On March 20th club members made the first of at least two forays into the Rockies that month. The weather was really good with very light wind and a high thin cirrus layer. It was pretty exciting for me because even though I’ve done lots of mountain flying, I’ve never done so in the winter. Since it was the second last day of that season, I thought I’d give it a try.

Katerina Zima would be my wing man (wing woman?) in her red Piper Pacer. She’s a professional pilot who hangars at Kirkby’s. Sitting in my right seat was Humam Tumami, a new club member in the throes of learning to fly. This would be a really good exposure for him to see what the CRUFC can do and some of the airplanes we fly.

After leaving Kirkby Field, Kat and I skirted the south end of Calgary and Springbank’s Class C airspace, then followed Highway 1 from Scott Lake Hill. We turned to track Highway 93 at Castle Junction. Even though we’d have appreciated some more sunshine, the mountain scenery remained spectacular.

There was a total of 8 pilots and six airplanes that made the journey that day; Troy Branch and Guy Bourgeois in Troy’s RV-10, Gary Abel and Darren Scarlett in their respective RV-7s, Jim Corner in his Kitfox 5, Kat in her Pacer, and me and Humam in my trusty Cavalier.

After throwing in some gas at Invermere, we walked a few hundred meters to a restaurant for a tasty bite of lunch. Then, Kat, Jim, and Humam and I took off in sequence for the flight home. The other guys were going over the top while we were quite happily following the highways again.

Jim left us at Banff and flew the Minnewanka route for a more direct shot back to Airdrie. Kat and I decided to see if Calgary Terminal Control would permit us to fly direct from Scott Lake Hill to Kirkby’s.

The controller was very accommodating and we sailed directly over Springbank and the heart of Calgary in a nice echelon formation. Humam snapped some nice shots over Calgary before we were cleared to descend and switch over to Kirkby’s frequency. Just as we began our decent a few miles south of YYC’s runway 35R, we watched an Air Canada 787 turn onto its base leg a few miles away to the southeast.

We ended the day at Kirkby’s with a nice, smooth landing so Humam didn’t ask for his money back. We had a great time flying to the mountains, pushing some personal boundaries and gaining some more terrific flying experience and memories.