Air Canada, Ottawa, Oak Bank, and Lyncrest

Lots of changes over the last three weeks.

After twelve years on Phase Check, I finished my time with Air Canada in Winnipeg - for now, at least. Several years ago, AC decided to split off its maintenance branch into what eventually became a separate company called Aveos. In April, we all had to decide whether we would stay with AC or go to the new company. Lots of us, including me, chose to stay with AC. Having chosen AC, I had to decide whether I would bump to an unknown location (to be decided by seniority rules). I elected to be laid off, because I had no intention of getting sent to Toronto, which we all felt would be where we would end up.

The transition to the new company was supposed to happen in July, but it took a bit longer than was planned. Therefore, all the AC employees were seconded to Aveos for an indefinite period of time. In October, I received a lay off date, 18 Feb. I did not assume I would actually be laid off, because with AC you can never say for sure until you're actually out the door, but of course I did start planning. Over the last few months, I arranged a short term full time air force reserve position at the base. There was also a three year contract coming up that I had a good shot at getting. So I wasn't too worried about what might happen.

As the date got closer, it became pretty obvious that they were actually going to go through with it. I started a countdown on my Facebook page, complete with a video of my last A320 ground run. Someone asked me, why the last? (Obviously not paying enough attention.) I replied, unless something dramatic happens, I'm laid off in a week. On Monday 13 February, something dramatic happened. AC offered me a recall to Ottawa. For this lay off, we were allowed to designate up to three AC stations to list for possible recall. I listed Regina, Saskatoon, and Ottawa. All of them are small stations. Regina and Saskatoon have only eight or so employees, and Ottawa has about twenty. Ottawa is considered a very desirable station, and I had no realistic expectation of ever getting a recall there - or to the others, either, really. The union is very particular about its seniority rules. Someone must have retired or quit after the bumps were done for all the other AC employees, so that they were already designated to a base. However it happened, on the 13th I was called to the office, and presented with a recall letter. It was the last thing I was expecting.

With only 72 hours to decide, I spent a lot of time thinking about it. The opportunity was great - I would get a couple of aircraft courses, the Embraer (boo) and the 767 fairly soon - and I have always preferred line maintenance over the hangar. It was quite unlikely that I would ever get a recall to Winnipeg line maintenance. There were, of course, a lot of potential problems. What would I do with the house? Where would I live? What about the cats?

From Air Canada

Photo of my Phase Check crew

What made it plausible was the existence of good flight connections between Winnipeg and Ottawa, and the discovery of a website that advertised people looking for roommates, at about half the cost of renting an apartment. Since the shift would be 4 on, 4 off, evenings, I didn't want to pay the going rate for an apartment. Anyway, I concluded that I should be able to commute relatively easily. Anyway, after much consideration, on Thursday morning, I accepted the recall.

I will be working from 4 pm to 3:20 am, doing mostly service checks and snags - lots of tire changes in my future. AC doesn't have a hangar in Ottawa, so everything will be done outdoors. The 4 x 4 shift means that in any month, I should be in Winnipeg on days off fifteen days. That doesn't sound so bad.

If I find I can't do it, my only option is to quit AC, and go back to plan A. I can't lay myself off (of course, AC can still lay me off whenever it suits them). If I can do it, at some point down the road, I will have to decide whether I want to continue commuting, or start moving my life to Ottawa. I expect that decision will be a long way off.

If I decide to live there, well, there's the annual Challenger winter fly-in, the aviation museum, and lots of other attractions for me. I also have friends there, mostly from the Canadian Aviation Historical Society. My long term hope, though, is a recall to Winnipeg line maintenance. It's unlikely, but not impossible, and I would have said a recall to Ottawa was impossible. So who knows?

From mid-February to the end of March, I'm working at the air force base. After that, instead of going to Ottawa, I will be going to Vancouver for a month for the Embraer course.

****************

After seven years of keeping my Challenger at the Oak Bank airfield, northeast of Winnipeg, I had to move. The airfield owner sold it, and the new owner didn't want to keep it as an airfield. Over a period of a few days, I moved the airplane to Lyncrest, and much of the other kit to St Andrews. On Monday the 27th, and on Wednesday the 29th, I made a few final circuits at Oak Bank. It's a shame, really, Oak Bank was a great little strip, 2,600' long, with excellent drainage. I could usually get flying with only a week or two between the ski flying season and the wheel flying season.

From Challenger Ultralight Flying

The Challenger arrives at her new home in Lyncrest

Day 7 - Reykjavik - 21 August 2011

I had expected that my final day in Iceland would include a trip to the Blue Lagoon, the lagoon being one of the two things that everyone does in Iceland - the Golden Circle tour being the other. However, I found out what it costs. For the amount of time I expected to spend there, it just didn’t seem worth it to me. So instead, I went to the Icelandic Bird Museum, located beside the harbour. It’s located on the main floor of a two storey building, and you have to walk through a small cafe to get there. From this unassuming start, and the ten dollar admission, I had the distinct feeling of getting rooked, until I walked inside. They had several large glass display cases, with examples of nearly every bird you could see in Iceland (all stuffed, of course), in realistic settings. The guidebook, a duotang with pages in sleeves, turned out to be quite comprehensive, and I took photos of all the pages so I could make photo captions later. As happened so often in Iceland, time went by faster than expected, and it was shortly time to head to the airport.

