Harv's Air - Across Canada Summer Project 2002

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Introduction

I would like to share a wonderful experience that I just had in the month of June 2002.  I am a private pilot who desires to obtain a commercial licence by the end of October 2002.  I was at a stage where I needed to get more flying time to get closer to 150 hours.  Before I started any training, I had seen that pilots needs to build-up time at a certain period in their training.  I was thinking of doing a big trip across Canada.  This is what I finally did when I got to that stage.  I planned a long trip that would last approximately three weeks.

I want to share my experience so that other young pilots can learn from my mistakes.   When I hear about a plane crash, I usually try to find the cause of the accident, so I don't do the same mistakes.  Unfortunately, so often pilots die and the only heritage they leave to other pilots is only a simple advice to prevent other pilots to do the same error he or she did.

I did many mistakes and I learned a lot from them.  I'm glad they were not too important.  Did you know that a lot of small mistakes can lead to a big fatal one if every single one is not corrected ?  Usually, plane crashes caused by pilot errors are a series of small mistakes that has never been corrected and it finally led to an accident.  Of course, pilot decision making is the big factor which is linked to those mistakes.  Every mistakes needs to be corrected.
 

The Pilot-In-Command

My name is Jerome Audet.  I was born on October 13th 1981 and I did my first flight for my private course on September 10th, 2001.  I will forever remember when I started training !  Pretty bad news the next day in the aviation industry.  Four months later, I got my private on January 3rd.  I was training at Harv's Air Service in Steinbach, Manitoba.  I wanted to come back in Quebec to complete my night rating, build-up time and then do my commercial to a school-charter company close to Lac-Etchemin, Québec.  But things didn't work out fine.  I only had time to fly six hours in four months.  I decided to take a month off and go back to Steinbach to get my night rating and I also planned to rent an airplane to build-up time to get my commercial licence as soon as possible.
 

The Trip
 

Sunday, June 2nd
Steinbach, MB - Ignace, ON - Marathon, ON - Val d'Or, QC
(761 NM, 9.0 hrs)

At around 8h00 in the morning, I was doing a walk around on C-GDJO, a Cessna 172.   I did not have a good sleep because I was quite excited for that trip.  It was a weird feeling to put my suitcases, sleeping bag in the back compartment of the plane for the first time.  It was like a car, but actually it was a plane.  The take off was good.  It was a nice day and I had very good flying conditions.

Lesson 1 : Trust your instruments

You won't hear it too often : Trust your instruments !  This is a lesson that I learned in the first hour of my flight.  Here is what happened.

I had my VOR tuned and my GPS set for Ignace Municipal Airport (It just happens that the Sioux Narrows VOR is right in between Steinbach (South) airport and Ignace, ON.

Whitemouth Lake was twelve miles to my right, and Hwy 1 about eight miles to my left.  I was leveled at 7500 feet, so I was able to see those two reference points.  The scenery looked ugly : swamp everywhere and a few dirt roads, which are not all drawn on the map.  I was always looking outside and was not watching my heading indicator very often.

Take a look at the picture to see what I did.  My intended path is the bold line.  The red dots is the mistake I did.  You can see Whitemouth Lake to the right and Highway 1 to the left.

Now, to understand this picture, you've got to realize that I was thinking I was flying the bold line, not knowing I was flying the red dots path.

If you look at line B1, I thought I was actually looking as line B :  Both lines at 90 degrees to my right tells me that I am at the end of the lake.  I could see the lake, but I was too far from the lake to see its angle.  And if you look at line C and line C1,  lets suppose I was looking at the same angle as I was supposed in line C, both tells me I am passed the lake.  I remember I could see my VOR and GPS indicating : « Turn to your right boy ! »

Suddenly, right in front of me, I could see a big highway.  Still thinking I was going east, to me it seemed like this highway was going north-south.  Looking at my map, I could not see any big highway going straight south, but there was Hwy 1 going west-east.  Then I had to admit I was lost.  I looked at my heading indicator.  It was showing a big « N » over the arrow.  I looked again at the VOR; the needle was completly to the right, and the GPS' arrow was pointing to the right !...  I can't decribed how dumb I felt.  I felt a little bit discouraged, but I quickly had to forget about it.  It was resolved !  Than I did a 100 degree turn to my right to track my radial back.  I lost about fifteen minutes.

