Canadian Pacific Flights

[robjeff]

just landed in penticton, bc. leg 1 of vancouver - calgary flght completed.

just over an hour flight in dc-3. made visual approach to rwy 34.
airport situsted between 2 lakes with mountains on both sides.


picture is from www.cyyf.org


flew route listed in august flight of the month. was wondering if anybody knew when vor navigation became standard navigation method. en.wikipedia.org says they (vor's) became the major radio navigation system in the 1960s, when they took over from the older radio beacon and four-course (low/medium frequency range) system. if this flight is from a 1951 timetable wouldnt they have used the old radio range system.


next stop Castlegar

may all your fights be cavu and all your landings greasers.

rob j
bgas054

[Allan_Lowson]

You're probably right, but --- we set flights up to suit as many folk as possible and therefore try to minimise add-on requirements.

Well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. So don't even start on the likelihood of the airways being in place back then for the Hong Kong flight!

That doesn't mean you can't just ignore the hysterical inaccuracies, load up the radio range and have fun with that.

For the flight to Whitehorse I took a detour to take the flight over a lower route. In fact some of the route is probably following one that is buried in the Bush Division flights by Bill Odell.

There is a delivery flight from Vancouver in there that I remember doing with a Handley Page HP42 to prove to Bill O that it is the ultimate bush plane.

So once you finish the CP flights have a dig through some of the bush division flights in Canada. They were set up to mirror the activities of some of the real bush operators.

[robjeff]

thanx mr. lowson for the reply. i hope i didn't sound nitpicky or anything. i got really interested in aviation in late sixties and started taking lessons in 1973. by that time vor nav was standard. some of the "old geysers" (50 is old to a 18 year old) who flew in the war (wwII) talked about flying the radio range.
just something that went thru my head while cruising on autopilot.

sunday i flew from penticton bc to castlegar bc. warning if you don't care for mountain flying stay out of southern bc.

on departure from penticton plan on crossing yf and umt ndb's before turning east. also be aware of a mountain between the qs range and yk ndb on arrival to cycg from north. yk ndb is in close proximity to airport. since i had no official approach plate i had to use the rr4 station data that came with the radio range. indicates crossing yk at 5900 and circling at 5400. good luck on getting it down.

may all your flights be cavu and all your landings greasers

rob j
bgas054

[Bob BGAN005]

Allan,
Please keep up the good work. I like the features you do. I have enough knowledge about FS that I can vary the era if I want to. I can also very the flights. I am a month behind so I just finished NY to Miami. FS ATC did not start my decent to Miami in time. I had to do a missed approach and FS ATC routed me to the WEST side of FL before bringing me back to Miami! I have not used FX that much yet but I hope they have corrected the ATC and flight planning in it.
FS Navigator does a lot better job.
Rob,
Do the navigation the way you want.
I have found that there is a variation of the default DC-3 radio that has radio range built in. I am going to test it soon.
Bob

[robjeff]

Allan i second bob's comment on keep up the good work.

i made it to cranbrook. departure from castlegar using rwy 33 is interesting. you could follow the lake as it winds north until you clear the mountains. or do what i did, as soon as airspeed and altitude permitted turn left 155 degrees until the ridge se of the airport starts closing in the turn around and head back towards the yk ndb. do not try this airport at night or if clouds are lower than 5800 msl. glad to get out of the mountains. see you in calgary.

bob, i use fs nav. i usually fly it in fully automatic mode. i find
that sometimes the airspeeds and climb/descent rates don't match up to the power settings that the reference sheet on the kneeboard recomend. also it will fly you into a mountain, so
keep ypur head moving or if ifr know where you are.

may all your flights be cavu and all your landings greasers

rob j
bgas054

[Allan_Lowson]

Rob,

No problem at all, it was my oversight that the panels that I was using when setting up the flights had been "retro-fitted" with modern radios. So I missed that perfectly good point about the dates.

I was also running late in getting the feature finished, but I wanted to get a full mix of aircraft sizes and flight lengths included.

Any comments on the types of feature flights - aircraft sizes/types/stage lengths preferred etc - will always be gratefully received.

[robjeff]

well i made it to calgary.

two comments - does it always rain in canada. last month during the cross canada flight it rained 6 of 7 days. today just north of cranbrook, it started to rain. 42 mi ne thunderboomies everywhere. 1600 broken 2400 overcast in calgary with 5 mles vis. shot the 34 ils and broke out about 2 miles from touchdown.

couple of 8000+ peaks on way in. snow on top of mountains. snow in august - you gotta love it. never seen the rockies xcept in winter when there is supposed to be snow on them.

gotta download the dc-4 for the Vancouver – Prince George – Fort St. John – Whitehorse Route. after this route i know where the term puddle jumper comes from.

happy landings

rob j
bgas054

[Allen Peterson]

Good flight from Vancouver to Prince George. I skipped the Vancouver to Calgary route since I just completed Cross Canada. The first leg of that flight was from Boundary Bay to Calgary.
Keep up the good work Allan.
Allen

[tomb]

Good Morning,
Just completed the Norman Wells to Good Hope flight with the Norsemen which was interesting. With less then 9 nm visibility and clouds at 5,000 it was interesting. Never flew the Norsemen before but find it similar to the Beaver. However the side visibilty is a bit limited.