days, other then a couple intense fooseball matches at the club while we're not flying. I am scheduled for some solo night circuits tonight though, provided the weather hold outs.

I did make a good discovery though, when myself and 6 other guys went out to a local restaurant for some food last night. They are called Irish Nachos. (Amanda, you would love them) They are a form of french fries (like the ones you get in the kitchen sinks at jungle jims) and then they load them with hamburg, tomato, jalapeño peppers, and alot of cheese. Needless to say they are delicious!!