Here is what I could have done to avoid this mistake.
- Look around and not only to my right, which I mostly did.  I would have noticed the highway a lot before.
- Look more at my instruments, especially flying in this area where there is a very few check points.
- Not only look, but obey my instruments.
- Not only refer to a point which is far.

I was supposed to stop in Marathon and take a motel, but the weather was so nice that I decided to continue until Val d'Or. Lakes and trees, that's all I could see.  You just wish your engine will not fail.  Here is another advice : Fly at high altitudes.  If something happens, you can glide longer distances, it gives you time and range to make mayday calls, and also to get a suitable field to land safe.

Lesson 2 : Don't fly too much !

On the last part of the flight, I flew three hours and a half, non-stop.  I would not recommand to young pilots to fly that much, but rather to plan a short stop every two hours.  It gives you the opportunity to visit other airports, to stretch, go to the restroom, eat, etc.  At the end of the day, I had eight hours of air time.  And because I had not slept a lot the night before, I was dead that night !!
 

Monday, June 3rd
Val d'Or, QC - La Tuque, QC - Quebec City, QC - Lac-Etchemin, QC
(358 NM, 5.2 hrs)

It was another beautiful day !  Actually, there was a high pressure system moving south-east and I was following this.  That kind of system usually brings very good flying conditions.  I could not ask for more.  I was still flying high so that I could get the smoothest conditions and the best view.

After two hours flying, I stoped in La Tuque, and after another 45 minute flight, I landed in Quebec City.  It was the place I was expecting to see for a long time.  I had always been around Quebec City all my life and I had never seen it from above.  Oh, it was very nice !  It was an awesome feeling to land at this airport; first time solo in a class D airspace in my native language.

But it was not the end of the flight though.  My destination was finally HOME !  After a 30 minute flight, I could see the town where I was born.  Once I got closer to the aerodrome, I flew 500 feet over the circuit altitude to look at the wind sock.  Wind sock ??  I was so disappointed !  It looked like an abandoned aerodrome; gravel and grass runway (that's fine !), but the wind sock is just an orange rag...  It is still listed in the CFS.  But the thing is that it indicated me the wrong wind direction.
 

Lesson 3 : Don't forget to close your flight plan !

That day, I learned to not forget to close my flight plan.  When I landed in my home town, my family and my uncle's were waiting for me.  I was very excited to see them.  I knew I needed fuel, so I invited my sister and my cousin to come with me to get some at the nearest airport, 20 minutes flying.

My flight plan is still open.  I had fill my ETA at 18:05 in Lac-Etchemin.  I shut down the airplane in St-Frédéric at 19:02.

(Surprise !  The plane is back to its original place !  M. Grondin, president of Grondair, tells me that C-GDJO has been bought new in 1980 by Grondair in St-Frédéric, QC.)

So at 19:05, NavCanada never got news of C-GDJO, which was supposed to be parked in Lac-Etchemin.  But there I was at 19:05, waiting to get fuel in St-Frédéric.  I did not give any phone numbers to NavCanada to get a holed of me.  Finally, NavCanada called in St-Frédéric at 19:25.  They said : « Were you not supposed to be in Lac-Etchemin ?  We sent the Police at the aerodrome in Lac-Etchemin to see if you were there, we also gave a call to SAR in Trenton, etc. »  It was the worst part of my entire trip.  What a bad feeling !
 

Tuesday, June 4th
Lac-Etchemin, QC - Summerside, PEI - Iles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
(399 NM, 4.3 hrs)  Tour : 17 NM, 0.4 hr

It was another beautiful day.  I had not prepared anything the night before, so it took me a while to plan the trip.  I brought two passengers that day.  A good old friend of mine who likes to spend his vacation at the Islands, Robert Belle-Isle and another dear friend who knows 1/4 of the people on the Islands, Jean-Loïc Trudeau. It takes a day and a half to drive to the Islands from where I live.  The ferry boat itself takes five to six hours to get to the Islands from PEI.  But it takes four and a half hour to fly there with a Cessna 172.  It is cheaper to fly than to drive.

