I’M FRACKING TIRED OF WINTER!!!

This definitely feels like the longest winter I can remember in 20 years! Of course, complaining about the weather is a favorite pass time of us Canadians, but I certainly believe that this winter, we definitely have something to complain about. In fact, it’s almost as bad as the ones we used to experience on the east coast which was the whole reason I moved to Alberta in the first place!

The flying season at home in Newfoundland was always a challenge. Here in Alberta, we get concerned about afternoon thunderstorms in the summer. In Newfoundland, we were concerned about the dreaded RDF… that would be Rain, Drizzle and Fog, which dominated much of our weather through winter, spring, summer and, oh yeah, fall! Even with three pilots sharing the plane, we were lucky to see 50 hours a year.

Despite these challenges, in 1992 at the impressionable age of 25, my brother-in-law, Wade and I decided to take my father’s Cessna 180 from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Oshkosh. This would be a 1500 nm trip, all on strait floats.

On our more recent trips to Oshkosh, we’ve typically lost a day of flying due to weather, each way. This made our trips about 3 days long. The trip in ‘92 took 7 days! Part of this was due to some really nasty westerly winds that had some of our flight legs averaging around 60 kts! Most of the delay could be attributed to poor weather in the Maritimes, along the St Lawrence Seaway and around the Great Lakes.

Fortunately, the trip home took a mere 3 days due to those same strong westerlies. Fortunately, this was all done in the friendlier, pre9/11 days which greatly decreased the complexity of the trip. We hopped back and forth across the border all the way to Oshkosh as our track all but followed along the international boundary. The only real customs issue was on our last crossing back into Canada on the return trip. We landed on Miller Lake, near Halifax, using Lionel Clark’s lakefront property as our “port of entry”. Prior to leaving on the trip, we had made arrangements with Canada Customs for them to meet us there and had even provided a detailed, turn-by-turn map for them to find our berth. We were told that this was no problem and that they had done this on a number of occasions before. The only charge would be for milage if the distance was more than 25 km. On our drive back to Lionel’s place, I noted that it was only 21 kms.

We arrived exactly on time only to find no customs officials waiting for us. We dropped anchor and waited as was required. Before too long, two carloads of official looking folks showed up. The next two hours were spent disassembling the plane to prove to them that two 25-year-old guys could actually be making a legitimate pleasure trip in a $120,000 plane! Having found no contraband, they presented us with our bill… that included 110 km mileage! I asked why the mileage was so high when it was only 21 km away. The reply was that they had trouble finding the place and it took 55 kms. Before I could stop myself, I heard me say “So do you plan to get lost on the way home too?”. Despite being grumpy about his 6 trainees laughing at my response, he simply said “Just pay the bill”. It was worth every penny.

To be honest, I’m surprised that we didn’t have more trouble than that on the trip. We did have issues like a transponder that failed on the way into Toronto Island; lack of accommodations in Toronto after getting weathered in there for 2 days; Loran C issues when we forgot to change “chains” as we headed into Ottawa; scud running around the north end of Lake Michigan and having Coast Guard machine guns pointed at us on Lake Champlain, NY. Fortunately, none of these issues amounted to much except adding to a very memorable trip. It is truly amazing just how naïve and inexperienced I was back then and just how much I learned on that one trip.

Hmmm, now where was I when I started down this memory lane… oh yeah, the crappy weather we’re having. Oh look, the sun’s out and its warm! Wow, what great weather we’re having… Time to fly! 