Page 6 - Volume 13 Number 9

A Beechcraft owner in Houma, Louisiana, had inquired about summer flying conditions in the Canadian Arctic. His corporate customer, he explained, decided to reward some staff with bonus exploration and fishing trips. Coincidentally, I had just been offered a short-term captain contract by family-owned Buffalo Airways of the “Ice Pilots NWT” television reality series. I would fly from Yellowknife, the capital city of Canada’s Northwest Territories, and it would give me the perfect opportunity to advise my southern confederate if he should leave his land of oyster-pluckers for Canada’s pristine wilderness which proved irresistible. Besides, my own first venture north of the 60th parallel took place decades before in a diminutive Cessna 180 on wheel/skis. Revisiting the “good ’ol days” in an airplane never designed for the Barren Lands added to the picture.
Buffalo Airways, formed in 1970 by “Buffalo Joe” McBryan with a fabric-covered Noorduyn Norseman, had rolled out a Beechcraft King Air 100 registered C-GBFE for a charter to shuttle communication technicians to settlements along Hudson Bay. C-GBFE was a working machine with scuffed seats and scratched sidewalls caused by cabins full of drill rods, generators and fuel drums, not an executive club with belted lavatory seat configuration like its big sister King Air 300 series. Hardly showroom condition, but company A&Ps kept the
Buffalo bird finely tuned. On warm days, first officers like Mousseau washed and detailed every inch.
Mousseau’s 1,000 hours on type had been logged in hinterland milieu so her suggestions would be welcome as my recent past consisted mainly of asphalt runways. Not unfamiliar with remote airstrip odysseys and other airplane types, I knew gravel surfaces required different techniques. The aircraft flight manual stated that C-GBFE’s three-blade Hartzell propellers swung only 11.75 inches above the surface. A compulsory item aboard any low-wing type – and the King Air family flew everywhere above the 60th parallel – was a wood- handled household broom to sweep pebbles away before engaging start buttons.
The first leg entailed 590 nautical miles to the Inuit community of Gjoa Haven to meet the communication technicians who had airlined from Winnipeg. With total system capacity of 374 U.S. usable gallons of fuel and 6,600 pounds empty weight, our “Buffalo 666” cruised at 21,000 feet with autopilot following the Garmin GNS 430 WAAS. We overheard other King Air “drivers” above the tundra engaging in an informal self-policing policy by passing information to each other about general conditions and keeping track of their airborne comrades. Cajun-accented visitors accustomed to rigid Mississippi Delta skies would be welcome to join the chitchat.
4 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
SEPTEMBER 2019