To get there, I had to fly over the state of Maine.  I called Boston Center to get a transponder code to be radar identified all the way over the United States.  Mountains, lakes and forest is what we could see.  We flew directly to Summerside, PEI.  Once we got there, I wanted to fill up the plane, so that I had enough fuel to fly back to PEI after my journey at the Islands.  The hick is that you need a Irving credit card to get fuel !...  A regular credit card doesn't even work !  I knew Irving was very popular in the east, but not at this point !!

Anyway, I knew we had enough fuel to get to the Islands, so I told my friends that we would get fuel once we get to our final destination.

So we jumped in the plane and flew approximately forty minutes over the Atlantic ocean to get to the Islands (47 miles coast-to-coast).  When we were flying over the water, I always had a life jacket on.  Once again, I was flying high just to take precautions.  Jean-Loic was so impressed to see the Islands that quick, only five hours after we left Lac-Etchemin.
 

The scenery was so beautiful and it is the best one I ever seen in my whole trip !...

Lesson 4 : Make sure you get and read all the NOTAMS that concerns your trip.

We landed at the Iles-de-la-Madeleine.  I asked the lady in the tower where I could park to get fuel.  She answered me back : « You didn't get the Notam saying there is no 100LL fuel available at the airport ? »  DUH !  I had fourteen gallons left and the closest airport is on the other shore, an hour and a half flight.  I had enough to fly there with no luggage and myself only, but maybe I would have arrived in Charlottetown with three or four gallons left.
 

Wednesday, June 5th
(Tour : 49 NM, 0.9 hr)

Finally, there was some available in a 45-gallon baril, twenty minutes away from the airport.  The guy only sells the baril.  He doesn't carry it to the airport.  I was glad I had Jean-Loic who knew a guy there to host us.  We stayed at Yves Monnier's house for two days.  Totally free !... My two friends and Yves helped me to fill the plane with a pump, two red jugs and a funnel with a filter.  Neat anf funny experience !  I really appreciated their help, so I gave them plane rides around the Islands.
 

Thursday, June 6th
(Tour : 56 NM, 1.1 hr)

We drove on the Islands, taking different pictures of the beautiful scenery.  Very nice !

Aerial view of the miles of beach at the Islands.

The Magdelina Islands are very hilly.

By the shore of the Atlantic Ocean.
 

Friday, June 7th
Iles-de-la-Madeleine, QC - Charlottetown, PEI - Lac-Etchemin, QC
(415 NM, 5.4 hrs)

We left at 11:00 in a beautiful sky.  I tried to climb up to 8500 feet, but it was hard with a full loaded plane to get that high.  I climbed over the Islands and I headed to Charlottetown.  We stoped there to make a short visit of the city.  It is a very nice place to walk !  Didn't get any pictures, my camera was not working !

After a three hour flight, we finally landed at the `'abandoned'' aerodrome in Lac-Etchemin.  This time, I closed my flight plan !  Very good flight !  I had an awesome co-pilot who was holding the map and kept me in the right track !...  I used my GPS only to know how much time I would get to my final destination.  Thanks Bob and Loic for your company.
 

Saturday, June 8th
Lac-Etchemin, QC - St-Frédéric, QC - Quebec City, QC - Lac-Etchemin, QC
(93 NM, 1.9 hr)

On that day, I brought my brother, my dad and a little 12-year-old kid for a flight over Quebec City.  With the St-Laurent's river, the Orleans Island and the Laurentides Mountains, Quebec City is a very pretty town to fly over.

It was my dad's first time in a small plane.  He really enjoyed it and told he was proud of me !  It is no cost to have your parents approuval in a big and costly investment !
 
 
 
 

Sunday, June 9th

That day, the ceiling was low.  I could not take off.  My flight to Valcourt was cancelled.  I don't know if it is the time zone, but I was very tired so I slept almost all day.  I was not in good shape to fly at all !
 

