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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