Ah, Memories (sigh)

[=CfC=BlueDog]

Oh, I forgot to add that Bluey could not have soloed at 18 since the aeroplane had not been invented yet

You really know how to hurt a guy!   Oooh, ouch

[CFC_Conky]

Yes, but the rewengy will be terrible!

[=CfC=Bounder]

On my recent barge trip to France we talked about many aviation memories as my host was a chap I first flew with in the early 70's after he had left the RAF and joined the airlines.

I never knew that he had got his "Wings" in 1952 about the same time as Woof! Not only that.....but he flew F86's also!

After converting from Harvards to the Meteor, then briefly the Vampire, he was posted to an F86 Squadron. The RAF version apparently had inferior engines to the Canadian ones and he remembers well a bunch of Canadian F86s barrel rolling around his flight and leaving the RAF for dust! Were you one of those chaps Woof? His name is Ned Neill.....ring any bells?

Being a member of the RAF Sailing Association, he always flies the RAF Pennant next to the French courtesy flag at the mast with the Red Ensign at rear. In the picture below you can see that it was like taking Madame Fifi's CfC barge appropriately marked through France. It always gives older French onlookers a thrill to see the RAF roundel on a boat passing through France and leads to interesting chats at the locks. Incidently.....that is Bounder's head on the bow working hard to navigate the treacherous waters of the Garonne Canal!

"Vive la France.........Vive Madame Fifi........vive la sport"

Bounder

[=CfC=Woof]

Nice posting, Bounder, about the French etc.  No, the name does to ring a bell and I really can't remember ever running across RAF  F86s.  We mostly saw Meteors,Vampires, Hunters, Canberras and I believe the odd Swift.  The USAF had F84s in the UK at that time. 

[=CfC=Woof]

'Twas a dark and stormy night in the mid fifties and I was flying a load of erks in an RCAF C47 for #1 Air Division (see below...it may have been the one I was flying as we had only three or four attached to the wing at this time) from Rabat, Morocco up to RCAF Gros Tenquin in northern France.  We'd made a fuel stop in Marseilles and were about halfway up France close to midnight when the airplane very gently made a turn to the right.  And wouldn't stop.  I was hand flying, so ever alert it took only two or three minutes before I realized we were flying in right hand circles.  Or  trying to. How strange, I thought.  We must have lost an engine without any power loss on the gauges, change in engine noise,  airspeed or height.  Another mystery of aviation.  My days were full of them.   It was only by pulling back #1 to idle and using  all the rudder and ailerons that I could find that I could keep the beast pointed in a Northerly direction.  What's a chap to do?  Why call on the Yanks of course.  The USAF had a field at Chambrey  or similar name about thirty miles ahead and they kindly offered me a GCA.  (Of course they were down to about 500  ft in rain etc but I don't want to make too much of a hero story of this).  Anyway I finally got the thing on the ground, (grease job, of course), shot the erks off to the barracks and then we looked the airplane over.  Many people, many flash lights and not a damn thing to be found wrong with it.  Until...my mechanic let out a yell and fell through the rudder!  He had been standing on the tailplane, close by the fin, leant on the ruddder, the fabric split wide open and he was looking out the other side.  All the fabric had torn away from the starboard side while were in flight.  Well, I ask you.  The a/c was one of several that had recently been refurbished in Montreal and then flown across to France. ( I was on that flight the past November but that's a tale for another night, kiddies.)  I guess that during the rebuild they figured the old WW2 fabric was just as good as ever.  Oy!
So we slung on a USAF rudder the next morning and after a hearty breakfast sallied on to our home base.  OH Boy, do OFs like their memories or what?

[CFC_Conky]

That's pretty scary Woof! My career seems pretty dull in comparison....which is fine by me

[CFC_Conky]

Ok Chaps,

My turn, the pictures aren't great but they're all I can find for now:

Aloft in my trusty DHC-3 Otter somewhere north of Schefferville, Quebec


Most of my flying in Schefferville was in the DHC-6 Twin Otter, here we are operating off a makeshift strip on the border of Quebec and Labrador. The runway was made by cutting the top of an esker (long mound of sand and gravel, left by receding glaciers) to a length of around 1500 feet. We flew in a disassembled bulldozer (they flew the blade in with a chopper) and flew out 750lb barrels of ore samples. These were the days before GPS and my company was too cheap to buy omega equipment so we had to do it all by Mk1 eyeball. GCA 'LAR' (looks about right) approaches in whiteout conditions over a dodgy HF frequency were a real treat, basically the guys on the ground would tell us when we flew over the place, we'd take note of our heading, fly out for a bit then come back towards the strip. They would then let us know if the airplane sound was getting louder and if it was, we'd start a gentle let down and start searching frantically for familiar landmarks. We usually had vertical visibility from about 1000' AGL and we knew the height of the terrain in the area so it was possible to land in pretty questionable weather (I was young, thin and invincible back then! ) . During the long, clear days of summer, we'd work 16-18 hour days for weeks on end and had a blast!




I'll post some pictures of my early airline career next.

Pip, pip,
Conky

[=CfC=BlueDog]

Good show, chaps.   Keep them coming!

[=CfC=BlueDog]

Our pilots’ course started with 33 ‘players’ of which 20 graduated.   You could be “scrubbed” for all manner of reasons ranging from ‘personal qualities’ to flying ability not up to scratch.   We lived in constant fear of being found wanting; and having a big X drawn over our rough-headed photograph in the flying instructors’ staff room.

Those having read “First Light” will have a inkling of what I’m talking about.

