The party consisted of my mother-in-law, brother-in-law and family, my own family and me. We had been on an Alaskan cruise which left us in Vancouver on a rainy Sunday morning. The Monday had been earmarked as a shopping day. Fantastic… During dinner that Sunday evening we decided that shopping was not compulsory and as a gorgeous Monday morning dawned, we all decided to go our separate ways. Five went off to the Metrotown Mall. Three went to Granville Island. Yours truly headed straight to the harbour all on his own.
Those of you not familiar with Vancouver may not realise that the harbour is the best bit. Behind you are the skyscrapers of Vancouver’s financial district and the modern sail like roof of Canada Place where our Alaskan cruise had started eight days previously. Ahead of you lies water, North Vancouver and snow peaked mountains beyond. Best of all, it is the home to CHX/CYHC, Vancouver’s seaplane airport. It was, of course, my intention just to spend a few hours watching the comings and goings of the assorted float equipped De Havillands that make frequent flights from there. Well, just maybe I might take a $99 sightseeing trip in a Beaver. Hmmmm….
There are two major operators that form the vast majority of the traffic. West Coast Air and Harbour Air share the pier, each having their own ‘terminal’ perched on the edge of the water. A few benches and tables were situated between the buildings for waiting passengers and keen observers. A few snapshots later, I wandered into the Harbour Air building to enquire about the sightseeing flight. There was one space available later on. Too late perhaps, time was a bit limited. How about the longer glacier flight? (More expensive but it included a landing on a lake up in the mountains) Sorry sir, full for today. Try across the way. I moved across to the West Coast Air building. Same story. Damn.
Of course, both airlines do plenty more than just pleasure flights. They fly with impressive regularity to Victoria, BC’s capital on Vancouver Island. I asked about it. Oh yes was the reply, it is a thirty five minute flight each way. There is plenty of space available in both directions until about 4pm. How much was the next question. $126 each way. So, two half hour flights, two water take-offs, two water landings, a glorious sunny day for the equivalent of £120. I thought about it. For two seconds. Sold!
As I happened to be in the West Coast Air building at the time, it was they who got my business. There was 45 minutes to wait for the 1pm departure and I sat clutching my reusable white boarding card with eager anticipation. The flights were to be in a Twin Otter. Harbour Air uses single engined Turbine Otters on the same route. It would have been nice to have gone on one of those as well. But hang on a minute. The prices are per flight. How about cancelling the return flight with West Coast Air and rebooking it with Harbour Air? A quick sprint between the two buildings and a chat with the lovely girls at the respective desks confirmed that this was possible so with my $126 refunded by West Coast, Harbour charged me $127 and also stated that the Turbine Otter was a single pilot operation and sitting in the P2 seat was a possibility. A dollar well spent.
MONDAY 13 AUGUST 2007
WEST COAST AIR FLIGHT 131
CHX-YWH
DE HAVILLAND DHC-6 TWIN OTTER FLOATPLANE
C-GJAW
At about 12:50, the West Coast Flight 131 to Victoria was called, all those with white boarding cards to make their way through the departure gate. The passengers consisted of me and three others which meant the 18 seater was sparsely occupied. The Twin Otter, C-GJAW was parked (moored?) nose in:
One of the pilots, Steve, was passing so I asked him which side was the best for views. He advised the left hand side so after climbing up the rickety ramp and steps and banging my head on the door jamb I selected a seat midway along the fuselage that gave me a strut free view through one of the windows. The seating arrangement was 1:2 and whilst they weren’t exactly wide, there was enough legroom. Steve gave the safety briefing before clambering onto the flight deck to join Heather, the P2. The flight deck door remained open for the entire flight by virtue of the fact there wasn’t one. This added to the interest as Heather was in charge of the roof mounted throttles.
Once the engines were started, reverse pitch was selected and the aircraft reversed out of its berth, guidance provided by the ground crew’s hand signals.
It became clear to me that although the window was perfectly placed for the seat I was in, it had not been perhaps the best choice for views and photographs as the field of vision was restricted by the engine cowling above and the huge float below. The windows were also somewhat salty so I apologise in advance for the quality of the pictures. Taxiing was an interesting experience. The harbour is busy with conventional shipping and the aircraft certainly felt the chop from the numerous wakes it passed over. Eventually we bounced our way to the threshold of the, erm, runway? I don’t really know. It seemed a bit of a free-for-all but the harbour itself is controlled by ATCOs at the top of the Vancouver Sun building, a harbour side skyscraper, which therefore stakes a claim to be the tallest airport control tower in the world. Anyway, we were pointing roughly east when Heather applied full power and the Twotter slowly accelerated, the water spray being thrown up initially by the front of the floats gradually moving rearward.
