I think now is a good time to bring up some of the little devices I had with me to make life a little easier on the aviation road. One device was Apple's I-touch, 3rd generation, similar to an I-phone except without the phone, and it has Wi-Fi. I had my own cell phone for calling and texting. With the I-touch I could check email and get on the Internet, all the hotels had Wi-Fi, except where we stayed in Whitehorse, Canada. I downloaded a couple of handy apps for the ferry flight. One was the AOPA's Airports data base made for the I-touch. This really came in handy; it had all the information about each airport such as, frequencies, Google map, runway information, pattern altitudes, time zone, what sectional the airport is on, sunrise and sunset, fuel and more. Also included are the nearest airports, and services such as FBO's, attractions, car rentals, lodging, restaurants, and taxi's. What more could a guy ask for? All this is updated once a month, so it's current information. I used it each night to figure out where we were going to stay. Once you have it downloaded you don't need Wi-Fi to access the data. I can't say enough about this application AOPA puts out for pilots, and it's free. However, I think you have to be an AOPA member to use it. The other application I downloaded and used quite a bit during our trip was Aeroweather; very handy and extremely useful. Oh and I almost forgot, I also downloaded photos of the airports across Canada showing the re-fueling location on the airports. I never used these photos though; we figured it out as we landed at each location, most of the time the tower or the flight service folks would direct us to the fueling point or we'd simply see the self service pumps ourselves if they had them. The I-touch was like carrying my own little mini laptop, very useful. I also use it to download study materials such as the Fundamentals of Instruction (FOI's) and the CFI -Rotorcraft test applications. Plus there is an application for the FARs if your so inclined.
The other little piece of technology I used was the SPOT, second generation. I paid the extra 50 bucks for the tracking feature, well worth the cost of 150 bucks total a year with the tracking feature. Every ten minutes the tracking feature sends out a location/coordinates, and anyone with my SPOT link can track where we are in real time. It's like leaving a bread crumb trail and having flight following all in one, my wife and kids really liked this feature. They could look and see where I was any time of the day. It also has an I'm "OK" button with a little preset message. My message says something like "We are OK, everything is fine" which can be sent to email addresses with a link showing our exact location and also to phones as a text. I would hit the OK button at each refueling point to let everyone know I was okay, and date stamp our time of arrival for later retrieval of the info. It's been fun looking back over our route and seeing exactly where we flew on our journey north. It came with a nice little arm band holder and case. I would strap this around my ankle so it faced the sky, it worked perfectly in the helicopter. You don't need cell phone reception for the SPOT to work, it uses GPS technology, and it’s very handy when I'm hiking in the back country of Alaska where there is no cell phone reception.Okay, back to our little journey north. Our goal this morning is to reach Oroville, Washington. The flight takes us about an hour and a half. Steve Johnston, the Oroville - Dorothy Scott Airport Manager heard us coming in and directed us to the fuel pump as we approached to land with his hand held radio. Once there my main concerns are Canadian Customs and eAPIS; The Electronic Advance Passenger Information System (eAPIS) is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) web-based application. It all started back on May 18, 2009, all general aviation pilots departing from or arriving in the United States are required to provide pilot information, aircraft information, and passenger manifest to the government at least 60 minutes prior to departure. I guess I could see the need, but it sure added a lot of red tape to our journey. I had previously opened an eAPIS account with our basic information before we left on the ferry flight. All that was left to do when we got to Oroville was upload the manifest with our arrival time to Homeland Security before entering Canada, and in our case that would be Kelowna. I would also have to call Canadian Customs (Canpass) and let them know our arrival time into Kelowna, I also found out Customs needed two hours notice, and we had to arrive within a 30 minute window, basically 15 minutes on either side of our projected arrival time. After calling Canpass (Canadian customs) and answering a series of questions about who we were, info about our helicopter, and info on our passports, we were cleared to enter Canada. It was important we get there within our scheduled window. Once there I had to call and let them know we had arrived in Kelowna. We were required to land at the ramp near the AeroShell fueling point, we did have a choice, and that's where I said I would land. I'll add the lady with Canadian Customs I talked with was very friendly throughout the whole process. Our plan of attack through Canada was Kelowna, Williams Lake, Prince George, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake, and Whitehorse. It was a good route because it kept us close to the highway most of the time. There were a few more direct routes we could have taken, but as you know, Canada is a desolate place, with vast distances between communities. I felt staying close to the highway would be the safest route.
