Flight to Tofino & Vargas Island

Hi Aviators,

This isn't good.

We are planning a trip to Tofino this Saturday Sept.26.  We need to go retrieve the Chinook that has taken residency at CYAZ for 3 weeks now due to a cracked muffler bracket.

CYAZ

We will fly out in the morning to CYAZ, get the Chinook fixed up, and do a quick hop over to Vargas Island to relax for a while and have a picnic lunch before heading home.



Last May's Vargas Fly In

Anyone interested in joining us, send me an e-mail and I'll keep you updated with departure/arrival times. dcbianchi12@gmail.com

WUFI World Ultralight Fly-In

WUFI World Ultralight Fly-In
this sounds like fun great initiative

Middletown Ultra-Cool Flying Contest - Dayton Ultralights

Back to the old day,s of toilet roll drops at king George

looking  for a name for her ,a  new( to us) beaver rx 550 to go on amphibious  floats

Bob and Ron

2015 99's Poker Run

Photo Credit: BC Coast 99's

In all my years of flying, I had never done the famous 99's Poker Run, but I have wanted to participate every year ever since I learned about it, over 10 years ago. Sadly though, every year I couldn't join in on the fun, either due to a lack of aircraft or lack of having the right days off work. 

With great luck, the stars aligned for me this year! The Jodel was healthy and raring to go, and I was organized enough to have booked the day off work. The poker run is an exciting fundraiser put on by the BC Coast 99's. The 99's work tirelessly to encourage young women to follow their dreams of becoming pilots. They raise money to put together scholarships for prospective pilots, as well as encourage the fun and fellowship of flight, and that is where the Poker Run comes in. 

The way you play this interesting game of poker is, you start at any one of the participating airports, Victoria (CYYJ), Nanaimo (CYCD), Squamish (CYSE), Boundary Bay (CZBB), Delta Heritage Air Park (CAK3), Pitt Meadows (CYPK), Abbotsford (CYXX), Langley (CYNJ), and Chilliwack (CYCW) and you fly to four more airports, collecting playing cards to build poker hands and whoever has the best hand at the end of the day wins the top prize. 

Then, in descending order the next best hands gets to pick their prize, and this continues until all the prizes are handed out. It's not as easy as you may think. There are more details to how the game is played. At the beginning of the game you decide how many hands you are going to buy. Either 2 hand for $10.00, or 5 for $20.00 (some planeloads have quite a few hands - Betters their chances to win prizes!). Each hand is given to you as a blank sheet with a grid of boxes that correspond with each playing card value. You fly from one airport to the next and go to a little tent where you pick a card from a bin full of cards all face down, "Go Fish" style. The first card you pick gets recorded on your first hand sheet, and then you pick another card and it gets recorded on your second hand sheet and you keep doing this until all your hands have a card recorded. That way they keep us all honest is by using specially selected stamps at each airport. The stamps have images of animals such as elephants, birds, deer, etc. When you're done at one airport, you fly to the next airport and go through the same process until you have five cards randomly selected for each hand. 

Photo Credit: BC Coast 99's

The morning of the Poker Run also coincided with the Delta Air Park Pancake Breakfast, so David B met me at CAK3 where we had breakfast and discussed our plan of action for the Poker Run. With CAK3 being a participating location, we registered and got our first hands before even moving the Jodel out of the hangar. Yes, the double David's would be doing the Poker Run together in the Jodel.

From CAK3 we took off and made the long trek westward to Boundary Bay Airport. We picked our cards quickly, got our hands stamped, and jumped back in the Jodel; next stop Langley Airport. 

We parked the plane, found the 99's tent, had a wonderful chat with the volunteers there, picked our cards, got stamped, and then blasted off for Abbotsford. Abbotsford was rather busy, but we were able to find parking, did the deed, then headed for Chilliwack. At this stop we decided to have lunch, and pie of course. We were clearly not alone in arranging Chilliwack to be our lunch stop.

The apron was full of airplanes, and the airport restaurant was packed with patrons. Our idea was to then fly right over the mountains to Squamish to say hello to Collette and the gang at Glacier Air, but as we consumed our lunch we realized that time was not on our side and we'd be cutting it close just getting to Pitt Meadows in time for the meet up and prize draws. 

So, sadly we had to scrap our plans of flying to Squamish. Arriving at Pitt Meadows, we finally had time to breath, and to look at the poker hands we had built up. Out of my five hands, I only managed to scrape together one hand with a pair of fours. Otherwise the rest of my hands were a Jack high or worse. David B faired only slightly better. Astonishingly though, some participants had great luck with picking cards and some had put together some amazing hands that would even win against the pros in televised poker tournaments!
 