Then, without really feeling it we were above the waves. In fact we flew along just above the waves in ground effect for a few seconds building up speed before settling into the climb.
Victoria is south south west of Vancouver so we commenced a left hand turn around Stanley Park and English Bay, climbing to a cruise altitude of 2500 ft on the YVR QNH. Despite the letterbox effect of the float and cowling, the views were stunning. The South Vancouver suburbs passed beneath us before we passed directly overhead YVR. A few slightly blurred shots of traffic lining up on 26R and 26L were possible through the salty window.
With the airport behind us we headed out over the water passing over the alternative method of getting to Victoria.
Between the mainland and Vancouver Island are numerous small islands making the route most pleasant on the eye. Numerous ferries were passing to and fro between them along with hundreds of recreational boaters enjoying the sunny weather. We passed over the Vancouver Island coastline and passed directly over Victoria’s international airport where there appears to be a good collection of old stuff, maybe a museum of some kind.
We then passed through a brief patch of quite moderate turbulence before it was time to commence a descent. Giving the city centre a wide berth we made a sweeping left turn back out over the water and then followed the boomerang shaped inlet at the end of which lies Victoria harbour. (The inlet is just below of the wing leading edge in the next photo:
The touchdown area was approaching and a quick look through the flight deck, it appeared to my untrained eye that were heading towards the water very quickly indeed. Although the rate of descent was arrested somewhat just above the waves we hit the water with an almighty bang and bounced airborne again before settling back onto, well, not terra firma exactly but the aquatic equivalent.
A quite long water taxi followed to West Coast Air’s pier where the ground handling crew were on hand to tether the aircraft, presumably not oblivious to the still turning props just a few feet away.
Disembarking via the rickety stairs, I once again banged my head despite the warning given by ground crew as we stepped out. Not the brightest, am I?
Anyway, after hanging around to take a couple of pictures the pilots emerged. I managed to have a few words with Heather. She apologised for the rather violent landing blaming the swell. I asked what the transit altitude was – 2500 ft. There is a VFR corridor overhead both YVR and YVJ 2000 ft and above. Which got me wondering just what the IFR go around procedure was at each airport. All the floatplane operations are, of course, VFR. IFR procedures would be a bit tricky on the sea. Victoria Harbour is uncontrolled though there is an advisory service in operation. Heather also mentioned that Vancouver Harbour was controlled from the top of the Sun Building, something I had suspected but not actually known. She also mentioned that it is quite a twisting approach to Victoria Harbour (as I had ascertained) to avoid flying over residential areas. If the wind is strong they can approach directly overhead the town and land pointing out to sea but they would rather be good neighbours and avoid this if they can.
This left me an hour to kill in Victoria which is a pleasant city without the hustle and bustle of its bigger neighbour across the sound. It attracts a lot of tourists, some of whom go whale watching on high speed rubber dinghies which share the pier with my next hosts, Harbour Air.
(Return flight detailed in the reply below)
By: egpx - 23rd August 2007 at 22:00
OK, here is the bear trip…
Neets Bay Bear Viewing 7 August 2007
DH3T Turbine Otter Floatplane N959PA
It was an early start for this excursion. The ship docked at 0600 and we had to be off it at 0615. Luckily the night before was designated a time change which meant an extra hour in bed. Along with my two bleary eyed children we disembarked the ship’s tender and were directed to a bus which took us the very short distance to the Promech Air seaplane terminal by a very circuitous route. The town of Ketchikan is largely built on stilts and the roads are a bit difficult to navigate in a large bus. Here is the view from the terminal with our cruise ship moored in the background.
This being an excursion organised for the cruise line, there was no checking in or any other formalities other than being shown to our mode of transport to Neets Bay
N959PA sounded to me a bit like a Pan Am registration! I was situated on the left hand side of the aircraft in the seat behind the flight deck. With only one pilot the co-pilot seat was occupied by another passenger, something I was supremely jealous of. The kids were on the other side, the seating arrangement being 1:1 over five rows with space at the back for freight. We taxied out to the take off area which was to the north and full power was applied. A bouncy take-off run followed but we were soon airborne into the grey morning sky. Shortly after take off we passed abeam Ketchikan’s land airport:
Fittingly, and Alaska Airlines 737 was parked awaiting its passengers. It had departed by the time we returned and later a 737 freighter arrived as well. Promech Air have a terminal there too.