We have about an hour to kill before we could leave Oroville and meet our dead line in Kelowna. Next we had to deal with eAPIS. Our problem there at the Oroville Airport was no computer available for public use. So what did we do about eAPIS? We tried the I-phone...a no go, Safari (MAC Internet browser on I-touch and I-phone) wasn't working with eAPIS. We were running out of time and Canadian Customs was expecting us, we were stuck between two countries; we had to leave to get to Kelowna on time and hope for a computer there. I'd like to add that Steve the airport manager at Oroville was a Vietnam helicopter pilot who joined the Army back in 1967 and did his helicopter training at Fort Wolters then Fort Rucker and on to Vietnam. We had a chance to talk for only 15 minutes or so. Anyone who reads my blog knows I'm extremely interested in Vietnam helicopter stuff and here I have a chance to talk with a Vietnam helicopter pilot, but dam we had to leave in order to make our scheduled window with Canadian Customs. We were full of fuel and off to cross the Canadian Border. I picked up the helicopter and made a call to Oroville traffic that we were departing north; the winds were light with a slight tail wind. We find that we are moving a little too fast and have to slow down so we don't arrive too early. At ten miles out we called Kelowna Tower. “Kelowna Tower helicopter 99507 is 10 miles south inbound for landing”. "Helicopter 99507 Kelowna Tower, squawk 5302 (just a guess I don’t remember the squawk) do you have a flight plan?” I suddenly have that sinking feeling. We both look at each other, crap! While worrying about eAPIS and Canadian Customs we forget about Canada’s law that everyone must have a flight plan. “Tower would you like us to return to Oroville and file a flight plan?” “Helicopter 507 that won’t be required, in the future make sure you have flight plan on file while traveling through Canada”. “Okay tower, Will Co, helicopter 507”. Whew! Dodged a bullet!
We asked for clearance to land at the AeroShell ramp, and after landing I gave customs a call. We were not allowed to leave the helicopter until customs cleared us. We lucked out; when I called them they simply gave us a number and told us to keep it handy while passing through Canada. That was easy enough, one more hurdle behind us. We called for fuel, while Corey handled the fuel I ran into the AeroShell building where they had a very nice pilot's lounge with a computer, lucked out again. I immediately logged into eAPIS and submitted our manifest to US Homeland Security. No problem, it worked and another hurdle behind us. I later talked with the US Customs Agent in Northway, Alaska about our dilemma of no public computer available in Oroville, WA. He told me that we actually had three days to give notice. So technically I could have filled out our eAPIS manifest in Wenatchee, WA or Marysville, CA when I had access to a computer. Any slip in our schedule would simply require a call to Northway Customs in Alaska and they would note it in their system. Okay, so I’ve learned several lessons today, and so far we haven’t been thrown in jail nor did the helicopter get impounded, but what a day, and we are just getting started. I’ll interject my opinion here; we aren’t the ones border control should be worried about, we are following the rules. The bad guys are the one's crossing the border in very remote places flying very low under the radar and ignoring eAPIS all together, nor are they calling Canadian or US Customs. Those are the guys they need to be hunting down. In any case, we had a helicopter full of fuel, all the border security red tape is behind us and YES we have a flight plan filed and are ready for another leg north. Yee Haw... Kelowna was in very beautiful country alongside the very large and very blue