DAY ONE:
From Walla Walla, Washington I caught a private charter flight aboard a CV990; all the way across North America to CYFB, "Iqaluit." This is the nearest "Good-Sized" airport to Pangnirtung - the starting location for Peter's Arctic Adventure.
Early DAY TWO I hopped a Dash-8 up to Pangnirtung.
I cheated!
Okay, not really CHEATED but I've learned a lot over the past ten years! One of the things that I've learned is that I am NOT a fan of prolonged cruise flights. Climbing ... Hand-flown approaches ... RNPs ... Landings ... those are the reasons I sim not to slog along at 120 knots for hours on end. (Frankly, even an hour at 90 knots is TOOMUCHFS for me!) Therefore I have ditched many of my slower aircraft or as I've done this month, I have tweaked things to maximize my own flying pleasure. Allow me to introduce you to (if you don't already know) the Jet-Powered, Turbine "Supervan"! http://www.texasturbines.com/en/our-conversions/supervan-900.html Adding the Lear Jet sounds to the Default Caravan while tweaking the CFG for added boost/power I can STILL land at slow speeds and on short, unimproved runways but I can cruise (more) happily at a reasonable 210 knots! Perfect for this FOTM! (by the way, all you nay-sayers out there that talk about the "joy of the journey" ... this thing still flies very nicely at 100 knots as well.)
According to Peter's directions, I started up from Pangnirtung at 18:00Zulu (which is 14:00 local time in February) and used NDBs ONLY to fly up to Broughton Island. Enroute I began encountering some bumps and then building clouds and then ... lightning? While visibility wasn't horrible, the weather degraded until I landed with blowing wet snow. Shut-down was at 14:35.
I was on the ground 30 minutes and closed the doors to re-start at 15:05. Departure, climb and return to Pangnirtung remained stormy but with no lightning and fewer bumps. I shut down there at 15:52.
With daylight remaining I departed at 16:20 and returned all the way back to Iqaluit where I caught that chartered CV990 back to Portland, arriving late that night.
