Regina to Halifax
Opportunity of a Lifetime:
A Big Cross Country, DRCO, and other stuff
By Captain Dav1d 1998-03-10

Day Zero (Tuesday) ... The Outbound Journey

The trip to Regina included a flight on a Canadian Airlines B737 to Winnipeg, with a 3-hour wait for the next leg on a Canadian Regional Dash-8 to Regina. On the B737, I asked for permission to visit the flight deck, and managed to stay for the entire rest of the flight, including the landing at CYWG. It was a smooth landing, flown by hand, because this B737, like most, had no autoland capability.

So, what can a pilot do for 3 hours in a strange airport? Visit the control tower, of course!

It took a few minutes to locate the tower, and get the necessary permissions, but after that, it was all easy. I spent 2 hours in the tower, talking to the controllers, and watching how they operate the systems.

Winnipeg Tower is a big place. There’s enough room for 7 active staff, and a central console for the manager, but, at this time, there were only 4 active staff, including a manager. The other active positions were: ground, tower, and assistant. One of the assistant’s jobs is to get the strips that are printed by Winnipeg Center into the holders and distributed to the appropriate controllers.

The assistant, Lionel, took time during his slow moments to show me the systems and explain the computers. I spent time looking over the shoulders of the ground and air controllers.

One of the most interesting things was the handoff from one controller to another. When a new controller is coming to relieve an active controller, there is a short length of time when the new controller just stands and watches the active controller, to get familiar with the traffic being controlled. While he’s standing there, the active controller is not only talking to the airplanes, but he’s also explaining the targets to the replacement. This particular handoff only took about 3 minutes, but I can imagine how much more complicated it could have been had more airplanes been involved.

As is typical for busy airports, they have ground radar as well as airborne radar. The ground radar is powerful enough to pick out the ground handlers and paint them on the screen! (Unfortunately, the radar is so powerful that it is located on the roof of the control tower, behind a lead shield. Access is strictly forbidden while it is operational, as it would fry a human in seconds!)

Looking out across the field, we could see the building that houses Winnipeg Center. It was too far to walk, and I had no car, so I passed on visiting the center. (Maybe next time?)

I thanked all the controllers for the visit, and told them that I’d be flying into their airport the next day in a VFR Cherokee. They said they’d watch for me.

The second leg of the journey, a Dash8 from CYWG to CYQR was uneventful.

First view of the Aircraft: C-GCRZ

When I landed at CYQR, I decided to find the Cherokee as soon as possible. I figured that once I got everything that I needed, I could go to the hotel, and get a good night’s sleep, so I could start out early in the morning. I had been told that the Cherokee was at the Shell AeroCenter, so I went straight there.

C-GCRZ was waiting for me. It was a blue and white Cherokee 140B, probably 1969 vintage. I walked right up to it, and looked inside. Then I set out to find my contact person. After some searching, and asking the line crew, I finally found Richard. He had just flown the plane in from Estevan (about 1.2 flight time). I mentally decided that this was a good thing. He and his father had just done a 100 hour inspection, and the check ride made me feel more comfortable. Of course, I was still going to do a very complete inspection, but knowing that it had already flown meant that most of the airworthiness was already proven.

Richard introduced me to CRZ. Very nice interior (baby blue), nice exterior, almost no rust, even underneath the back seats. Avionics were sparse: one flip-flop comm (with no nav at all), one ADF, one mode C transponder, and a Flybuddy LORAN. The standard 6-pack of instruments was all there, and apparently functional. An EGT gauge, and a CHT gauge were installed as well. On the down side, the clock was dead, and there was no VOR at all. In short, a nice airplane, but not many toys inside. (I had expected this, so I had brought my GPS with me.)

Richard and I went through the journey log and the technical logs, and he gave me some additional pointers on the aircraft ("... the CHT on number 3 shows 180° , I would have preferred 160° ..."), and then he drove me to the hotel.

I didn’t see much of the city, except for a sign that said "Welcome to Regina, home of Sandra Schmirler’s Olympic Curling Team!".

I took the technical logs, the journey log, and the revised weight and balance sheets to dinner with me, and skimmed them briefly, hoping I’d have enough energy left to read them in bed before falling asleep. No such luck.