Now the first 6 weeks of the course was devoted to ground-school; learning a whole swagger of important/interesting/relevant stuff (like aerodynamics, aircraft systems, meteorology) and crappy stuff (like service knowledge, administration and â€" of course â€" drill).    During this time Cadet P, an 17 yo,  kept telling the rest of us of his exceptional qualities and how he was going to be the youngest and the best fighter pilot in the RAAF.    “Yarp, yarp yarp” went Cadet P ”….. youngest…..best…..fighter…..pilot….yarp…yarp….yarp”.

The only problem was, Cadet P was a bit immature and a tad lazy and continually failed the ground school exams.    On about the fifth week, as we were slavering at the thought of actually going flying, Cadet P was called into the Chief Ground Instructor’s office just before lunchtime (the CGI was a  small, snarly, and thoroughly dislikeable individual) and given the ultimatum â€" “shape up, pass your exams…….or you’re out!!!!!”     A thoroughly chastened Cadet P exited the CGI’s office.

As it happened, the first subject after lunch that day was aerodynamics, taught by that selfsame small, snarly, and thoroughly dislikeable CGI.    With new resolve, Cadet P seated himself at the front of the class …………… AND FELL ASLEEP DURING THE LECTURE.

By 1600 hours that day he was gone.

Ah, memories (sigh)

[=CfC=Woof]

 "Dried arrangement" indeed.  Your subtlety is exceeded only by your lack of knowledge of my finer points.   

[=CfC=Bounder]

Great stories chaps........I will have to dig deep into the old memories to cough up some more......!

Bounder

[=CfC=Doc]

Guys, these stories are amazing. Keep it up, your tales add a whole new level of immersion to my game of Internet Aeroplanes!

[CFC_Conky]

In 1984 I was hired by a Montreal based airline called Nordair. Yippeee! said young Conky, happy at finally getting out of the bush of Northern Quebec. After around six weeks of ground school, simulator and flight training, a freshly minted First Officer, I was sent to the...arctic...

Nordair was operating re-supply flights to the radar sites of the DEW (Distant Early Warning) line. The Cold War was still going on don't you know. The line ran across Greenland, the top of the Canadian mainland and Alaska's north slope. We'd fly a schedule of two weeks on, two off.

Our trusty steed was the Fairchild-Hiller FH-227, basically a stretched Fokker F-27. We operated them as 'combis', the front half of the cabin used for cargo, and up to 24 passengers in the aft section of the cabin.



The stations were pretty remote places, in this picture you can just make out the station and airstrip.



To find them at night or in IFR conditions, each station was equipped with an NDB, but for ease of maintenance they were usually located at the stations themselves, not aligned with the runway so circling approaches were the order of the day. When the visibility was down, the usual procedure was for the 'flying' pilot to stay 'heads down' while the other pilot would talk him/her onto final approach, then take over for the landing. The 'flying pilot' would remain heads down until touchdown just in case a last minute go-around was required. This procedure worked very well. Strangely enough, the procedure is now reversed.

Weather conditions were actually quite good in winter, there was the odd blizzard but usually it was clear but as you imagine, very effing cold! It was dark 24 hrs a day and one had to be careful when on final approach. Because the only visible lights were on the strip, you would get the visual illusion of being too high and you could easily get too low while trying to correct the glide path. This illusion was a major factor in a C-130 crash at the Canadian Forces base in Alert. You also had to be careful not to stare at the lights because they would then appear to float all over the place, causing some funny gyrations on final. I get told all the time that I still land like that...

Summer was usually very nice, autumn was the worst season, open water in increasingly cold weather would result in thick fog with little warning.

At the latitudes flown, the magnetic compass was unreliable so we would set our directional gyro using an astro compass or if the sun was out, with a quick formula (15 X GMT - Longitude) to determine true heading. The stations were also visible on the weather radar, which helped out at times.

Our biggest consideration was fuel, the FH-227 did not have tremendous range and only a few stations had fuel so we had to pay close attention when planning IFR alternates.



After 18 months I upgraded to the L-188 Electra, flying Ice Patrol flights for Environment Canada. I'm afraid I don't have too many pictures of this operation yet.




After a year on the Electra, I went back to the FH-227, this time as a Captain.

Gratuitous Conky action shot:



Well, this post has gone on long enough I think.

Pip, pip,
Conky

[=CfC=BlueDog]

Conky, that's REAL flying and a great experience (I expect).   Thanks for that - and it wasn't too long.

More!   More!

[CFC_Conky]

Thanks Bluey, they were good days.

Ok then, here are a few more...

This is a picture taken at a place called Komakuk Beach, the last station in the western Canadian arctic. The next station was Barter Island, in Alaska, 72 nm away. I used to fly there every Saturday until US Customs decided that the USAF, who ran the DEW line, could no longer self clear. So, I had to fly to Fairbanks first, a detour of 400 nm south, then another 400 nm north to Barter Island. In order to make a point, the biggest load I ever carried was a case of styrofoam cups. Nordair would charge by the mile, which the USAF would buy in bulk. These little excursions soon used these up and after a few weeks of being charged $3.50 USD per mile, plus fuel, the US Government stepped in and we could self-clear again. It was a nice change of pace though, as Fairbanks is quite civilized compared to the Canadian north. We would buy a couple of cases of booze, with an extra bottle of Scotch for the guy clearing us back into Canada, and then we'd have quite a party every Saturday night. It's a good thing no one needed to be medically evacuated because we were in no shape to fly!



The arctic is far from being a deserted wasteland, it's actually quite beautiful:






These are the 'Smoking Hills', an interesting geological oddity, the hills spewing sulphur continuously:


This is a weird one, this was literally in the middle of nowhere:


A rather rare sight in the arctic, convective storm clouds:


No, this isn't the aftermath of one of my landings... It's the remains of an Avro York that crashed in Resolute Bay back in the 50's:



Pip, pip,
Conky