Upon arriving at the airport, I found that Iceland Express had changed the flight to a smaller airplane, a 737. I was offered the opportunity to fly to New York instead, and get to Winnipeg on Monday, but unfortunately I had to be at work, so I passed. I wound up in the last row of a completely full airplane, with my carry on overflowing from under the seat. We departed Keflavik on time, and flew over Greenland on the way home. I’m pretty sure I’ve flown over Greenland before, on the way from Europe, but this time we were further south, and it was obvious that’s where we were. I had great views of icebergs calving off from glaciers, and fjords. I’ve been trying to find exactly where over Greenland we flew, but haven’t got it quite figured out yet. We landed on time, and I was home twenty minutes later.

Day 6 - Reykjavik - 20 August 2011

I hadn’t made any plans for Saturday, I thought I’d just see what I could see in Reykjavik. The first thing I saw was the Reykjavik Marathon, which took over the centre of town that morning. It gave me the chance to try out the multi-shot function of my camera, something else I had never tried, but which also came out pretty well.
Near the centre of town, in the basement of a building, is the AD871+-2 Museum. The earliest remains of human habitation of Iceland, a longhouse and associated artefacts, were discovered here while excavating for a parking garage, and preserved and turned into a museum. The longhouse is just a large ring of stones in an oval, but there are displays of recovered items like keys, fish hooks, grinding stones, and other household objects. There are also a couple of good movies that illustrate how things might actually have looked.
While travelling around Iceland, there are two animals you see all the time - sheep, and horses. Icelandic horses are smaller and sturdier than most horses, and they have a unique gait, called tölt. I had a coupon for a trail ride at a farm near Reykjavik, so, why not? They picked me up at the Leif Ericsson Hotel, and took me to the Laxnes Farm. I was introduced to the horse I would ride - unfortunately I don’t recall his name. The horse was saddled, and our group of about ten headed down the trail. We didn’t set any speed records starting off, which was good, because I hadn’t ridden a horse in about twenty years. As we went on, we picked up a bit of speed, and the ride became a bit more uncomfortable, and required a bit of adjustment to try to minimise the vibration. After a mile or so, we came to a road bridge, which we went under, and stopped at a creek to allow the horses a drink. My horse, who was reasonably agreeable during the ride, became very determined to roam during the stop, and I soon found out who he thought was the boss. After twenty minutes or so, we mounted up, and headed back to the farm. Of course, as we neared the farm, I was kind of getting the hang of riding again, and then it was over.

Back in the city, I was surprised to find out that today was Iceland’s national day. There was a large party going on in the city centre, right near the hotel, and a lot of places were open late. A few doors down was a museum called the Culture House, which contains manuscripts from the early days in Iceland, as well as an art gallery. I stopped in there for a while, had a bite in the canteen, and then headed past the party to have a look around the harbour. I was playing with the idea of going on a puffin viewing boat tour, but I missed the last trip of the day, and the 20th was the last day trips were held. I assume from that that there wouldn’t have been many puffins to see.

Overlooking the harbour, Reykjavik has built a brand new concert hall, called Harpa. It’s quite an amazing bit of architecture. The exterior walls are mostly multi-faceted glass panels, quite striking in the sunset. (There’s a video of its design and construction here.) I wandered around the outside a bit, and then, since it looked like people were coming and going without any obvious pattern, I thought I would check out the inside. I found that there were several free concerts going on, so I stopped to watch a jazz band. I don’t usually care for jazz, but I really liked the song they were playing. I still don’t know the name of it, but the band is the Samuel Jon Samuelsson Big Band. I found a video of the song on YouTube, here (although I didn’t see the weird fish head thing). I walked around the inside, taking photos. The concert hall is really quite beautiful, excellent architecture, just what a signature building should be.

After a short stop for tea and dessert, I called it a day.
I haven't posted photos yet, for some reason, but I will.

Day 5 - Jökulsárlón - 19 August 2011

When I was planning the Iceland trip, I decided I wanted to see the north coast, the south coast, and the interior. Friday was south coast day, with a bus tour to Jökulsárlón. We started off on the same route as the Landmannalaugar tour, driving through Reykjavik’s sparse rush hour traffic, to Highway 1. We took a brief stop in the town of Selfoss (I don’t know where the waterfall is, but there must be one somewhere) to grab a bit of food for the trip. I got a sandwich, some chips, juice, and a yoghurt. The driver asked us at the time whether we wanted to take a longer breakfast, or maybe have a little more time to tour. That was an easy question to answer, so we were quickly on the road.

Our first stop was a waterfall called Skógafoss (63.53155, -19.51125). Skógafoss, I found out, used to be on the coast, when the ocean level was higher (and so all the plains we saw later in the day were coastal shelves). Skógafoss drops 200 feet from a plateau. As with all waterfalls, it’s fed by a glacier, and so the water is very cold. I found this out for myself, as I had decided I was going to walk up to the base - it’s also possible to walk to the top, but the driver thought there wasn’t enough time to do that. As I approached the base, the wind started to blow pretty wet and hard, at least 30 mph, and I wasn’t all that close. I stepped around a rock outcrop, and got hit with a much stronger, wet wind. I stood there for a few moments, taking a couple of photos, and barely able to take a breath, before I retreated. Obviously I had my rain jacket and waterproof pants on, or I would have been totally drenched. Great fun.

Back on the road after only twenty minutes at Skógafoss, we drove along Highway 1, passing the town of Vik (which means “bay” - Reykjavik is “Smoky Bay”). Just beyond Vik, we passed a washed out bridge (63.4491, -18.6737) on a glacial flood plain. You could see the glacier in the distance, the delta where the run off normally flows, and the ocean in the distance. Imagine the force of the water and ice flowing from the glacier.