Monday, June 10th
Lac-Etchemin, QC - St-Frédéric, QC - Mont-Laurier, QC - Val d'Or, QC
(342 NM, 4.6 hrs)

The sun was shining and the clouds never showed up.  Nothing special happened on that flight.  I learned a lot from my errors and I am trying not to repeat them.  The only special thing that occured that day is another airplane that was reporting fifteen miles to the south of Mont-Laurier and he was heading to the same airport I was going to.   I was twelve miles to the east.  His indent was DSO (I think) and I was DJO.  We had to be carefull !

I landed safe in Val D'or and there I stayed at an old couple's place.  They are a part of the big christian family, and they hosted me for two nights due to bad weather.  No cost and treated like a king !
 

Tuesday, June 11th

Bad weather !... I visited around.
 

Wednesday, June 12th
Val d'Or, QC - Timmins, ON - Marathon, ON - Thunder Bay, ON
(473 NM, 5.3 hrs)

That day, I took off at around 10 o'clock in the morning.  Another beautiful day to fly.  I also got to learn something else.

Lesson 5 : Make sure you let the controller know early enough when you will enter a controlled airspace.

I was heading to Timmins, a class E airspace.  I called Timmins radio only 5 minutes prior landing.  The guy told me on the radio I did not respect the requirement.  You don't feel confortable when you get a warning on the frequency.  Anyway, it was not a major error, but it is a lot better to advise the person in the tower ten or fifteen minutes before you plan to land.

Then I arrived in Marathon.  What I don't like about that place is that it is so windy !  The mountains around the airport makes it very turbulent in the circuit.  I landed smoothly in 90 degree, gusting to 15 knots, crosswind.  I noticed there that I had improved my landings. Marathon has a nice 24h self-serve fuel system though which is very handy !

From there, I decided to fly to Thunder Bay to get closer to the low pressure system that was over Manitoba and western Ontario.  That night, in my motel room, I watched the weather channel quite often.
 

Thursday, June 12th

The ceiling was very very low !  I'm stucked in Thunder Bay.  I never watched the weather channel that much to look at the radar screen and to find if there was any blank spot to get closer to Manitoba.  I took the bus and spent the whole day at the airport, looking at big jets, dreaming, visiting the flight service station for updated briefings.  No changes.  It still moving very slow towards the east.  I took the bus to get another motel room.  Once again, I watched the weather channel ... and the Stanley Cup final game.
 

Friday, June 13th
Thunder Bay, ON - Atikokan, ON - Steinbach, MB
(303 NM, 3.8hrs)

I woke up early that morning and I took off at around 8:30 heading to Atikokan.  Once more, I had very good flying conditions.  No turbulence at all.  Arriving to Atitkokan, the town has scattered clouds over at 700 to 1000 AGL.  It is hard to find the runway, so I kind of used the GPS to locate the aerodrome.  I finally found it and landed for 30 minutes. 

Then from there, I continued to Steinbach.  On that part of the trip, I mostly used the VOR and the GPS.  Reference points are only lakes and a few towers every 50 miles. To find your position on the map, you look at the form of the lakes.  It is a good way to improve your skills to find details on the map to confirm your position in case of an instrument failiure.

Finally, I can see Steinbach and a few towns around flooded by the heavy rain that caused me to stay two nights in Thunder Bay.  Adam and the crew of the flight school are very happy to see their plane back in good condition... and their student too !  ... Of course !
 

Saturday, June 14th
Steinbach, MB - Kamsack, SK - Birch Hills, SK
(389 NM, 5.6 hrs)

The trip is not done.  The sky is partly cloudy with high cumulus.  I brought a friend with me that wanted to go to Edmonton. We took off in the afternoon at around 14h00.  As I was just about to turn to the enroute frequecy, I heard : « GDJO it seems that the journey log is still here ! » I was so used to have it with me all the time, that I still thought I had it with me.

That afternoon, we flew in very turbulent weather.  I could only fly under the clouds because they were too high.  Cumulus clouds look nice from the ground, but it is pretty bad to fly under them.  By the way, in my trip, I learned a lot about weather.

Nothing special happened that day, except a sick passenger and a lonely airport in Kamsack.
 