The flight took twenty minutes or so. We weren’t the only floatplane airborne:
Headsets were provided and a recorded commentary was given with details of the area. All too quickly, though, we were banking round the clouds and lining up towards the landing area at Neets Bay. A gentle touch down followed and after a very short taxi we arrived at the pier. Whilst stood on the pier I got a photo of the second Otter touching down, this is now my desktop picture:
And then it was on to see the bears. Neets Bay is home to a salmon hatchery run by the impressively named Southern SE Regional Aquaculture Association to maximise the number of salmon in SE Alaska. The salmon is not farmed, merely encouraged to spawn. With Salmon’s mysterious homing instinct the pregnant females return to the streams of their own birth, one of which has an inlet by the hatchery. To a bear it means dinner time. Or maybe breakfast, it was early after all.
Words fail to convey the scene – there were probably twenty five visitors stood their watching in awe. Armed with dozens of photos, our time was up and a walk back to the pier revealed that the same Otter was arriving to pick us up:
This time I made sure I was first on board and in that co-pilot seat! The children were sat just behind. The pilot joined me and gave a quick safety briefing before starting the engine and taxiing out.
We took off on a reciprocal heading to the landing – I’m guessing you would need a really strong wind to alter the direction of take off or landing. The Otter itself had had an avionics upgrade:
I had the best seat in the house but because of the rain – Ketchikan prides itself on being the world’s third rainiest City – photo opportunities were limited. I did get a snap of one of the costal ferries that sail up and down the SE Alaskan coastline:
We never went above 1000 ft. To do so would have probably taken us into cloud and we weaved our way around the hills, generally staying above the water all the way back to Ketchikan. Thanks to the rain the forward visibility was somewhat restricted but I suspect the pilot had flown the route dozens of times before and could have landed the Otter with his eyes shut. As it was, we alighted the water gently, coming to a halt just a short distance from the Promech Air pier. Thanking the pilot I exited the aircraft and took one last picture of it moored to the pier, awaiting its next trip to the SE Alaskan wilderness.
If you ever find yourself in Ketchikan, unlikely unless you are on a cruise of course, I can thoroughly recommend this excursion. It isn’t cheap but the memories will last forever. It was definitely the highlight of the week’s cruise.
By: Future Pilot - 21st August 2007 at 16:08
Amazing report there, with a fantastic selection of pictures to compliment! great job :cool:.
By: egpx - 20th August 2007 at 11:32
Simply stunning mate! I’ve spent many hours down on Vancouver’s Sea Front to watch the action, and that overview of Vancouver brings back some excellent memories!
And hopefully my future residence! Its up there with Chicago as my favourite city, and also i’m a massive Canuck fan 😀
I’ve been to Canada on quite a few occasions now but, alas, never in the hockey season. I’d love to see a Canucks home game. Or a Maple Leafs, Senators, Flames, Habs or Oilers for that matter. I’ve been to a few NHL games in the States and the atmosphere was similar to that at Leicestershire Vs Combined Universities at Cambridge on a rainy April day. :rolleyes:
Back to seaplanes, looks as though we will be able to sample the delights up here in Scotland with the start of a service from Glasgow to Oban today. £149 return? A bit more expensive than the flight I did but still tempting 😉
By: bmi-star - 20th August 2007 at 09:18
Simply stunning mate! I’ve spent many hours down on Vancouver’s Sea Front to watch the action, and that overview of Vancouver brings back some excellent memories!
And hopefully my future residence! Its up there with Chicago as my favourite city, and also i’m a massive Canuck fan 😀
By: Newforest - 19th August 2007 at 12:47
Here, here. What a fasinating trip report egpx! And some brillant photos as well; you clearly had a great time!
Did you fly with Taquan Air at all? (http://www.taquanair.com/) This was the company that I flew with, and they were great!
Just look at that line up of seven Beavers, or maybe more!
By: egpx - 19th August 2007 at 09:48
Here, here. What a fasinating trip report egpx! And some brillant photos as well; you clearly had a great time!
I too have been on an Alaskan cruise (last year, in fact!), and did the seaplane flight from Ketchican to do bear-watching. I sat up the front with our pilot Nick for the outbound flight. The scenery was just stunning…
Did you fly with Taquan Air at all? (http://www.taquanair.com/) This was the company that I flew with, and they were great!