We crossed a variety of mostly flat terrain, with some lava, but also a lot of areas with lava sand that are basically enormous beaches, though often with some vegetation. As with the area east of Akureyri, the terrain changed occasionally, providing some visual interest for what was otherwise a drive through Saskatchewan. I found the rivers pretty interesting, the terrain is so flat that the rivers meander across wide deltas. Iceland’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull, was visible on the mountains just north of the highway.

I had eaten part of my sandwich and yoghurt, when I suddenly felt like I would throw up. I managed to contain the urge, amongst other things, but that was enough yoghurt for me.

We stopped briefly at a display for a bridge that had been washed out in 1996. There are a couple of girders on display, and some information boards. The glacier is visible in the distance, about a mile away. We continued along the south face of the mountains, with glacial tongues sticking out at various points.

We arrived at Jökulsárlón (64.04845, -16.17939) just before 1:30 pm. Our first view was of a bay filled with icebergs, and the glacier in the distance. The driver told us that you could often see seals chasing fish in the river. We pulled up to the little café, and as soon as the bus stopped, my nausea came back strong. I figured I wouldn’t be able to avoid it this time, and so I walked towards the rear of the café. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it, and threw up four times right beside the deck, and not far from people eating lunch. “Sorry”, I said. They asked if I was okay, of course, and I was, once I had ejected whatever the offending object was. I was a bit queasy for a while after that, but it passed. I didn’t eat any more yoghurt.

I wandered around the water’s edge for a while, looking at the icebergs and the amphibious trucks that would take us amongst them. The trucks are called LARC-5s. The one we went on was built in 1954. They are all US Army surplus, complete with data plates. Before long, our turn came, we donned life jackets, and climbed aboard.

The seating arrangement was simply benches around the inside rail. We drove into the water, and churned along at a steady 10 kmph (5 knots to me). We sailed out to the middle of the bay, more or less, where the icebergs were relatively sparse, and stopped, shutting off the engine. My stomach was still a little chancy at this point, so I didn’t mind the stop. The guide gave a nice chat about the geology of the area, and after about ten minutes, we started up again, and cruised past some of the icebergs. There was what I assume was a safety person in a Zodiac accompanying us, and he had a lot of fun on the way back, zigzagging across our track as we plodded around icebergs, and back to shore. We disembarked, I had a hot chocolate from the café, a bit more wandering around, and it was time to go. On the way out, we could see several seals fishing in the river.

Because we hadn’t stopped for breakfast - or lunch - we had some extra time. We took a slight detour to another glacier bay (64.01425, -16.3724) not far from Jökulsárlón. I forget why we stopped there, except that we were quite a bit closer to the glacier face. At Jökulsárlón, we never got close to the face at all. We spent only a few minutes here, but it was pretty cool to get a good look at the glacier. Because it was relatively cool and cloudy, we didn’t get to see any calving, oh well, can’t see everything.

We drove back along the same route, because there’s really no other way to go. We stopped at the national park at Svínafellsjökull, which is a glacial tongue, and took a short walk to the face of the glacier. In the distance, we could see hikers walking across the glacier, something I would have done, if I could have worked it into the schedule. The glacier is a dirty brown, covered with ash from a recent eruption. Somewhere in the glacier are the bodies of a couple of German hikers, who went missing in 2007. We walked back to the park office, where they have a nice display about the history and geology of the area.

Our next stop was the town of Vik, a very nice looking little town, right on the coast. We spent a few minutes in a store while the driver filled the gas tank. I had taken a liking to an Icelandic chocolate bar called Nizza, which comes with a variety of fillings - Smarties, rice krispies, and others. I stocked up on a couple of those, having decided I was going to try all of them. The one with licorice in it was my least favourite, but the others were all good.

In case you want to try some...

The driver asked us if we wanted to go to the shore, and we all said yes, so he took us on a short drive around a butte, and then to a small park. The wind was howling in from the sea, at least 25 mph. I walked with my head down, and hat pulled on tight, down a trail and then across black sand to the ocean. Several of the group were already right up at the waves, but having been ambushed by a wave in Barbados, I was a little more cautious. I did get my feet wet, and did observe my “taste the ocean” habit. The beach was pretty interesting, with the “frozen trolls” offshore, but what really caught my eye was the basaltic columning in the cliffs beside the beach. There was a cave with columns, and more along the side of the cliff. I climbed up a bit to try to get a different angle for some photos, and then started heading back to the bus. We could see a pair of sheep well up the hill, at least a couple of hundred feet up, and probably more. There was no shortage of grass lower down, why would they be up there?

We passed a small church beside the road on the way back to the highway, and the bus driver told us the legend of how it was built. Supposedly, the padre (or mayor, can’t remember) approached the town’s laziest man, and told him to build the church. The man had no experience in building, and wasn’t a carpenter. So he struggled along, mostly unsuccessfully, as the deadline approached. One day, a man approached the church builder, and offered to help. The volunteer then built the church, unassisted, and just in time. As he put in the last nail, the man went to thank him, and instead, the volunteer disappeared.

Well. I have my doubts that this actually happened. On a trip to Santa Fe, NM, we visited the Loretto Chapel. When the chapel was being built, they needed a staircase built for access to the choir. No one could figure out how to do it, though, due to lack of space. One day, “a shabby looking stranger” appeared, offering to build the staircase, but he needed total privacy. He shut himself in the chapel for three months, and at the end of it, disappeared before he could be paid. The staircase was built without nails or a central pillar. Some people think that the carpenter was St Joseph, Jesus’ father (or whatever). Anyway, I just find it interesting that such similar legends could pop up in widely separated areas.

