Category: Aviation

Wildfires – how smoky is my world?

Well, the first photo below was shot on Friday, the one below it was shot from the same location (the Canada Games Centre) an hour ago. The road running from side to side is the Alaska Highway (Alaska is to the left), downtown Whitehorse is ahead and to the...
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Wildfires – our smoky world

Our good luck couldn’t last – I’m amazed that it lasted as long as it did. The negative side to the hot, dry summers I love is that the forests go up in flames. The Yukon, Alaska and British Columbia are all covered in smoke now. Until yesterday, we’d...
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Forest fires and airplanes

Although there have been some worries, the Yukon has been exceptionally lucky this summer – lots of hot, sunny days with few forest fires. Only Dawson has significant fires burning – lightning has, I believe, caused all of them this year. See the Yukon Wildland Fire Management site for...
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CC-177 Globemaster in Whitehorse

After dropping our cat Latimer off at the vet’s this morning, Cathy and I went for breakfast at the airport to calm down. While we were sitting there, a Boeing Globemaster landed – and though I always have my camera with me, today I didn’t. We finished our meal,...
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Russian mega-chopper returns to YXY

Thanks to fellow Whitehorse blogger Meandering Michael, I was at the airport at sunrise today to get some more photos of an Mi-26T helicopter, the largest current-production helicopter in the world. The last time this aircraft was in Whitehorse (the only time, I believe) was in early May 2006,...
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A Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous morning

Even with the snow falling heavily, I figured that there would be some interesting action at the airport, rationalizing that flying in crap like this would be good training for military crews. So, with the snow 6-6½ inches deep on my driveway (measured with a ruler), I pulled Subie...
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Flying with the super-rich

Many of you in Whitehorse will have seen the large private jet that sat at the airport for about 10 days as big-game hunting season began. EC-KJH was a Bombardier BD-700-1A10 Global Express owned by a charter company from Spain. Did you wonder what a bird like that would...
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Hunting season in the Yukon

Fall is a rather exciting time of year in the Yukon. Yes, I do whine about Winter coming, but as long as I don’t think about what comes next it’s great. One of the distinctive signs that it’s hunting season is the number of private jets sitting on the...
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Darn you, Westjet!

I was doing so well after a good day yesterday, then on this cold rainy morning I got an email from Westjet. Among the offerings in their current seat sale is Calgary to Phoenix for $94 one way. With an Air North to Calgary and back for about $440,...
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Aircraft radio scanning – my new interest

A few days ago I was downtown putting gas in Subie when I heard a lot of roaring up at the airport. By the time I got up there, the last of 5 or 6 Firecats had just taken off. I decided that I really need a VHF/UHF scanner...
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