Iqaluit to Schefferville, NE Canada

17th Feb

Today we continued our journey south down through the north of Canada after crossing the Labrador Sea from Greenland. We took off from Iqaluit (CYFB) and initially planned our flight to Kuujjuaq (CYVP.) Luckily for us we continued to stick to our ‘far north/remote’ fuel policy of filling the tanks regardless of the sector length; and a good job too…

Bling2 following Bling1 out to RWY16 CYFB

It was a beautiful day in Iqaluit although very cold at around -18 DEG C…bruuh! We chose to depart RWY16 in very light winds as that was the most DCT route (RTE) to the YFY NDB which formed the start of our L608 airways routing. The RTE we flew was YFY L608 UHA L608 ERDIK and we chose to fly at altitude (A) 5600 and 5400ft; again keeping 200ft separation.

Image from Bling2 looking at Bling1 shortly after take off from RWY16, Iqaluit

The flight south was perfect in blisteringly clear VMC conditions with the sun low in the sky initially on our nose but always moving towards our right hand side as we flew south. There was not much to see below us except a snow covered wilderness and occasionally some ocean and an island or two. So to use the time effectively we decided to try and perfect our air to air shots for you guys.

From Bling 2 looking at Bling1 in closer formation than that which we normally use for cruising

At some point into the flight Bling1 checked the NAV database to make sure CYVP was in the Garmin G1000 and to our amazement it wasn’t. We weren’t sure if this was our fault for not adding a pack or addon etc but for such a large (relatively for the area) airport with multiple RWYs and instrument approaches we were very suprised at this. No matter, thanks to our remote fuel policy we had plenty of fuel to check out another suitable airport. We continued to CYVP anyway just to make sure it wasn’t actually there whilst diverting to Schefferville (CYKL.) This extended our trip by 1hr and 26mins. We had plenty of fuel, the weather was perfect and CYKL had numerous instrument approaches just in case we got in after dark… and it was actually there!

Bling2 inbound YKL, around 79nm north of CYKL

The rest of the trip was uneventful except the gorgeous setting sun on our right hand side looked spectacular. Microsoft really have done an amazing job with the way the light plays with the shadows; both in the cockpit and on the ground.

Shot from Bling2 as the sun gets low on the horizon

Shot from Bling2 looking down and east at Bling1 both tracking into CYKL

There was a possibility of us arriving after sunset (somthing we originally timed our departure from CYFB in real time so that this wouldn’t happen) and so even though we had perfect VMC conditions we elected to fly the NDB Z to RWY35 at CYKL; plus it would provide us with some valuable day job training too. The instrument plate is included below for those of you who are interested. We pulled the chart from a website called www.fltpln.com which is really cool and has helped us a lot when our 3rd party flight planning software has for some reason not included an airport.

Our TRK to CYKL menat that we would be approaching the KR NDB from the north. We elected to descend to 4700ft inbound to the KR and then descended to 4000ft within 25nm. Next we made a LT to TRK 166 degrees out to 8nm DME based on the YKL VOR judging that this would give us plenty of room to execute the procedure whilst adhereing to the ‘procedure turn left within 10nm of KR NDB’ note on the chart. At 8nm DME we turned left to TRK 121 degrees for a wind corrected time of 1min 10s and then made a RT to TRK 301 degrees until intercepting the 346 degrees inbound TRK to the KR. Based on our ground speed (GS) we both experimented with a rate of decent of around 500–600ft/min and this worked out really well. In fact we the correct altitudes exactly at 4 and 3nm. Soon after that both Blings disconnected their APs and continued to land visually.

From Bling2 looking north in the failing light towards Bling1 as both shutdown at CYKL

So another trip south through Canada’s wilderness north. It was a beautiful day with stunning scenery. Now we are only 1 sector away from entering into the NE corner of the United States. Dont worry Canada we will be back when we travel up the west coast after flying around the states, the Carribean, Cuba etc…

To be honest we dont have a pre-planned route so if you have any suggestions for us or you want us to come visit your local airfield why not get in touch either via Twitter @FlyGVF or Reddit FlyGVF. Thats it for now join us on our next exciting sector…