Invermere

I had the opertunity to fly a friend from Dawson Creek to Invermere BC. The flight took 3 hrs. from Dawson Creek to Invermere and 5.1 hrs. from Invermere to Dawson Creek. As you can tell tale winds are far better than head winds. Invermere is a pretty town nestled in the British Columbia Mountains. Invermere is located near Radium Hot Springs and Banff and about 50 miles south west from Calgary Alberta.

There is a vast change of scenery between Dawson Creek and Invermere. I will let the following pictures speak for themselves. You can enlarge the pictures by left clicking on them.

You may have to enlarge the photo to see the Dawson Creek landing strip that welcomed me home.

This is my view coming in for a landing in Dawson Creek B.C. It's a great veiw but visability isn't great with the setting sun in they eyes.

Dawson Local

Dawson Creek on June 14 2009 and look! No snow to be found and it's GREEN!!

City of Dawson Creek B.C. Located in central B.C. ( central north and south)

We are currently building a new home. The foundation is poured. Our lot is centered on the block, second street from the top not including the back alley. You can see the layout of the house and garage in white insulated foam forms. View is taken from the South side.
You may have to click on the pictures to enlarge them in order to find our future home.

This is taken from the north East corner. The lot is right on the edge of the wing. It is very hard to take a picture of a lot when your camera has a delay and you are traveling 180 km. per hour.

This is taken from the North.

Once again from the south.

This was taken several miles west of Dawson Creek. The city has a population of approximately 13,000 people.

This picture is of a friends home on 160 acres just up from the street. I did a few simulated emergency approches to his field.

An interesting formation of land just West of Dawson Creek. I believe this is Kiskatnaw river. ( I'm sure that's spelled wrong but i'm too lazy to look it up. )

Same Area

And another

Ok! I over did that one!

Some of the foundations are being errected for the wind turbines on Bear Mountain.

Sorry about the quality of this picture. More of the wind turbine bases.

This was taken a few miles west of Dawson Creek. Population is aproximately 13000 people. Well that may be streaching it a bit.

Dawson Creek's airport's runnway runs parallel with the city's sewer lagoon. You can land on the lagoon if you have floats. :-)

Well it's now 9:30 pm and my baby is put away till next time. It was a GREAT evening for a flight and i enjoyed it imensly. As you can see there is plenty of daylight left. This day sun rise is at 416am and sun set is at 9:47. This day has 17hrs, 31 min., and 22 seconds of daylight.

Edmonton Alberta

My daughter, Andrea, lives in Edmonton and desired to visit us for awhile so I flew to Edmonton to pick her up and took her back home. It is a 2.5 to 3 hr. flight one way between Edmonton and Dawson Creek B.C.. Andrea is an aspiring photographer and took these pictures. This picture is of the west end of Edmonton. This flight was taken on April 30th.

This is one of many small lakes between Dawson Creek and Edmonton. The snow is gone from the land but not cleared from the lakes yet.

This picture is taken approximately 50 miles East of Grand Prairie Alberta. Each clearing that you see is an oil or gas well site. The roads that tie each site to the other is one of the neatest overall sites i have ever seen. Just glancing down one could easily see 100 well sites.

I'm not to sure where this one was taken. I'm thinking somewhere near Sexsmith Alberta.

This picture is taken on the West outskirts of Edmonton. For the return flight to Edmonton the weather briefing included some shower activity on rout as well as some towering cumulus clouds and low ceilings. Fluffy cumulus began to form shortly after departure and I fought the desire to climb through the holes and fly atop the clouds as the cloud layer was quite shallow, 7000' to 8500', and the flight would be much smoother above. However Andrea enjoys being tossed about a bit and experience has taught me to trust the weather briefings. It was a good thing too as the cumulus cloud slowly changed to cirrus cloud with a solid ceiling in Edmonton of 4000'. I would have been stuck above cloud in a controlled zone. Not good! So we landed, had coffee with her and her boyfriend, Cory, and had an uneventful flight home.

JET Performance with 150 hp. Fixed Prop.

On a good day, near sea level, my aircraft can climb at a rate of about 700' per min. A small jet has the ability to climb approximately 2,000 ' per min. Which brings me to my story.It was on one of my flights from Dawson Creek B.C. to Abbotsford B.C. 45 min. into the flight one needs to cross the Rockies. Cloud often surround the mountain tops making it hard to get over the ridge in a small plane such as mine. I calculated that I would reach 10,000' above sea level if i were to climb about 200' per min. on my first leg. When we arrived at the mountain base we had only climbed to 9,500' and indeed there were thick cumulus cloud hanging over the mountain peaks. I began to climb over, under, and around the cumulus cloud struggling against the wind currents to get high enough to get over the highest ridge of cloud. I estimated that i would need to climb to at least 11,000' to get over. We were traveling south with a south west head wind. At times our speed dropped to 70 mile per hour with a nose up attitude, stall buzzer buzzing, and the altimeter indicating an altitude loss of 200' per min. Often changing direction to head directly into the wind for added lift i would drop the nose to avoid stalling the aircraft until we escaped the down draft and could once again climb. At this altitude I consider a very good rate of climb to be 200'per min. Sometimes, if you manage to hit an updraft, i can reach climbs of 500' per min. I clearly remember the sigh of relief as I reached 11,200' as I cleared the back side of the highest cloud peak and could correct my flight path for my destination. It is a pilots instinct to keep his aircraft level and I felt myself applying more and more pressure to the stick to keep her level. Glancing down at my altimeter I remember seeing it just spinning like i have never seen it spin before. Glancing at my rate of climb indicator showed us climbing, with a level attitude, at 2,400' per min. In a matter of seconds we went from 11,200' elevation to 13'400'. This presented two concerns: 1/ Elevations exceeding 13000 ft. require either pressurization or oxygen. I had neither. 2/ The airspace I was flying in became a controlled airspace over 13000' and required clearance before entering. So I pulled back the throttle and lowered the nose, with great pressure, and managed to get back to below 13,000'. I then trimmed the aircraft for a cruse with a 200' per min. decent which would give me an easy, efficient, cruse and would reach the next mountain ridge at 10000' well above the highest peak. For a few seconds I knew what it would be like to fly a jet. Sure would be Nice!!

Favorite Pictures of 2008

As I was looking over a few of the pictures i've taken in the past year I thought I might make a random post of some of my favorite pictures. You can enlarge pictures by clicking on them if you wish to see more detail.

This house is across the road from where we live. Frost has replaced the leaves on these trees.

We look down on the old grainery which now houses Dawson Creek's museum.


I love flying near the puffy whites.



Night flying adds a whole new dimention to your views.

One of my puzles were made from this picture.

Dawson Creek sunset taken from my patio.

This was taken rear Bennett dam.

Bennett dam power station.

Bennett dam

My baby sitting at Dawson Creek airport.

Looking down on the town of Hudsons Hope. Population: 1000

A couple of moose making a run for it. This was taken approx. 4 miles north of Dawson Creek.

Bennett Dam agian.

Peace River near Hudsons Hope.

9:30 am sunrise in Dawson Creek.

Rocky Mountain range.

More rockies.

Can always use more cloud pics.

The wood frame building is a duplex that I am building. Notice the size compared to the houses around it. Maybe i designed it a little too big for the lot? :-)