Photo Credit: BC Coast 99's

 Some of the prizes included an annual inspection at Coast Dog Aviation, introductory ultralight flights at King George Aviation, a BBQ set from Johnston Meier Insurance, one hour in the sim at Classic Aviation, $100 in Avgas, tickets to Vancouver Canadians baseball games, whitewater rafting, instrument and avionics work at Maxcraft Avionics, and underwater egress training at Pro Aviation Safety Training, among other great items. As the winners were being announced there was a BBQ that was a bit of a fundraiser for the Aero club of BC there that many people were enjoying, and David and I would have too, had we not filled ourselves up at Chilliwack Airport less than an hour before.

It was really great getting to meet so many wonderful aviators and continually bump into them as we flew from airport to airport while on the Poker Run. Even though we didn't win anything, we had a fantastic time, and we will absolutely be playing again next year!

Until next time, fly safe and fly smart.

Written by: David McIntosh

Upper Pitt River . Mostly a rock pile like this. Hardly any places with smaller rocks.  Beautiful place but rocky  !!

Stave Lake - crosstraining

Weekend was season opener so I threw my mountain bike and a .22 into the back of the Citabria and headed up to Stave Lake to try my luck peddling the back roads.  Game was scarce but there must be a large elk herd there to make all those tracks on the sandbars.


Took the back seat out and the front wheel off.  Easy fit.

Tools of the trade.  Stave Lake strip seemed more brushed out and smoother than I've seen it for a while.  Lots of logging activity, and the west road services the Northwest Stave River power project.

About 15km from the plane, stopped for some lunch.   Some riverboats make it a little ways up the river and you'll see a few heeled up on the gravelbars, but by here they've petered out.

On the way back I cruised by the Nazi Gold crashed bomber site up behind Widgeon Lake.  Usually you can only see the odd piece sticking out of the snow, but this year it is all out in the open.

Vagabond on 25"x11"4'' Bush Tires. Was lucky to find these !!

Abbotsford Airshow 2015 Fly In

So, I thought I would share my experience what it is like to fly into the largest air show in B.C.

Well, it all began 3 months ago when I got an email from the Abbotsford Airshow organizers asking if I would like to put my aircraft on display again this year.  So after asking my fellow pilot friends if anyone else would be interested, it was decided that yeh, let's do this.

After discussing some logistics we decided that we would ferry the planes to YXX on Thursday evening after the airspace re-opened at 19:20 hours.

The plan now is for James and Stumpy to fly the Rans Coyote, David McIntosh would fly the Renegade Spirit and I'll fly the Titan Tornado.  There was only one problem, David M. had never flown the Renegade before and she had been sitting for a couple of months not being flown.   James and I started to inspect the Renegade to be sure it was airworthy before we let our friend fly it.  What we found was that planes don't like to sit un-flown for periods of time.  After James and I spent many hours changing fuel lines, spark plugs, rectifier and getting the propeller refurbished in Vernon, the Renegade was finally ready for a test flight. 

Phillipe checks out the Renegade

Since David M. had never flown a Renegade before, let alone done a test flight we were able to contact Phillipe (who flys a Renegade on a regular basis) who graciously accepted to test fly our Renegade and get David M. checked out on it.



The Renegade ready for a test flight

The big day came, Phillipe gave the Renegade a thumbs up and David M. was all checked out.  Time to depart to YXX.



Since the Renegade doesn't have a transponder, we planned to escort the Renegade into YXX with the Titan.  Well, one small problem, the Renegade's top cruise speed is approx 60 kts, the Tornado cruises at 93 kts.  After doing several 360 turns so the Renegade could catch up, I discovered that if I lowered my flaps about 5 degrees I could comfortably fly the Tornado at 60 kts and escort him into YXX airspace.

Since the light winds were favoring runway 25 in YXX, I opted to land on 07 but David M. decided he would favor runway 07 so we split up with YXX tower advising us which way to land.  As I was on short final for runway 07 the F22 Raptor and a Mustang flying formation flew right over midfield, now I knew the airshow was on.

Rans Coyote, Renegade & Titan Tornado on Display

After landing and receiving taxi instructions to the static display I was starting to wonder where the marshallers are for the general aviation displays and where should I park.  After waiting a couple of minutes, and no one showing up I decided where to park the Tornado for them.  After shutting down I marshaled David M in the Renegade beside me and James and Stumpy in the Coyote next to the Renegade and there we had our own display of aircraft for the airshow.  As it turned out, the volunteers had left for the day and we arrived late.