Okanagan Lake. We were now headed northwest passing very near to Kamloops and then making a bee line towards Williams Lake. We eventually intercepted 100 mile house a possible fuel stop along Highway 97, but we don't need to stop for fuel due to a nice 20 knot tail wind. Our average ground speed along here was 105 knots, not bad for the R22; we were making good time and will make Williams Lake with no problems and plenty of fuel on board. There were times we left the road and flew as the crow flies but I felt somewhat secure knowing we had a flight plan and the SPOT was transmitting our coordinates every 10 minutes. We were following Highway 97 and moving along with a pretty good tail wind, but it was turbulent. As we approached Williams lake the winds started kicking up to something like 28 to 30 knots out of the southwest. I called Williams Lake Radio 10 miles out and told them we were inbound for landing to refuel. I found the flight service folks or any towered airports wanted us to give them an ETA in Canada, so I tell them we are 8 minutes out. We also had to open and close flight plans all the way through Canada. Actually the flight planning wasn't too bad because once the Canadian Flight Service folks had our basic information it was just a matter of projecting our basic itinerary along the way. Because we were flying a helicopter we usually came straight in to these remote Canadian airfields and normally hooked around for a landing into the wind. What was peculiar about Canada was some of their terminology, for instance, they called patterns, circuits. And being inside the airspace of a towered or uncontrolled airfield was called the “zone”. I was confused by this a couple of times when dealing with the towers in Canada. “Helicopter 507; let us know when you’re outside the zone”. What? We put two and two together and figured that one out eventually. Williams Lake was howling when we arrived. I remember making a left turn into the wind which was something like 25 knots gusting 28 or so. We spotted the pumps and I slowly brought the R22 up to the pumps pointed into the wind nice and slow. I feel the ground, lower the collective all the way and shut down. It's kind of gray and the wind is whipping. It's about 3:40pm Canadian time. Another 2 hour leg behind us and I'm glad as always to get out and stretch, walk around and stretch some more.
One of the advantages of traveling north was the amount of daylight we were gaining, the days were getting longer. I believe at this point in our journey it stayed light out until around 10pm. We refueled ourselves at the self service pumps, took care of the flight planning and we are ready to move on to Prince George. I carefully pick her up; the winds are still howling at 25 knots or so and I take off into the wind. I had to maneuver between another fairly large commuter plane and a Bell Helicopter before getting some altitude and turning north along Highway 97. With the tail winds at 25 to 30 knots we are moving along at a pretty good clip. I believe we were averaging 110 knots ground speed most of the way into Prince George. As we neared Prince George the winds started dying down and were almost nonexistent when we arrived Prince George Airport at 5:30pm. We haven't eaten much all day except for our continental breakfast in Wenatchee, so we decide to eat here at the terminal which I might add made a pretty good burger and fries. I normally eat pretty healthy but on the road hamburgers sure sounded good to me. It was also a challenge to stay hydrated; I drank water but tried to time it so we wouldn't have to constantly put the helicopter down for a pee break. There were a few times along the way I had no choice and put her down on a river bank or small little airport somewhere so I could take a leak, either that or explode.