Our final stop was Seljalandsfoss, a waterfall you can walk behind. We passed it on the way out, but the driver planned the stop for the evening, as the waterfall faces west. The waterfall is quite thin, but it comes off the cliff with a bit of speed, and arches away from the cliff face as it falls. There’s a path behind the falls that you can take, without getting wet - well, mostly, just a bit of spray. I’ve gone into the tunnels behind Niagara Falls - this is nothing like that, much more open.

The bus finally arrived back in Reykjavik at 10 pm, a fourteen hour tour.


A few photos here: http://bit.ly/A9a4sC

Day 4 - Reykjavik, Landmannalaugar - 18 August 2011

Back on the bus tour for day 4, the destination today was Landmannalaugar, a valley in central Iceland, surrounded by rhyolite mountains. It was supposed to be pretty. We drove through Reyjavik, in their version of rush hour traffic, and got onto the main highway. The highway passes through some lovely scenery, with low mountains, rolling plains, occasional steam vents, and pipes carrying hot water to Reykjavik.

We got off the main road, and soon came to a beautiful little waterfall, called Hjálparfoss. Although it’s small compared to, say, Dettifoss, it’s in a beautiful valley, it has cool twisted basaltic columns along its cliffs, it has the usual beautiful clear water flowing through, and the waterfall itself has a nifty split arrangement, with a cliff jutting out in the middle, and the water flowing in kind of a reverse Y down the falls to the river. I wandered down to the water’s edge, checking out some of the plants growing close to, or in, the water. For some reason, I decided at this point to try out the underwater photography function on my camera for the first time ever, and the photo came out pretty well.

The next stop was a reconstructed longhouse at Þjórsárdalur. The Þjóðveldisbær longhouse is based on a longhouse at Stong, which was covered by ash in 1104 by an eruption at Hekla. There wasn’t enough time to go inside, though I did poke my head in to get a photo. However, I did have a casual wander around the outside. The construction was standard wood frame with turf covering (though the reconstruction involved cinder blocks), with a single entrance at one end, and a pair of outbuildings for food storage and a latrine.

We shortly got off the main road and got onto gravel. We passed through a lava plain, following, more or less, a river. We passed a canal carved out of rock, that served as outflow for a hydro generating station. We passed another nifty hydro station, and then got on to some quite rocky and uneven road. It’s a good thing I have a cast iron stomach. We bounced along a trail - can’t really call it a road - for twenty five minutes before coming to a stop. The scenery along the way was quite beautiful, a foggy mix of green, tan, and black in the light rain and low cloud.

The stop was fantastic. The bus (a twenty passenger vehicle) climbed to the top of a ridge. Upon getting out, we found ourselves looking over a volcanic crater lake, Hnausapollur. Hundreds of years ago, lava built up into a mountain, and entrapped steam built up pressure until it blew the top off, allowing water to collect in the hollow.

Back on the bus, we bounced along for a further half hour, past some beautiful green and black mountains, until we rounded a bend and came to a creek, which looked to be about two feet deep. After a bit of hesitation by the bus driver, we drove through, and then came to the campsite for Landmannalaugar. We were released with about five hours to look around in the rain.

Not having been given any suggestions about where to go, I decided to walk along a trail that parallelled a cliff face. That took me to a picturesque creek that ran through a gorge. Why not, I thought. I walked along the creek, and occasionally in it - it hardly mattered, since I was already quite wet from the rain - for a distance, and then climbed the hill. It looked like the trail was going to wander too far afield, so I crested the hill, and came into a rough and tumble area of lava. I followed a trail through the lava towards a rhyolite mountain in the distance. At the base of the mountain, there were a number of steam vents with some plants and flowers around them, quite nice. From there, I climbed the mountain - not very high, just along a trail, to a lookout point. I then returned to the campsite.

There was a thermal bath near the campsite that I had contemplated going in, but there wasn’t any place to just wade in, which is all I really wanted to do. I wandered back to the campsite, watched some semi-feral sheep for a few minutes, and then decided to hike across the flood plain to some rhyolite mountains a short distance away. The terrain was rocky and crisscrossed with fast flowing creeks, but I walked over to the face of the mountains, and took a few photos. It was really quite dramatic, with tan, black, brown, and a bit of red all mixed in. I walked back to the campsite in the rain - it seemed quite a bit farther, which is opposite to what I usually find - and found the bus, just in time to leave.

We took a different route going out, passing Iceland’s most famous volcano, Hekla. Unfortunately, although the rain had stopped, there was still a lot of cloud, and so we really didn’t get a good view.

Landmannalaugar was pretty much my favourite place in Iceland, and of all the places I went, it’s the place that’s most reasonable to do as a bus tour. Getting there in a car would be nearly impossible, and getting there in a 4x4 would be, at best, unpleasant. You can take a bus there, and hike out, a four day walk through what’s supposed to be some of the best scenery in Iceland, which is really saying something, I think. I would go back any time, and the four day hike sounds good, too.


Photos here: http://bit.ly/zj971l

Day 3 - Akureyri, Dettifoss, Husavik - 17 August 2011

I had two little problems for my second day in Akureyri. First, the cost of the bus tours was starting to get my attention. The tours were great, and I’m glad I did them, it’s a hassle free way of seeing the country. However, they weren’t cheap. The other problem was that there were no bus tours that went where I wanted to go, that didn’t also stop in many of the same places I’d seen on day 2. So I rented a car.

