PC12-47/E Newest PC12 Variant

Pilatus the makers of fine aircraft have published photo's of their new PC12/47 E aircraft. Click the link below to see for yourself...


Pilatus PC12/47 E

The Date

The night before the big event it had cleared out and was sky clear and the forecast for the next day was suppose to be sunny and mild. This picture was actually taken at dusk but with the aid of Picasa it appears as though it's pitch black. Nervousness was pretty pronounced tonight because of meeting someone for the first time tomorrow but I figured if it didn't work out at least I got to go flying.

Here we are battling a 30 knot headwind as we start to cross into the Laurentian range on the north side of the Ottawa River towards Tremblant. This was a beautiful day for flying except that it was probably the most bumpy I have ever flown a 172. Seeing that she had never flown in a small plane before I had a Plan A and Plan B. Plan A was the low level bumpy flight to save time if she was a trooper and didn't get motion sickness...where Plan B was if she didn't feel comfortable in the bumps and to save me from cleaning up puke I was going to climb higher out of the bumps but add 30 minutes to the flight time. Well as I leveled at 2000 feet we were getting the crap kicked out of us and I was always asking if she was ok. At first she stated she was fine and that she loved the view from up here. Then about 15 minutes into the flight she said that the bumps were kinda soothing her and she could fall asleep!! Well I didn't want to tell her after that I was feeling queasy and wanted to take the hit on the ground speed and find smoother air. Knowing she was a good flyer I immediately knew I could check that off the list of things that would be ideal in a girl for me.

Here we are going up the gondola to the top of Mt. Tremblant. It was a quiet ride to the top but both of us were snapping photo's out the little windows at the top of the gondola. In this photo I am looking North West towards the airport we had just arrived on. As soon as I was airborne I had checked the weather and had gotten 3 pilot reports of wind shear and moderate turbulence in this area. I don't fly the 172 all that often and with the winds and turbulence the landing was ok but I landed about halfway down the runway to make it that way.

We are about 3/4 of the way up the hill now and looking South towards the village of St.Jovite. There is another little ski hill as you can see which is called Grey Rocks, beside it is the St.Jovite grass strip I could have landed on. Due to the winds I decided to land somewhere they had firetrucks to come put out the blaze if it didn't go so well :)

The colours were very nice but not as vibrant as the year before when I flew in here for work. It had been warmer this year so some trees were hanging on to life while others were putting on a good show for us.

Here is the hotel's and condos at the base of Tremblant. I am not of high society and have never been to many ski resorts but this one seems to be very nice. I took this after the Tremblant experience was ending and we walked out to find the car.

A look at the main drag in the village, lots of cool shops but as you can imagine the prices are ridiculous. Thank God she only ordered Nacho's on the date :)

Back to the friendly skies where I feel more at ease that the "date" part is over and now I can relax and enjoy the flight home. She had been pretty quiet for most of the time and right after take off she excitedly said " This is so awesome!" in regards to the view and the fact we were going flying again. This is the ski resort of Tremblant. The actually village associated to the area is St.Jovite which is about 3 miles or so away and has all the amenities (IE beer store, grocery store, and hotels).

Tremblant from about 4500 feet I think as we do a pass on my side so I can take some pictures and then do a 180 so she can snap a few pics with her SLR "old school" camera :) The winds had died off and it was smooth as silk up here in the sky so I was having a great time. I could finally trim the airplane out and let it do most of the flying. Having autopilot over the years has made me hate hand flying while in cruise because it is harder to take pictures and stay on course and altitude. As we came to the end of this pass I did a 45-55 degree bank turn to quickly get the hill on her side and she loved the positive G feeling. Lots of people hate anything other then straight or level but so far she could handle anything I did.

As we turn around we are now climbed up to 6500 feet and headed home. All in all I feel pretty good to how things went today. The weather couldn't have been any better (minus the wind) and neither could the company :) The winds now on our back saved us about 15 minutes on the flight home so I was gonna save a little bit of money on this leg :)

The beautiful Laurentian mountains at dusk.

Heading back to the flat country so I figured I better take a few more pictures of the hills. Such a beautiful area to fly or even drive in.

Now what first date isn't complete without flying into the sunset ? I mean it is so cleche but I don't care :) 6500 feet in our trusty steed the sun says goodbye for today. Our ETA is about 10 minutes before legal dark so I am glad we didn't leave early because of my worrying and miss this. Like a good friend of mine always says..."This happen the way they are meant to, otherwise they would have happened differently" and today is no exception.

I bought the camera with the zoom lens so I could get a little closer to things when I am up in the air. Times like these I am glad I did.

