First Air Routes

Travelling in Canada's far north is not familiar to most air travellers, so I would like to spend a little time familiarizing you with the routes, customs, and airlines that actually travel up there.

Notice that northern Canada is divided into four main regions or provinces: the Yukon, Quebec, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. Air travel is organized in a similar way. The regional hub in each province is: Whitehorse (CYXY) in the Yukon; Yellowknife (CYZF) in Northwest Territories; Iqaluit (CYFB) in Nunavut, and Ottawa (CYOW) or Montreal-Dorval (CYUL) in Quebec. These are the gateways by which other major carriers provide access to the far north, and most likely, anyone entering this region will come through one of these four airports.

There are only three systemic carriers in the far north: First Air, Air North, and Canadian North. Air North operates out of Whitehorse and mostly serves the Yukon, with links to small communities in the Yukon and to Vancouver and Edmonton. First Air and Canadian North serve the entire far north, except for the Yukon. There are also a number of smaller connecting airlines that provide local service: Air Tindi, out of Yellowknife, would be a typical example. Borek Air also flies in the area, chiefly as a charter airline.

First Air, as shown in the route map above, has two main hubs: One in the west, at Yellowknife, and one in the east, at Iqaluit on Baffin Island. Boeing 737-200 jets provide links to Edmonton and Calgary out of Yellowknife, and to Montreal and Ottawa from Iqaluit. Apparently the connection from Rankin Inlet to Winnipeg Intl. is no longer in use.

The really interesting thing about the First Air network is the large number of small air strips it serves. Most of these have gravel runways and at most an NDB to provide navigational guidance. All of the runways, though, regardless of other factors, are lighted. This is because the3 daylight hours are very short in the far north-- in December and January, dawn may not come until 10 a.m., and by 3:30 p.m., were back into night for all practical purposes again. Up around Resolute Bay and Nanisivik, there won't be hardly any daylight at all for a couple of months. Yet air travel is the only reliable form of transportation available, and is very important to the survival of northern communities.

What equipment will land on 4000 foot gravel runways, fly 200 to 250 knots, and quickly connect the more remote fields to the regional hubs? First Air relies on the Hawker-Siddeley HS.748, a trustworthy airplane in heavy use for connecting links throughout the world since 1980. This airplane will carry up to 10,000 lbs of passengers and cargo, land on a gravel runway, take off in 3500 ft, and fly at 200+ knots in cruise mode. What's more, us virtual pilots are lucky: Rick PIper has built an excellent airframe and custom panel for the HS.748, and you can download it at both Avsim.com and Flightsim.com.

Airports like Pond Inlet, Clyde River, in the east, or Lutsel k'e, in the west, are a challenge, because they offer very few services for the pilot. Locating the airport can be difficult. Even navigating to the airport can be a challenge given the paucity of long-range navigation aids in the far north. Most airfields don't even have an AWOS or ASOS transmitter to find out the local altimeter reading or prevailing winds. It's as if somebody graded a strip, threw some gravel on it, and called it an airport. And First Air travels there.

In the west, the situation is somewhat improved. Norman Wells, Inuvik-Zubko, and Fort Simpson, are well-equipped airports with asphalt runways, VOR and NDB navigation aids, and both CYEV at Inuvik, and CYHY at Hay River, have ILS approaches. You can't beat that.

Needless to say, the focus airports (CYEV, CYZF, CYFB) all have ILS, ATIS, and all the normal facilities. Norman Wells, CYVQ, is a secondary hub for surrounding communiites such as Deline and Tulita (I don't know the name of the regional airline that flies out of Norman Wells). Borek Air also provides transportation services all along the corridor from Inuvik to Ft Simpson. Rankin Inlet is also used for similar purposes, providing access to Hall Beach, Igloolik, Repulse Bay, and Coral Habour.

Besides the Boeing 737-200 and the Hawker-Siddeley HS.748, both of which are essential to air travel in the far north, there are an interesting variety of additional equipment in use for shorter range commercial traffic and charters. Chief among these are the DeHavilland DHC-6 twin otter, which is a work horse for routes of 80 to 150 miles, and the Cessna Caravan, which provides both passenger and cargo capacity for routes in the hundred-mile range. Also in use are the Beechcraft B200 commuter turboprop, Beechcraft C99 commuter, and your Cessna 172/182 will be in good company.

One of the most interesting and challenging features of flying in this area, over and above the bad weather, limited daylight conditions, poor runways, and few navaids, is dealing with the screwy behavior of the magnetic compass. The north magnetic pole is located in this area, which means the lines of longitude, as seen by the magnetic compass, are not nice straight lines; they curve, and in the more northern reaches of the area (the far north of the far north) they even curve back, so a course -- say, from YCO Kugluktuk-Coppermine, to YCB Cambridge Bay, may change its compass heading by 30 degrees between the departure and arrival points. Using a magnetic compass for guidance is a very unreliable way to operate in this area. It is useful only over short distances of 20 NM or so. Because of this, the arctic region (a specifically delineated region north of Yellowknife and west of Iqaluit) does not use magnetic headings for VOR and runways; these entities are aligned to true north instead.

For additional details, I recommend the online en-route navigation charts provided by IVAO.

The scenery in the far north can be a bit boring. The area tends to be flat, and the ground textures tend to be snow, snow-covered hills, snow-covered lakes, snow-covered towns, and snow-covered snow, all of which looks mostly like ... snow. You probably won't want to spend all of your time flying there, but I think an occasional visit will broaden your knowledge of flying and sharpen your skills, not to speak of showing a part of the world not many people experience.

Good luck!