There are disadvantages to renting a car in Iceland. First, it’s quite expensive. Gas is also quite expensive, about double the price in Manitoba, since there are obviously no oil wells in Iceland. Also, if you go off the main road - which basically means any road outside a town that’s not the perimeter highway - your insurance is void.

I wanted to do two things, mainly - to go to the biggest waterfall in Europe, Dettifoss, and to go to a former whaling town, called Husavik. Dettifoss was on a gravel road, so there’d be no insurance once I turned towards it. I also wasn’t exactly sure how I would get to Husavik without a lot of backtracking. My plan basically consisted of driving to Dettifoss, and then seeing how things worked out.

Pretty well, as it turned out. I took a cab to the airport, picked up the car (a standard) without any significant problems, and headed out of town. I initially took the same route as we had the day before, though there were a couple more photo stops along the way. When I came to Lake Myvatn, I had the choice of going left or right around the lake. Since we’d gone right yesterday, I chose to go left. That was okay, but I should have gone right, and gone back to Dimmubottir, instead. The scenery was pleasant, but nothing breathtaking. I carried on past Namafjall, and then I was on new ground.

One of the interesting features of the route is that it parallels the old walking track. You can often see cairns set in a nice straight line running to the horizon. These were used when people used to walk or drive cattle between villages, and visibility was poor. They have been there for hundreds of years.

There’s also a lot of great volcanic terrain - bare, curved, and broken basalt plains, grassy fields ruptured by sunken lava, boulders scattered across a sandy lava field, really cool. Every time you came over a hill, you might well see something new and unique. I overshot my turn off and came across the river that feeds Dettifoss, Jökulsá á Fjöllum. The river flows in a remarkably straight run north from Vatnajökull glacier, to the coast. I knew I wasn’t supposed to cross the river, so I headed back to the road that I thought wasn’t my turn, and drove north.

The road to Dettifoss is considered to be gravel, but it’s the best gravel road I’ve ever been on, with no loose stones. The parking lot for Dettifoss soon came into view, I parked, and walked along the trail, amongst huge boulders, towards a stony ridge. I crested the hill, and Dettifoss roared before me. It’s a very simple waterfall, a straight drop of about 150 feet across a 300 foot wide gorge. The river runs pretty straight both before and after the drop, so it lacks the picturesque aspect of Godafoss or Gullfoss - instead it just pounds you with power. The water is a dirty grey from the lava it picks up across the valley.

A mile south (ie, higher) of Dettifoss is Selfoss, a more interesting waterfall. It is horseshoe shaped, and because of the shape, you can’t get quite as close. It’s a lower falls, but there’s interesting scenery along the gorge. You can see the layers of lava and pillars of rock eroding out.

As usual, time went by in double time, and the time to get on the road came much too quickly. I had the idea that I wanted to follow the river north, because there was supposed to be some good scenery along the way. The road, unfortunately, wasn’t much more than a track, and I had images of getting my small, low, rental car stuck in the absolute middle of nowhere. However, a couple of other cars preceded me, and another came along behind, so going that way became more viable. I really didn’t want to double back. I drove for about an hour to cover the 30 miles to the coastal highway, but didn’t see any worthwhile scenery - a few nice sights, for sure, but nothing dramatic. I found out later that I would have had to turn east when I came to the coastal highway, and I would have found the scenery I sought, at a place called Ásbyrgi.

Turning west onto Highway 85, I drove across a bridge and then headed north into terrain that reminded me of the Cape Breton Highlands. Along the coast there are some great rolling hills going down to the sea. There are also relatively few guardrails. Husavik is the major town on this road, and it has probably three claims to fame. It was a whaling town at one time, until they realised they could make more money from tourists on whale watching trips. They have an excellent whale (and to a slight degree, whaling) museum. And, they have a penis museum, where they have a large collection from various species. I had rather limited time, and it was already getting late, so I went to the whale museum.

The Whale Museum has a collection of whale skeletons from a wide variety of species. Interestingly, they have the stories on where each skeleton was collected. Some of them are from whaling, but others were beached or otherwise met a semi-natural end. There is some good information about whale life cycle, and a small display on whaling. There’s a baleen display, and a narwhal tusk. It was well worth an hour, and the twelve dollars admission. I wandered around the harbour a bit, and then through the town. The harbour is beautiful, sitting below the town, and looking up into the centuries old buildings.

From Husavik, it was a straight drive back to Akureyri to catch the evening flight to Reykjavik. I boarded the same Fokker 50 I’d come out on, and we flew over central Iceland. The weather was clearer than it was on the way out, and I was able to spot some volcanoes and glaciers on the way. I settled into my much-too-nice-for-me hotel, close to the centre of Reykjavik, on one of the main streets.


Some photos here: http://bit.ly/yBKJSs

Day 2 - Akureyri, Lake Myvatn tour - 16 August 2011

The day started with a small bit of confusion about the bus, but not nearly as bad as Monday’s. The bus fired up, headed across the fjord, and through the pass en route to our first stop at a waterfall called Godafoss. Godafoss, historically, is the place where a chieftain threw the pagan idols into the river when Iceland adopted Christianity in the 11th century. Godafoss is a relatively small falls, with a nice gorge running under the highway. Through the drop isn’t great, it’s still impressive. The river is more of a delta, with several smallish rivers running across the plain in front of the mountains. The river goes over the falls in two major segments, divided by a large rock outcrop. You can walk right up to the edge of the falls, and then walk back along the gorge to the bridge, by which time you’re just about late for the bus.