Prince George
We parked near these Canadair CL-215s known as the "Scooper" Prince George B.C. Canada
We parked near these Canadair CL-215s known as the "Scooper" Prince George B.C. Canada
The weather is starting to look pretty nice after dinner, the sun is out and it's fairly calm out, it's a beautiful evening. I felt pretty good after having a nice break and a good meal. I'm on one hell of an adventure; life can't get much better than this. Our helicopter is full of fuel and we're ready to go again. We were ready to do one more leg to Fort St. John, north, north east from our present location. We had an old GPS unit in the R22 we were using, they didn't change out the avionics during the rebuild. I flew and Corey kept track of where we were on the charts, that's how we navigated most of the time. I brought my Garmin 296 GPS unit as back up, but we never used it. This evening we headed straight for Fort St. John. It was severe clear and calm so we slowly climb out and gain some altitude. We flew straight through the mountains. It was such a calm evening. After all the turbulence we had put up with the last couple of days having calm air really felt good and appreciated. I flew as direct as possible to Fort St. John only changing course to line up with the saddles between the peaks. I love this kind of mountain flying among the peaks, flying like eagles. When the weather is good, you can't beat it. This one leg stands out as one of the best on the trip. As we head further north and get closer to Fort St. John the skies are looking gray, there's a definite weather system out there on the horizon. It's true what they say; we were definitely in the calm before the storm. Eventually we worked our way out of the mountains and into terrain that becomes slow rolling hills. Within 10 miles of Fort St. John I get on the radio and tell them we are 10 miles out with an ETA of 8 minutes. I hear another helicopter coming in also. When they talk I can hear a definite turbine in the back ground. We come in almost at the same time; they are coming from the southeast and we came in from the south. It turns out to be an MD500, we both land at the ramp area in front of the terminal. I can't quite see who they are but it's apparent they are there for the night also. It's too late to get fuel, it's about 9pm and everyone has gone home for the evening. I keep looking over at the MD500, I can't help it, it's such a sexy machine. It's my dream to fly one someday. I've read a lot about these machines especially how they were used in Vietnam. This particular one had a stretch nose and kind of pointed as opposed to the typical round nose. What a cool machine! Very similar to the photo here, colors and all.
MD 500E
So here we are at Fort St. John and it's somewhere around 9:30pm Canadian time. The terminal is closed and there’s not a soul in sight. My AOPA data base doesn't do us much good here at Fort St. John. There are a few Canadian towns in the data base but they are only the biggest towns and the info isn't that great. I decided to call my wife, Mary, so she could get on the computer and find us a hotel. I hung up with her while she takes care of this. I dug through my back pack looking for a little snack and find a peanut bar to eat. I sit on the bench in front of the terminal, the sun is still up and it feels half way warm. I felt pleasantly tired, calm, and satisfied. I contemplated the days events and what we just went through; we flew 7.8 hours and accomplished a hell of a lot. There were a couple of fumbles, but it was a learning experience, you live and learn. I also think I'm building some endurance to the seats in the R22. I'm sore but not quite as bad as the last couple of days. My cell rings, it's Mary, she found us a hotel and a cab was on the way. Thanks Hon, excellent job! When we get to the hotel it's not half bad. The only thing I wanted to do was take a shower and hit the sack. After kicking back for the night the phone rings, it's the front desk, they said a Jon Combs is here. What? Jon and I trained together with Alyeska Helicopters in Birchwood, Alaska; I'm still training there working on my CFI rating. Jon is a commercial fixed wing pilot who's also flying helicopters and the last I heard he was working out of Delta Junction, Alaska. As it turn’s out he's the one flying that MD500 that landed at the same time with us here in Fort St. John. He was with another guy named Floyd, who flew these 500s and Apaches with the Army. What a great surprise! I found out Jon and Floyd were taking the 500 back to Delta Junction, Alaska where Jon still works. They had started their day in Salmon, Idaho. It turned out we would be traveling somewhat together along the same route for the next couple of days. It's a small world sometimes...
Hobbs schedule for the day:
Pangborn Memorial Airport, Wenatchee, WA (KEAT) - Oroville - Dorothy Scott Airport, WA (0S7) 1.5 hours
Oroville - Dorothy Scott Airport, WA (0S7) - Kelowna Airport, BC, Canada (CYLW) 1.0 hours
Kelowna Airport, BC, Canada (CYLW) - Williams Lake Airport, BC, Canada (CYWL) 2.0 hours
Williams Lake Airport, BC, Canada (CYWL) - Prince George Airport, BC, Canada (CYXS) 1.3 hours
Prince George Airport, BC, Canada (CYXS) - Fort St. John Airport, BC, Canada (CYXJ) 2.0 hours
Total 7.8 hours 587 NM's
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