Sunday, June 15th
Birch Hills, SK - Lloydminster, AB - Edmonton City Center, AB
(292 NM, 3.8 hrs)

It was a nice sunday morning with stratus clouds to the west.  They had forecasted thunderstorms in the afternoon over Edmonton.  I wanted to leave Birch Hills in the afternoon to meet new friends in the morning, but I didn't plan to be stucked in Birch Hills for a couple days.  So we took off at 10h00.  We had a good tail wind when we were flying low, so we flew low.

On our way to Lloydminster, we met another Cessna 172 flying to the opposite direction.  It passed a 1000 feet right over us.  Seeing that, I understood the importance of the requirements to fly at specific altitude to avoid collisions.  If we would have been both at the same altitude, we would have hit for sure if there was no lookout.

We landed at 14h00 at the Edmonton City Center Airport.  The towering cumulus were beginning to form and getting bigger, transforming into CBs, and finally get the  thunderstorms they had forecasted.
 

Monday, June 16th

My sister was already in Edmonton.  She had taken a commercial flight from Montreal to Edmonton while I was flying in the east.  She rented a car for the week.  We went for a drive to the rockies.  We drove into Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise and up to the borders of British Columbia.  We drove back the same day to Edmonton. It was a total of over 1100 kilometers in one day.

My sister and I at Lake Louise.

Beautiful scenery of the rockies.

It was a rainy day.  I was staying at my friends house.  They were forecasting a clearance of clouds at around 16h00.  We spent the afternoon inside at the West Edmonton Mall.  The evening came and it was a beautiful evening with no clouds and no winds.  I did three plane rides over the city of Edmonton to a few friends that had asked me if I could give them a ride.  They really enjoyed it.

That night, I landed at the Edmonton International Airport.  It was kind of neat to land there.  They have two big runways that are over 10 000 feet long.

Wednesday, June 18th
Edmonton International, AB - Lloydminster, AB - Birch Hills, SK
(294 NM, 3.5 hrs)

We woke up early that morning.  I wanted to avoid convection turbulence because I was bringing my sister back to Winnipeg with me.  For about an hour, we had light turbulence.  And for the last 30 minutes, a few light rain showers and low ceiling, but nothing alarming.

Arriving in Birch Hills, my sister and I walked into town, bought some food at the grocery store and we had a picnic by the curl-o-drome, waiting for our friends to come back to their home.  We had lots of fun.  Finally, we went to visit other friends and we stayed at their place for the night.

Thursday, June 19th
Birch Hills, SK - Yorkton, SK - Steinbach, MB
(396 NM, 4.1 hrs)

Last day !...  That morning, we woke up at around 5h00.  Nice looking day with a strong tail wind of at least 30 knots.  We had ground speeds between 125 knots up to 133 knots, if I remember well.  It took me 3.5 of air time to fly back to Steinbach.  When I flew from Steinbach to Birch Hills, it took 5.0 of air time.  It is quite a big difference !  It was a nice day to finish a long trip !
 

It was a great feeling to accomplish something I had spent a lot of time to plan.  Make projects is good, to realize them is better, and when everything works fine, it is a great satisfaction.  This trip has been a great satisfaction to me and it has been a great help for me.  I have learned a lot by doing it.  For pilots who have their private licence and need hours to build up time, I encourage them to make a long cross-country trip.  Flying your friends around might be helpful to pay your course, but you will never have real experiences.

I want to thank Harv's Air Service for their trust they had towards me to let me use their Cessna C-172. GDJO is a 1980 airplane, but looks like a new one because paint and interior were made in 2001.  Thanks Harv, Bettie and Adam Penner.

I also want to thank every single person that contributed for lodging me during my trip.  I really appreciated your hospitality.  May God bless you !

Happy landings to you all and good luck with your cross-country trip !
 

Grand Total
56.9 hrs x-country
4515 NM

Including the tours.
60.8 hrs
4727 NM

Contact Harv's Air Flight School

Harv's Air Service
Steinbach South Airport
Box 1056,
Steinbach
Manitoba
CANADA
R0A 2A0

Ph: 204 326 2434
Fx: 204 326 4182

Toll free in Manitoba
(800) HARV-AIR
E-Mail adam@harvsair.com
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