I never got round to doing a trip report for it in the end, so I will dig my pics out again, and post them on here if you dont mind?!
Our Bear trip was with Promech Air. They flew us to a Place called Neets Bay where there was a Salmon Hatchery. The returning salmon were easy meals for the bears. It was one of two different bear watching tours offered by the cruise line, not sure who the other one was with. No problem with adding some more pictures, I might add some myself of the bear trip.
Lastly, just out of sheer interest though, when you were over in Victoria did you see Darth Vader playing the violin by any chance?
Victoria was the last stop on our cruise before we headed back to Seattle. Whilst we were there, we took a tour of the city in a horse-drawn cart and as we stopped my sister said:
“Oh look, there’s Darth Vader over there (pointing in his general direction!)”…and so we all turned to look, and then my Dad noticed he was playing the violin, and we all cracked up laughing!
I have a picture somewhere, it was bellyachingly funny at the time, I could not help but laugh – it really did make my day!
Saw a couple of street performers but it must have been Darth’s day off 😀
Vancouver is a truly amazing city and I would love to go back as I only spent two days there. We stayed in the Westin Bayshore hotel, which is situated right next to the harbour and just a few yards away from the seaplane terminals so we had an excellent view of them and the cruise ships!
I would definatley recommend you go to Granville Market the next time, it is really interesting!
I did actually go to Granville market which was extremely busy at the time. You were lucky to stay in the Westin – I can’t think of a better placed hotel in the city. We stayed in the Sandman Suites. We didn’t know when we booked it but it was slap bang in the middle of Vancouver’s gay district. 😮
By: cloud_9 - 19th August 2007 at 05:43
Both were memorable, especially the Ketchikan flight as that had taken us to see bears. But taking the scheduled flights on a whim was special and worth far more than the cash I paid for them. If you ever find yourself in Vancouver, I can highly recommend the experience. 😀
Here, here. What a fasinating trip report egpx! And some brillant photos as well; you clearly had a great time!
I too have been on an Alaskan cruise (last year, in fact!), and did the seaplane flight from Ketchican to do bear-watching. I sat up the front with our pilot Nick for the outbound flight. The scenery was just stunning…
Did you fly with Taquan Air at all? (http://www.taquanair.com/) This was the company that I flew with, and they were great!
I never got round to doing a trip report for it in the end, so I will dig my pics out again, and post them on here if you dont mind?!
Lastly, just out of sheer interest though, when you were over in Victoria did you see Darth Vader playing the violin by any chance?
Victoria was the last stop on our cruise before we headed back to Seattle. Whilst we were there, we took a tour of the city in a horse-drawn cart and as we stopped my sister said:
“Oh look, there’s Darth Vader over there (pointing in his general direction!)”…and so we all turned to look, and then my Dad noticed he was playing the violin, and we all cracked up laughing!
I have a picture somewhere, it was bellyachingly funny at the time, I could not help but laugh – it really did make my day!
Vancouver is a truly amazing city and I would love to go back as I only spent two days there. We stayed in the Westin Bayshore hotel, which is situated right next to the harbour and just a few yards away from the seaplane terminals so we had an excellent view of them and the cruise ships!
I would definatley recommend you go to Granville Market the next time, it is really interesting!
By: egpx - 18th August 2007 at 15:48
wow. what an experience. I would love to do something similar to what you have done, flying in floatplanes and the scenery is stunning. one day, maybe. an excellent collection of photos as well! 🙂
If that is indeed a volcano in Washington, could it be Mount St. Helens?
I think it is Mount Baker which is 10,778 ft high. I’ve just had a look on Google Earth. The picture is zoomed in a bit and I suspect the peak was sixty miles away or more.
By: steve rowell - 18th August 2007 at 12:50
A very comprehensive and detailed report with some stunning pictures..a very enjoyable read
By: adamdowley - 18th August 2007 at 12:40
wow. what an experience. I would love to do something similar to what you have done, flying in floatplanes and the scenery is stunning. one day, maybe. an excellent collection of photos as well! 🙂
If that is indeed a volcano in Washington, could it be Mount St. Helens?