Sunrises and sunsets happen super fast so I had to keep shooting when it got so close to the horizon. Here I got a really great shot of the last part of the suns disc descending below the horizon. Kind of a nice aura effect around it I must admit :)

All in all a wonderful day that couldn't have gone any better or have any better turn out. 5 months later to the day the lovely lady sitting in the right is seat is now my wife. Here's to many more sunsets together !

Cheers,

The Dutchman

Feels Good....

So in my previous post I stated that new pics would be coming soon, I forgot to mention that soon is a relative term and the week that I posted that I had some new developments occur in my life. The picture above is of Mt. Tremblant in the province of Quebec in my wonderful country of Canada. The ski hill is in the foreground and in the background you can see a thin river type thing running kind of parallel to the top of the image. What actually you are looking at is the runway located just off the end of a lake in Riviere Rouge, Quebec the larger airport serving this area. There is a grass strip located quite close to the lake in the lower left of the picture but I usually stick to pavement just to reduce stress.

Why is my first post in half a year talking about a ski hill ? Well back in the fall I took a beautiful woman on a date here and haven't taken too many pictures since. I rented a Cessna 172 from the local flying club and as our first date I flew her to CYFJ (Mont Tremblant/Riviere Rouge Airport). She was into photography, loved nature and there is no better area in the fall in my experience than Quebec to get lots of fall scenes and enjoy fall as it's suppose to (New England is also included in that). The strip is about 15 miles from the ski hill so I had to rent a car (cheapest option) and Serge who runs the airport had it waiting for us and was amazing at setting us up and giving suggestions on what to check out on our visit.

We made our way along the winding road towards town and the ski hill with covered bridges crossing the river at many junctures. She was quiet but content as I rambled on incessantly (I do blog as you know !). We finally arrived at the base of the mountain and after eating we took the gondola to the top for some photo opps. It was a beautiful day but the winds were probably 40 knots and the temperature around 5-10 degrees Celsius so the visit to the top didn't last very long. Before I knew it we were driving on the winding country road back to the airport for our evening flight home. I was not stressed, but overly thoughtful of the fact sunset was looming and I had to be airborne and landed before legal dark as the plane had it's turn coordinator out for service which prevented me from night flying.

Since I am a turbine pilot piston engines apparently do not like me and after getting in and starting the plane up it ran like a 2 legged cat from a pack of dogs. At this airport there was no maintenance and once Serge left no way to get anywhere other than walking ! Serge could see that I had some problems and graciously waited for me to take off in case we needed the service of the rental car one more time, but this time for 4 hour drive home.

To tie this story up... I finally started the airplane again after a thorough look under the cowling and she purred like a kitten. We took off and flew around the mountain and snapped some pictures and literally flew off into the sunset.

As far as the date was concerned I thought it went off fairly well with a few minor hiccups here and there but it had gone better then anything I had ever planned in my life.

As with all things... perspective, opinions and truth is in the eye of the beholder. Many guys would say that things turned out horribly for me and that such success is utterly a failure as an outcome for this date.

I never thought while I did the walk around that morning that I would be getting ready to go flying with my future Wife. If I would have made a checklist for the perfect woman for me I would have sold myself short. She is more amazing then anything I could have ever dreamed of. Shortly after we met I knew she was the one for me, just like I knew cruising in the flight levels was the job for me when I was 14. After almost 15 years of flying I am more enthusiastic about my job than ever and know that I will be the same way about her 15, 25, 50 years from now.

We are married now and soon to be moving to a new city to live in. The good news is that my job function is changing slightly and I will be able to do more posting. I feel glad that I will be able to share more experiences with you and show you more of Canada and what it has to offer.

Below is a few pics of a recent trip I took so stay tuned in the next few months for the revival of what I started 2 years ago :) Fly Safe.

This guy was a bit far away so I had to zoom in with the camera to see who it was. I believe it is a 777 for British Airways flying westbound north of Washington DC for points unknown. I haven't flown in the US in a long time and it was good to get back into the high density airspace and experience ATC at it's finest.

I am very fortunate to have such a view from my office window and I am sure many people wish to have the same. I try and never take it for granted as there are so many people without the opportunities I have had and I can not go wasting such an experience just because I can ! This industry is the worst industry to work in but it is by far the best job of any out there. I am flying here with a good friend of mine and there is no better time to be had then hanging out at work with a really good friend enjoy every ounce of every minute.