This looks like a good spot to park

lets head over to "Hanger 13"

By the time my wife Jen got to the airport to pick us up and bring us home, we were all starting to get this feeling we were missing something..... dinner!  We hooked
up with Jen and made our way over to "Hanger 13" where the volunteers and fellow pilots go for food, drinks and dancing.  Because the general aviation volunteers were done for the day, we hadn't registered our planes and gotten our passes yet so after we convinced the bouncers that we were pilots and they let us in (except James because they loved his British accent) we got some drink tickets and ordered up a "Columbus Burger".  Note: the Columbus burger is 2 beef patties and a cut up hot dog!  After we had our fill of burger and beer we headed home to rest up .

Friday morning, we packed up our camping gear and headed back out to YXX.  Since David M. had to work that morning, James and I went first, we registered the aircraft and got our passes then we set up our tents and started to explore the show.

Jen, David M. and my son Wyatt showed up just in time for dinner, so we headed over to the Red Barron Bar and Grill for a bite to eat.  Half way through dinner we realized the night show had started!  When the F22 Raptor was putting on its demonstration we made our way back to the infield to try and catch the last part of the night show.  On our way back we met up with Heidi who joined us after work.
Now, for those who may not realize getting around at an airshow isn't as easy as walking over to the planes.... nope, you need to get shuttled across the active taxi way and past the hot side (performing aircraft) this is a task that can take up to 30 min each way waiting for a ride.  By the time we got to the show, there was only 45 min left.  After the fantastic night show, we got a ride back to the Abbotsford Club house where Jen, David M., James, and Heidi got off to head back to Hanger 13 for some adult beverages while Wyatt and I headed back to the campsite.

Fly-in Camp Site

Saturday morning we got a 6 AM wake up call from the scheduled West Jet departure flight.  After we got up and made our way to the Abbotsford Flying Club House for breakfast we said good bye to Heidi who had to head off to work.  We started our day by sitting by our planes and played ambassador for the Pacific Pilots.

6 Pacific Pilot Planes

Darryl and Sharron flew the Eurofox, Leon and his wife, Connie flew the Symphony 160 and Jock and Bruce arrived in the Pelican so now we had six aircraft now on display from the Pacific Pilots Group. 


Selfie time with the gang
 

As we watched the show and talked with many spectators as the day carried on until this odd liquid started to fall from the sky.  After our group took shelter under the wing of the Tornado the rain passed and it was time to head back to Surrey and camp out at home since there was a good chance of more rain showers that night. 

Pacific Pilots don't like rain!

Sunday was a spectacular sunny day. James, David M. and I met up at King Gerorge Airpark where Jen drove us out to Abbotsford.  Once we got a lift to go air side back to our planes, we spent the day talking with curious

James takes shelter from the sun.

spectators, answering questions about general aviation flying and particularly flying ultralights in Canada.  This seemed to be a hot topic as the technological advancements of ultralights over the years has surprised many people.

With the Snowbirds concluding the show, it was time to pack up our gear and fly the toys back home to King George.  Like a well oiled machine, the organizers marshaled the static planes off one by one (except for me who was escorting the Renegade Spirit).  Once we got our squawk code, we lined up for our turn to take off. 

We got our clearance and David M. and I were airborne.  Once we cleared Abbottsford airspace we were on our own back to King George. 
On our way I took a slight detour to give a low and over at Intergalactic Aerodrome (Bob Barron's Place) as Bob wasn't able to join us this year at the airshow.

David M. and the wind blown look.

As usual after we put the planes back in their hangar's, off to the usual watering hole (Big Ridge Brewery) to celebrate a successful event.

Until next year, safe flying.

David Bianchi

Brooks beaches

Past Vargas, past Nootka, even past Rugged Point there's the unique Brooks Peninsula. Only part of Vancouver Island not covered by glaciers in the last ice age, so somewhat unique.

Our beach of choice on the north side was Drift Whale Beach.  Hot dog feast from the grill, then back in the saddle to Cape Cook and Solander Island.  One of those three days a year when it wasn't blowing 40 knots. Checked out Jacobsen beach on the south side but after three dummy runs and checking the sand decided it was too sloped and too soft.  Stopped at Rugged Point to lick our wounds.  Skunked on the glass ball treasure hunt.

Drift Whale Beach - looking SW towards Cape Cook

Lots of wolf tracks.  Didn't see any cougar or bear.

Civilized.  Chairs with backs, propane grill, table, toasted buns.

No wind, low tide, hard sand,  t-shirt warm.  As good as it gets.

Rugged Point