The next stop was Lake Myvatn (65.56772, -17.03716), pronounced Meeva, the “tn” apparently being silent. Vatn means lake, and my means midge, as in small, annoying fly. And there’s no problem seeing why it’s called Midge Lake, because there were billions of them around my face alone. Myvatn looks great in the brochure, but with overcast, it’s not as colourful as I expected. However, it’s still quite scenic, with volcanic hills everywhere. These aren’t volcanoes, but instead are places where superheated steam built up and caused an explosion, leaving behind a lava hill, generally with a hollowed out top. We walked along a trail that took us to the top of a couple of them, probably fifty or sixty feet high. I think it would be nicer in good sunlight.

From there we went to a place called Dimmuborgir (65.59177, -16.91296). Dimmuborgir is a small area of volcanic badlands, that used to be lava tubes, before the surface eroded away. Trails lead through the site, but the formation recommended as a “must see” by the guide book went unseen, because, again, not enough time. We were given twenty minutes - an hour is the minimum I would want. Dimmuborgir is also the home of the Yule Lads. At the lunch stop, I found an excellent illustrated book about the Yule Lads, the Icelandic version of Santa Claus. The Yule Lads are trolls who used to eat misbehaving children, although now they just leave potatoes in their shoes instead of toys (Icelandic kids put shoes on the window sill, instead of stockings by the fireplace). Santa Claus was basically unknown in Iceland until fairly recently, but of course western culture is hard to avoid, and he is now increasingly common.

Not far from Dimmuborgir, the fault between North America and Europe becomes obvious again. A small (20 foot high) ridge runs straight across a plain. We stopped at a particular point, and the guide led us into a small cave. In the cave, maybe five feet from the surface, was a pond. The temperature of the water was about 140 degrees F, and the water was absolutely clear.

The bus then took us up the hill, past a geothermal generating station, to a volcanic lake. The crater, called Viti (65.71776, -16.7571), is a beautiful multi-coloured crater with a lake in it. The surrounding area, Krafla, is a caldera, a collapsed volcanic crater, about 3.5 mi / 6 km in diameter. Viti was quite a short stop, but there wasn’t much to do once you’d taken your photos.

There are steam vents all around Krafla, and most of them have been capped to provide heat and electricity. We went back out the same way, past the power plant, and across the mountain to a place called Námafjall (any “LL” combination is pronounced “TL” by the way, a bit hard to adapt to). Námafjall is an attractive rhyolite mountain, with various shades of red, tan, even some yellow, mixed with green vegetation, and black and grey rock. The main interest, though, were the steam vents. On the plain, there were mud pools surrounded by some really nasty, sticky clay, that you could not get off your shoes, and on a slight rise, there were some fumaroles. The fumaroles look like disordered cairns that conceal a roaring steam locomotive. The racket is amazing, and the smell is unbe - liev - ab -le. It’s an extremely strong smell of sulphur, but worse, obviously some other nasty chemical combinations mixed in, too. It’s a fascinating place, but best not to stand downwind.

We then stopped at a nearby thermal bath, where those who wanted to could pay about $25 to sit and soak in the rather smelly, but purportedly good for you, water. I passed, and spent an hour wandering around the vicinity, which featured some interesting vegetation, thermal vents, and lava flows.


Some photos here: http://bit.ly/w5i8gu

Day 1 - Reykjavik and Golden Circle - 15 August 2011

On Sunday 14 August 2011, I boarded an Iceland Express 757 to fly to Reykjavik. Iceland Express flew into Winnipeg every Sunday over the summer, flying direct to Iceland. So nice to go somewhere without having to go through Toronto. The flight was a typical low cost carrier flight, seat pitch was pretty tight, but the flight was only 5.5 hours. There were 201 people on the 218 seat aircraft, so I hope IE finds it worthwhile to come back next year.

The flight arrived in Keflavik just after 7 am. The first look at Iceland was quite dramatic, volcanic islands off the coast, and then lava field plains south of the airport, all barren. Customs was no problem, typical European entry. I took a shuttle to Reykjavik, about a 40 minute drive away from the airport. Keflavik is the former US Navy patrol airport, where P-3s were based.

My plan for Reykjavik was to spend the morning touring the city, take the Golden Circle tour in the afternoon, and then catch an Air Iceland flight to Iceland’s second largest town, Akureyri, on the north coast. The most obvious landmark in Reykjavik is a spectacular church in the middle of downtown, called Hallsgrimkirkja. That’s where I wanted to go first.

Fortunately, the bus terminal turned out to be within sight of the church, so I started walking. It was only a few minutes, and awe inspiring when I turned the corner and got a clear view from a few blocks away. In front of the church is a statue of Leif Ericsson, on a large pedestal. The sun wasn’t in a good position, so I couldn’t get a decent photo, but it’s an impressive statue. From the statue, I picked a random street that I could see running down to the sea, and starting walking along it. I started to feel like I was definitely in Europe, with the different style of houses, and foreign language signs. I came to the shore, thinking that I might do my traditional thing of tasting the ocean - dumb tradition, but I always do it. The shore was too rocky to get to the water, but I did come across an iconic sculpture of a Viking ship. I’d seen it in my guide book, and thought it would be cool to see, but figured I wouldn’t have time to track it down - and there it was.