Delta 767 which was heading westbound to somewhere I have no clue where. The upper level winds were very strong from the west so he was only 5000 feet above us at FL300. That's it for now as far as pictures are concerned but these will be the last of the US shots for while. I will bring you up to speed on what will be happening in the future in the next few months.

Cheers,

The Dutchman

New pics coming

Been quite a blogging deliquent lately but I do have some new pics to post here shortly. I have problems uploading photo's with my wireless connection at home so will have to go elsewhere to do so.

Should be a few new posts in the next week.

Cheers,

FD

The light of the world

This I guess would be part 2 in the series of early mornings....this is late afternoon on a gorgeous late summer day. The sun has been hidden under a layer of overcast all day long but as the cold upper winds aloft drive them away we are in store for a beautiful sunset. I don't really need descriptions of the following photo's as they speak for themselves. I have a few more to post in the near future but I figured I would save the best for...well, first :)

Not so GREENpeace

Recently in Port Dover Ontario, Greenpeace protesters using zodiacs deployed from the above seen vessel (Arctic Sunrise) attached themselves to conveyor belts and to the rudder of a large ship delivering coal to the power plant there.

At first you would think...good on them for actually sticking up for a cause and turning the idea of being Green into a verb. Way to go guys.

Now if you look back to the picture of the boat they sailed across from the Atlantic I don't think it runs on solar power, wind generated power nor does the helicopter sitting on its back or the zodiacs it uses. Greenpeace in itself with this one boat probably has a larger carbon footprint then a lot of the people they are attacking. Why do they need a ship and zodiacs to do their dirty work ? Why don't the use the resources of the internet to organize local members to sail a boat out to the coal ship and protest ?

I am all about conservation and treating the environment with respect as we should, but these guys waste more fuel and resources to do aggressive acts to get their point across. By the pure virtue of their anti-coal or anti not green they are not doing any good for the environment just as anti-war rally's do. Because when you are anti anything you are using force and not power to create change. Mother Theresa said she would never go to an anti war, poverty..etc rally, but if you have a pro peace rally she would come. So if the lady is a saint by her actions I think she can be respected for knowing how to facilitate change for the better. Maybe Greenpeace better look to her for some wisdom.

I don't know why this bothers me so much but when you operate on a lower level of thinking to combat the opposite side which is doing the same thing you aren't gonna make any headway. Like Einstein said "You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."

Brantford Airshow

Canadian Air Force's Finest. The CF-18. Yeah they have been around for a few years and are probably not the most modern fighter but it still looks cool to me. Sitting here in the evening sun before the main show tomorrow.

Dehavilland Buffalo, a great lifter and also a short take of and landing aircraft.

Patty Wagstaff's Extra 300 in the hangar resting before tomorrows punishment. Amazing how small these airplanes are and the huge engine they have up front.

This is a real man's colour right here. I guess if you go out and pull 8 g's with a plane people can't really go and make fun of you for driving a purplish pink airplane. This is a Russian design called the Sukhoi.

CF-18 again.

There is two big ass jet engines stuck in the middle of that skinny fuselage which is one reason it can probably climb vertically and haul ass in a big way.

Canada's air demonstration team: The Snowbirds. Most country's stopped flying the CT-114 Tutor about 100 years ago but we still use them as our ambassadors via air shows. But to watch those guys fly them the way they do is a testament to their wicked skills.

There is quite a few of them and I couldn't get them all in the frame without not being to identify them as airplanes. Look pretty nice sitting there all together.

Again the CF-18...I know I know but the choices were very limited as most of the airplanes were going to be flying in the next day !

As we arrived they announced the Buffalo was going to be making a low pass over the field. Well thanks to the smokey engines I could see it from about 5 miles away low level. Wicked paint scheme I think, I like the yellow it's a happy colour and maybe that's why they paint a search and rescue plain like that because usually it would be a happy site to see if you were stranded. I can't back that up.

Zoomed in a little, sexy bird.

This thing can drop the hot lunch if it needs to and there is also a video that sort of starts off looking like this but the guy who was flying it was a bit too aggressive and when he pulled up to flare he was too slow and basically dropped the plane vertically into the ground in a level flight attitude. It was on airdisaster.com I believe.

He came in and did a short field landing which was pretty cool and I have it on video which I will try to post here later.

This is Patty Wagstaff of Aerobatic fame pushing her plane back into the hangar. She has been doing this forever and a day and is also on Microsoft Flight Simulator's Aerobatic videos from the FS2K versions I believe. The Extra 300 is still a stock airplane for the Flight Sim series. She does a really good routine and I first saw her at Oshkosh back in 1993 with a red and white one like the one they use in Flight Sim.