The Stars Aligned

[SMO]

I live in Fernie, B.C. and work in Vancouver, B.C. I usually fly commercial from Cranbrook to Vancouver. I keep my RV-4 at the Pitt Meadows airport and fly it in the evenings around the Fraser Valley when I am in Vancouver (if I am not working on it!).

I have been waiting for the opportunity to fly it back to Cranbrook, and have been looking for a weekend when:

• I will be leaving Vancouver on Thurs or Fri
• I will be returning on Monday
• I have at least 10,000 feet ASL below the clouds for the trip out
• The forecast is good for the return trip

It finally happened this past weekend. A great experience for me.

Here are some pics of the return trip this morning

http://www3.telus.net/public/molsons/Flight July 26 10/

You might also note I have one cylinder head temp (#3) that is a bit too warm. Still working on getting that one to run cooler.

 

[Andy J]

Awesome photos - Thank you for sharing. Glad your trip went well.

 

[Garage Guy]

CYA's

Mark,

Nice to see those photos. I was up that way back in June, and had a beautiful flight (among others) from Salmon Arm to Langley, following the Thompson past Kamloops and then down the Fraser. Briefing for the flight, looking at the Vancouver VTA chart, I was worried about how to handle all the CYA's (advisory areas) that checker the airspace once you get to around Chilliwack. In the US, you can get VFR flight following for MOA's and the like, but not there. The flight service briefer I talked to said he wasn't familiar with them, but he could probably find out the controlling agency for each of them, though it would take a while to call the info up on his computer. So, I ended up just following the river, which pretty much threads between them, but wondering: what do you do? Do you transition them, or just avoid them?

--Paul

 

[SMO]

Depends

Paul, the large CYAs are where the flight schools go for training so the advisory is just to watch out for traffic in those areas. Some are also used for aerobatics as marked on the VTA chart. I sometimes transit those areas but keep my eyeballs wide open.

Others are marked "Blasting" and I avoid overflying those. Pretty easy to spot as they are usually a quarry of some sort and make a visible scar on the landscape.

One is a prison but if I recall correctly they only want you to keep a thousand feet vertical clearance so not much of an issue.

Between those and the control zones for Abbotsford, Langley, Pitt Meadows, Vancouver Harbour, Boundary Bay, plus the varying ceiling heights for VFR traffic makes for challenging flying for those unfamiliar with the area. It's a good idea to study the VTA chart and plan your route and altitudes carefully.

 

[ao.frog]

Very nice!

Thanks for the write-up and pics. Very nice scenery!
I can easily see your need for nice weather flying there.

Thanks for sharing!

PS: are you sure that trip of yours wasn't done in Norway? Them big rocks sure look familar!

 

[Garage Guy]

Paul, the large CYAs are where the flight schools go for training so the advisory is just to watch out for traffic in those areas. Some are also used for aerobatics as marked on the VTA chart. I sometimes transit those areas but keep my eyeballs wide open.

Is there an air-to-air frequency for position reports in those areas? I avoided all of them by flying right down the river, but there was a lot of traffic there as well -- I guess because they were all trying to avoid the CYA's too .

Between those and the control zones for Abbotsford, Langley, Pitt Meadows, Vancouver Harbour, Boundary Bay, plus the varying ceiling heights for VFR traffic makes for challenging flying for those unfamiliar with the area. It's a good idea to study the VTA chart and plan your route and altitudes carefully.

I would add that especially if you are used to US charts, the Canadian charts are not super-easy to read IMO and so extra study is definitely a good idea. Anyway, this was the first time I've flown into the Vancouver area VFR, and it was fairly intense. It's easier to file IFR and make the airspace magically transparent

--Paul

 

[SMO]

Is there an air-to-air frequency for position reports in those areas? --Paul

Yes, 122.75 is used for the practice areas, and 123.2 is used under 2500 in non-practice areas.

Following the river it seems the generally accepted procedure is to fly the right shore, so the south shore when flying east and the north shore when flying west. But of course you still have to watch for those doing something different!