I went back to the church, went inside and wandered around a bit. It’s rather plain on the inside, lacking much in the way of colourful decoration, but it’s presumably a metaphor for the harsh climate. It’s quite new, having been completed only in 1986. The main decoration is the large pipe organ, and an enormous Jesus statue by the doors. The statue must be at least twelve feet tall, entirely white. You can also go to the top of the tower, so I did. It provides stunning views of Reykjavik, well worth going to the top (600 kronars, if I recall, about $6).

The morning went by very quickly, and it was now time to go to the bus station to go on the afternoon tour. I went to the wrong station, however, and had a few stressful moments wondering if I would get left behind. The guys at the wrong station helped me out, however, and gave me a ride to the right place, where I arrived with lots of time to spare - but only because the bus left later than they said it would.

The Golden Circle is the “must do” trip for everyone who comes to Iceland - that and the Blue Lagoon. The Golden Circle afternoon tour, a truncated version of the normal tour, goes to some of the most worthwhile sites - Thingvellir, Gullfoss, and Geysir. The bus departed shortly after 1 pm, drove through Reykjavik, and then headed west. The terrain is fantastic, everywhere you look there’s something unusual to see. Our first stop was at a lake just outside Þingvellir National Park (the first letter of Þingvellir is pronounced th, like a theta, and called “thorn”). The lake, and Þingvellir (64.26093, -21.12332), sits atop the Mid Atlantic Ridge, where the American and Eurasian continental plates are pulling apart. We had twenty minutes to have a quick look around Þingvellir, and I really could have used more. Besides the geologically interesting terrain, it’s also the site of the world’s first parliament. Icelandic chieftains met there starting in 930 AD to resolve disputes and to listen to the laws being read out.

From Þingvellir we went to Gullfoss (64.32781, -20.12300), a dramatic waterfall on the Hvítá river. The river drains the run off from the Langjökull glacier, which was visible in the distance. Gullfoss, “Gold Falls”, is a two tiered waterfall that drops into a steep gorge. It’s a spectacular site to start an Icelandic tour.

After Gullfoss, our next stop was the Haukadalur geyser field. Geyser is eponymous (a word I don’t get to use often enough), named after Geysir. Geysir no longer erupts, the underground channels having become blocked, but there is one very active geyser at the site, as well as several other geothermal pools. We dismounted the bus and followed the trail through the site. Geysir was first, but only a trickle. Nearby were a pair of pools, one cool and one hot (and steaming). The cool water pool was a beautiful shade of pale blue. The water in the hot pool was crystal clear, and you could see the channels under the water. Strokkur geyser is the main attraction, erupting every few minutes to fifty feet or more. I watched it erupt three times, very impressive sight. When the geyser erupts, it takes a few minutes to refill and build pressure for the next eruption. The water gurgles and surges, and after a bit of observation, it became possible to predict the next eruption to within a few seconds. On the way out, you walk past a large number of vents, all steaming away. Little Geysir is a water filled vent, and the water bubbles away at a fast boil.

The bus arrived back at the terminal at 7 pm-ish, and I had a little problem. I needed to be at the domestic airport to check in for a flight by 7:15. Our tour guide was supposed to inform the driver (a Pole, oddly enough), but didn’t. The driver was nice enough to drive me to the airport, and I got checked in without a problem, although not without more stress than I really needed.

I boarded an Air Iceland (not much variation in airline names here) Fokker 50 (updated Fokker F.27, something like a Dash-8) to fly to Iceland’s second largest town, Akureyri, where I planned to spend two days. The flight was uneventful and only about forty minutes. The descent, though, was through cloud amidst high terrain. Just as well I couldn’t see it all. I got checked into the hotel, found a bite to eat, and got sorted out for day two.


A few photos are here: http://bit.ly/wgOpGj

Challenger Winter Rendez-Vous

On Friday, I flew to Ottawa in hopes of attending the annual Challenger Winter Rendez-Vous, at the Chateau Montebello, on the Ottawa River. Montebello is the world's largest log cabin, and organiser Claude Roy has been bringing skiplanes together for most of the last twenty two years. It's a fantastic venue, and ideal for skiplanes.

My flight to Ottawa was delayed for an hour, for an unknown reason. The bad side of that is that the car rental agencies all close at 1 am, or sooner, so getting stuck was a distinct possibility. Fortunately, we did arrive in time, I got the car, and zipped over to the Holiday Inn Plaza la Chaudiere, got checked in, and was asleep by 3 am.

At 9 am, I got in the car and headed along Highway 148 towards Montebello. I stopped for "breakfast" at a Tim Hortons in Hull, only to find that almost no one spoke English. I couldn't even make myself understood with my crappy French. I understand that kids in Quebec don't get English language education, but how do you make it to 17 years old without picking up anything? Anyway, they mostly got my order right.

I drove to Montebello, parked in the overflow lot - it was absolutely gorgeous outside, so lots of skiers, sleigh riders, dog sledders, and others - and walked into the lobby. It was quite dark, but I quickly spotted the Challenger signs. I wasn't sure what to expect, having showed up uninvited, but Claude Roy and his wife Joan quickly made me feel welcome. I got a seat for the evening's banquet, which I wasn't expecting, since I understand it's usually sold out. They gave me a schedule to the afternoon seminars, and directed me out to the river.

On the river were close to twenty Challenger skiplanes, and a variety of other skiplanes, including a nifty RV-8. There was constant activity in the circuit, with the runway being just a few feet from where people were standing. The Challengers were the fave, of course, but there was lots of interest in the RV-8, a Helio Courier, and a pair of Quik-R trikes, which must have been pretty chilly. Vintage Wings, of Gatineau, also flew past with a Tiger Moth, a Cornell, and a Harvard.

