Category: Aviation

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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There’s money in the air

There was an interesting bird at the Whitehorse airport yesterday that may well be the start of serious money funnelling through this town. C-GIPI is a 1980 Dehavilland DHC-7-102 (commonly known as a Dash 7) conducting geotechnical surveys. My guess, due to the size of the aircraft, is that...
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Comfort shouldn’t be optional when flying

All of you who travel by air know that the level of service on all airlines is getting lower and lower as they try to cut costs to stay competitive. That’s particularly true this year with skyrocketing (pun intended) fuel costs. One of the things that’s missing on most...
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