We're on the ground at Trois-Rivières, waiting for the cumulus to cease towering. A line of thunder-cells is apparently drifting into Vermont from north of Montreal and we have to wait for these to dissipate before we can continue our ride home. Picking blueberries between flights, enough for a pie, is not possible when travelling by commercial airlines, but it is when you're travelling Hobbs-Air. The other thing I can do to pass the time is to catch up with my blog in the Pilots' Lounge.
Having slept well last night, we opened the curtains to see a misty shore, the sea calm. After breakfasting on the rôtis maison (thick chunks of toast), the voiture de courtoisie brought us up the hill to the airport where we were obliged to file IFR because of a 200ft ceiling, through which the pilot of an incoming King Air 'plane couldn't see well enough forward in order to land on runway 24. We were already running our engine, ready to leave once he was down, but had to turn it off again to save fuel, because it took another quarter of an hour before he had repositioned himself for an approach from the opposite direction, onto runway 06, on the threshold of which the visibility was slightly better. We fired up again and took off when the King Air was down and clear, because only one IFR flight at a time is allowed in this zone.
We soon penetrated the misty cloud and soon left it below us, after which we could see some hint of the coastline we were following along "Victor 98", past Rimouski (seeing its airport and ferry port through a hole) towards Rivière-du-Loup and Quebec. Beyond that point far more land was visible and the cloudscape became more interesting too, with many castellated small white cumuli below stratified grey layers with large billowing clouds (TCUs) to the south and north of us some of which contained the lightning we could detect on our strikefinder. Several times during this trip we have noticed that it makes sense to stay near the St Lawrence, which seems to have a calming effect on the air mass. The north shore is a different case, when you pass the steep mountains west of Tadoussac. We made the correct decision, when we crossed to the south for our homeward run, avoiding the menacing blackness over there. Crossing the Ile d'Orléans diagonally, we overflew Quebec City, saw the Montmorency Falls, the bridge, the port with its ships and Jean-Lesage airport, before continuing on to Trois-Rivières, descending through cloud-valleys and finding that the broken cloud ceiling was still quite low, at about 2000ft. Able to see what he was aiming at, Chris flew the last 20 miles VFR and we landed for lunch.
blending an assortment of thoughts and experiences for my friends, relations and kindred spirit
By Alison Hobbs, blending a mixture of thoughts and experiences for friends, relations and kindred spirits.
1 comment:
She misses the most bizarre aspect of the flight from Mont Joli. Suddenly, in the middle of nowhere we were put into a hold! Holds form a large part of IFR training but very rarely occur in real life except at busy airports. We were not even at a nav aid, simply 20 nautical miles from the Mont Joli VOR. We completed about three-quarters of one turn before being cleared out of the hold again and on the Trois Rivieres. Very odd.
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