There are photos of the Challenger Winter Rendez-Vous in various places. My photos are here: http://bit.ly/ySqVtU. I just did a photo dump, so everything I took, good, bad, or indifferent, is there. Some people have added Montebello photos to a Flickr group I set up, "Challenger Ultralight Airplanes", here: http://bit.ly/wCVIUA. There are also some photos by Vince Vairo in the FlyChallenger Yahoo! group, if you have access there: http://yhoo.it/xlm64R.

In the afternoon, there were concurrent seminars on various Challenger related subjects. I attended one on the proper care of the Rotax engine by Daniel Sasseville from Aéro Propulsion Technologies in St-Lazare, Qc, which I found very useful. I will change some of my operating procedures based on the information given in the seminar.

The second seminar was about the construction of the new model Challenger XS-50, by Rob Lake of Lake Aviation in Kingston, On. He went into detail about various aspects of construction, and how it differs from the older model Challengers. It's not going to happen, but it almost makes me want to try building one. However, I want to fly, not build.

Rob Lake's presentation went on almost to dinner, so we had only a few minutes of free time. The dinner was great, lots of good conversation, and the evening was perfectly capped by a presentation on a cross country flight from the Ottawa area to Greenville, Maine. Kevin Brown, Claude Roy, and Patrick Vinet made a movie of the photos they took along the way, and it came out very well. Greenville is a major float flying base, and they were mixed in with Cessna 185s, Beavers, and at least one Lake Buccaneer. It sounds like a great trip.

It was already quite late by the time the dinner ended, and I had to go back to Hull, so I left quickly. I got slightly turned around approaching Hull, and got back to the hotel after midnight. I spent a bit of time working on my photos, and then went to sleep, probably around 2 am.

At 3:30 am, the fire alarm went off. It sounded like an alarm clock, so my attempt at turning it off didn't go well. We evacuated into the street as the fire trucks pulled up. They had to resort to an axe to take the caps off the hose connections on the hotel. I was pretty glad I'd taken the time to gather my electronic bits before I left. However, they never did hook up the hoses.

After about half an hour, we were allowed into the hotel lobby. The fire was apparently confined to the tenth floor or higher, some kind of electrical related problem. I don't know if there was an actual fire, or just a big short. The tenth floor took some kind of water damage, too. Guests on the tenth floor were given rooms on other floors. After about another forty five minutes, we were allowed to go back to our rooms. I got to sleep sometime after 5 am, with my alarm still set for 9.

I thought about hitting a museum on Sunday, or maybe going down to the Rideau Canal to watch the skaters. However, I got going a bit late, and really only had time to go see my friend Bev. She and her husband Rick live in Petawawa, which I though was just over an hour from Ottawa, but which turned out to be rather farther. We had a nice visit, I got a quick tour of the army base, and then I had to head back.

I got to the airport, dropped off the rental car, got held up in security, and just made it to the gate, where boarding had already begun. The flight back was uneventful, and I was home by 9 pm.

Pretty good demo of how to light up an A320. I do all of this for ground runs, though I don't use the FMGC or FCU much. I also don't take as long to go through it, it's usually cold outside, and I don't want to keep my co-workers waiting unnecessarily.

http://bit.ly/zIpavl

Challenger Dusk Flight

It was a busy week at work. I stayed overtime Thursday and Friday evenings to help get airplanes out. AC207 was still in the hangar from Tuesday's phase check, AC416 was Thursday's airplane. Both went out Thursday, and I did the ground run on AC207, while Dan did the run on AC416, right after I did mine. At the same time, an Embraer was being run after an engine change, so we had three airplanes running, just after midnight. On Friday, AC237 was pushed out just after midnight, and I did the run on it, and then towed it to the terminal. We finished at 2:30 am Saturday morning, and that after finishing at 3:30 am the day before.

On Saturday morning, I went to a glider saftey seminar, put on by Tom Knauff, an American glider pilot. The Winnipeg Gliding Club hosted the seminar - actually a webinar - and since I'm an inactive member of the gliding club, I attended. Maybe this year I'll take up a flying membership again, not sure yet, though.

I went out to Oak Bank on Saturday afternoon, pulled the Challenger out of the hangar, and went for a flight. I took off, headed over to Grant's airfield and did a couple of circuits, and then did a bit of local flying. I stayed below 300 feet AGL for the rest of the flight, having a bit of fun waving at snowmobilers, and scaring some deer.

I had taken off only 25 minutes before sunset, so I didn't have a lot of time. Fortunately, because of the snow cover, there was enough light to keep flying until five minutes before official night. I had to use the glassy water landing technique, though, because it was pretty hard to judge the height above ground as I got close. The airplane has strobes and a landing light of sorts, so that helped a bit.

Five minutes after landing.

Doing the engine run in A319 C-GBIN 284

Doing the engine run in A319 C-GBIN 284. Photo by Hebb Russell

I had the chance to do an engine run during daylight last week. Usually, the airplanes come in at midnight or so, and get finished in the late evening. The run is done at the end of maintenance, and so most often, it's dark when we're going out. This airplane took a bit longer, and so it went outside on day shift.

We run the engines to check that the ignition works, that engine vibration is within the acceptable limit, that there are no leaks from oil or fuel filters, and that the bleed system operates normally. These items are worked on during maintenance, so we make sure they all work before the airplane goes back to the terminal for its next flight. We take each engine up to take off power, which can be a lot of excitement on an icy apron.

This time, there was a construction crew working alongside the apron. We had to encourage them to go to lunch so that we wouldn't deafen them.