By: egpx - 18th August 2007 at 12:12
MONDAY 13 AUGUST 2007
HARBOUR AIR FLIGHT 218
YWH-CHX
DE HAVILLAND DHC-3T TURBINE OTTER FLOATPLANE
C-GHAR
Harbour Air’s building is small but functional. A glance at my passport (I’m so glad I brought it with me) was sufficient for the check-in girl to issue me with a reusable boarding card after I had declined the invitation to board the earlier flight. I was happy just savouring the moments. Harbour Air seem to operate a similar program of sightseeing flights from their Victoria base as their Vancouver one with a $99 twenty minute whiz round the local area being the cheapest way of experiencing a floatplane flight. Eventually, and altogether too soon, the flight was called. It was the pilot himself, Rich, who led us to along the pier to the aircraft through ‘Gate One’, there being two ‘Gates’ on the pier. Our aircraft was moored nose in:
There were six passengers in total and making sure I was the first in line gave me the chance to ask Rich if he minded me sitting along side him up front. He indicated that this was no problem and I jumped aboard (no banged head) and was in the seat like a shot. This aircraft was not fitted with dual controls so no yoke to play with or rudder pedals to rest my feet but there was a headset with which I could listen to Rich converse with ATC and ground ops. He could also talk to me if he wished but chose not to, other than a very brief safety briefing. Fair enough, in his position I wouldn’t feel like talking to some geek with a camera either!
Still, apart from Rich’s own seat, I had the best one in the aircraft and it afforded better photography opportunities than the seat I had occupied in the Twin Otter.
In the cabin the seats were arranged 1:2 again and I think there were twelve seats in total, plus mine. Once the engine was running, the ground crew cast us off, spun us round and it was straight out into the harbour which was busy with pleasure craft and inbound aircraft.
Once again it was a long taxi to the take off area but the water was a good deal smoother than the waters in Vancouver harbour. The callsign for the flight was ‘Harbour Express 218’. Take off would be in the opposite direction to landing. Harbour information gave us details of an inbound aircraft on left base and once Rich had him in sight he stated that he would commence his take off run and make a left turn to avoid coming into conflict. Full power was applied and we were skimming over the waves, getting airborne quite quickly and almost immediately commencing that left hand turn round the headland keeping the city on our left.
We climbed initially to 1000 ft. Harbour Information transferred us to Victoria tower for traffic information. We gave YVJ quite a wide berth, possibly remaining beneath the control area. There didn’t appear to be much happening at the ‘real’ airport anyway. This gave us some nice views of the islands but once out over the open water, we climbed to 2500 ft.
The YVR ATIS was obtained for the QNH and YVJ Tower transferred us to YVR Tower for our transit of their airspace.
To my right in the distance I caught sight of what I think must be a volcano in Washington State.
A bit closer was the BC Ferries base at Tsawwassen
Straight ahead lay YVR and the city and mountains beyond. This time we passed directly over the thresholds of Rwy 26R and L rather than the middle of the runways, probably some form of traffic pattern applied to the VFR corridor.
There didn’t appear to be a great deal going on at YVR either though I did spy a light twin on left base for 26L below us. Alas, the photo didn’t come out.
I had better luck with the photo of downtown and the mountains taken through the propeller arc.
YVR transferred us to CHX tower, though Rich, who gave a pretty good impression of being bored by the whole experience, checked the CHX ATIS and made a quick call to Harbour Air ops before calling up. The exchanges between Rich and the tower controller were pretty unfamiliar even for me who has some knowledge of ATC procedures. But the upshot was that we were instructed to make the approach from the east, landing more or less abeam the cruise ship terminal pointing towards the south west, about 45 degrees south of the take off direction a couple of hours earlier. This didn’t afford me the best of views of the city until we banked onto final when I became a bit snap happy.
The descent seemed much more gradual than in the Twin Otter and we alighted on the water quite smoothly, with just the odd bump through the waves.
I never really worked out quite how Rich manoeuvred the aircraft in the water but it seemed something of a breeze to him, expertly coming alongside the pier at just the right point for the ground crew to grab the ropes.
Once the engine died down I turned to thank Rich but he was already out of the door! I went back through the cabin and disembarked via the passenger steps remembering to bow my head and a great experience was over. Just time for one last picture as I trudged up the pier:
The whole experience was exhilarating. I had been in floatplanes before – once in Norway seven years ago and once in Ketchikan, Alaska just six days previously. Both were memorable, especially the Ketchikan flight as that had taken us to see bears. But taking the scheduled flights on a whim was special and worth far more than the cash I paid for them. If you ever find yourself in Vancouver, I can highly recommend the experience. 😀
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August 18, 2007 at 12:06 pm