Trip 063 - August of 2013Boundary Bay to Port HardyFlight in a Cessna 172 Page 1 of 3 |
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1. Before the flight at Boundary Bay Airport. CZBB tower is seen far ahead above the propeller.
2. Flying by the Alex Fraser bridge. Altitude restriction in this area is not higher than 1,200 feet without clearance from the YVR control tower.
3. Approaching Second Narrows bridge. Vancouver on the left. North Vancouver on the right.
4. North Vancouver on the foreground, and then Lions Gate Bridge leads to Stanley Park, which is attached to downtown Vancouver.
5. The most beautiful part of the flight begins: water, islands, mountains, lots of green.
6. Flying above the town of Sechelt before landing at the Sechelt aerodrome. The landing is tricky due to high trees on approach and a short runway.
7. Sechelt aerodrome (code CAP3).
8. Piper Aerostar (C-GVMO) parked at the Sechelt aerodrome.
9. We are ready for takeoff at Sechelt on Runway 11.
10. En route to Port Hardy. More of Beautiful British Columbia on display.
11. Lots of pretty small islands.
12. Savary Island near Powell River is one of a kind - a boomerang on the water.
13. There were many boats moored by Savary Island.
Here is our video of the views from this area on the way back.
More ihikebc videos are on our YouTube Channel. 14. Moving on.
15. But what's with those low clouds...the minimum vertical distance from the clouds VFR (Visual Flight Rules) aircraft must maintain is 500 feet...
16. Really nice views, but the clouds...
17. The clouds were getting lower, so we had to keep descending. It's quite legal to fly right above the water, but this is not a seaplane, so, if the engine quits, our gliding distance would be less than desirable.
20. Here is another unusual sight - Cormorant Island (across the strait from Port McNeill) has an aerodrome (named Alert Bay - CYAL), and its runway takes about a third of the entire island. From the looks of the clouds way ahead, it was possible that we could use this runway for an unscheduled stop.
20. This is where we started to feel rather uncomfortable. This was our first time in the area, and, while we were tuned to the Port Hardy VOR, there was no GPS in the aircraft, and we did not feel like flying near the hills in this weather. Things got really interesting after the Port Hardy control tower advised they were unable to provide vectors for landing. They did say the visibility was eight miles at the airport, so if we could just get past this nasty spot...
21. Hello!
Our Trip Report Continues on Page 2.
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