Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2015 15:07:07 GMT -5
Well, not a lot of news from me lately, but that's not to say we haven't been very busy. Quite the opposite! Air Caribou is downsizing and maximizing its assets. All the larger airplanes we had are gone, and we've picked up some smaller ones and opened a couple of new hubs in the process. We are considering whether we'll keep the NW Ontario bases going but they aren't as busy as they once were many years back. Our western and Alaskan bases have been sold along with the equipment there. We're going big guns on our Elliot Lake base, and have added a fairly major hub at Parry Sound. In addition we have started a very small ops out of Killarney, Ontario, which will operate only at peak times. Those really are from the May 24 weekend to Thanksgiving (this weekend here in Canuckland). The Parry Sound base will do both seaplane and landplane charters, similar to Elliot Lake. Given it's positioning we anticipate it will be fairly busy. The aircraft we have added are a Cessna 206 (turbocharged), Cessna 210 (turbocharged), another 185 and a Navajo. I anticipate we'll need another light twin or higher end single but we'll wait and see how business is. One 185 will be shared between Parry Sound and Killarney, depending on business. Parry Sound is a pretty busy place now and we expect we'll see a lot of charters for both the wheeled and float equipped aircraft. Killarney will see almost all seaplane work, although we've already done several charters to/from the airport there, which was a bit of a surprise. We'll serve Killarney Provincial Park in part, running canoeists to remote lakes so they can paddle back to the main terminus at George Lake. Beyond that though, this is Rainbow Country and there was even a (RW) TV show called Rainbow Country, which featured a 1969 Cessna 180 back in the early to mid '70's. It's beautiful country and thanks to the truly amazing work of Orbx with their Vector and Global; and now (especially) OpenLC, this place has really come alive. I can very easily recognize places I've paddled and flown into throughout this whole area. For me, the addition of OpenLC has been the best money I've spent in FS probably since its beginnings.
Air Caribou's Cessna 210 Turbo (prior to our logo and name being put on)
Our Elliot Lake base has been very busy as today was "changeover" day. Those hunters that didn't come out during the week with a moose, came out today with Gerry and our new-guy, Bill doing the flying to those camps. I was looking forward to doing some of the flying there this weekend but charters down south and in Killarney have kept me too busy.
Our Navajo over Killarney on a charter from Parry Sound to Elliot Lake
You may notice that we are now using standard paint jobs on our newer (to us) airplanes. Getting these things painted is both expensive and time consuming, and with Air 'Bou scaling back, we just aren't so ready to lay out the cash at this time. We may get some painted down the road but for now (especially given how busy our machines are!) we're just getting the logo and name put on.
Air Caribou's Cessna 210 Turbo (prior to our logo and name being put on)
Our Elliot Lake base has been very busy as today was "changeover" day. Those hunters that didn't come out during the week with a moose, came out today with Gerry and our new-guy, Bill doing the flying to those camps. I was looking forward to doing some of the flying there this weekend but charters down south and in Killarney have kept me too busy.
Our Navajo over Killarney on a charter from Parry Sound to Elliot Lake
You may notice that we are now using standard paint jobs on our newer (to us) airplanes. Getting these things painted is both expensive and time consuming, and with Air 'Bou scaling back, we just aren't so ready to lay out the cash at this time. We may get some painted down the road but for now (especially given how busy our machines are!) we're just getting the logo and name put on.
. There won't be much winter work however, so I'll go wherever we are busiest once the season is over here in Killarney. Today I dropped a couple of canoeists off at Nellie Lake, a long, thin lake at the top of a "mountain" in the La Cloche Range. When you see the hills here, you may laugh at them being referred to as mountains, but at one time the ranges here were as tall as the Himalayas are today! Presently they are made mostly of white Quartzite and are only a few hundred feet high. The Quartzite is the core of the original range, and is actually very impressive to see IRL (they are all white - looks like there is snow on the hills even in July). Nellie Lake is a lake that is pretty neat to fly into, mainly because it is (IRL) so incredibly clear. You can see down almost 75 feet. This isn't a good thing though, because in fact the lake is so clear due to it being totally dead from Acid Rain. It was Nellie and surrounding lakes that started triggering investigations into why so many of the lakes were starting to look like this. This was the very early beginnings into the discovery and study of Acid Rain and served as the very first points that were investigated in what we know now to be a disastrous environmental problem. My trip today involved a very short ferry flight from the base on Georgian Bay just south of the town of Killarney, over to George Lake in the park. There I picked up the 2 canoeists and their gear, putting the canoe on the left float. From there I climbed northbound to 2500 ft for the 10 minute flight to Nellie. After a quick circle of the lake to check for debris, I set down near a point of land at the west end of the lake. The winds were once again quite gusty out of the southwest and the turbulence was considerable on the approach. After dropping my people off, it was a bumpy 15 minute ride back to base. That was it for me today, but I think tomorrow is to be fairly busy here, so stay tuned.
). Nice run in some nice weather, especially for this time of year.
