What Was Aviation Like Back then?

[rookiepilot]

….Ferrying an aircraft to South America?

….Navigating across the Arctic, or Antarctic, by night? By ADF, DR, or by the stars?

….Flying in the Jungles of Africa?

….Heli-logging, Firebombing, hauling the mail?

….West Coast VFR, or Newfoundland?

Before GPS, magenta lines and Direct - to.

Before turbine’s, even.

Share your tales. I’d love to hear some.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Well there was the Crofton Mill waypoint for the old Nanaimo NDB approach.

Back in the early 1990’s I flew a Navajo on a Victoria, Vancouver, Nanaimo bag run.

The only approach was a NDB which had a big bend to the left at the beacon (FAF). This meant you had to re-intercept the final approach track outbound from the beacon after passing the beacon, which was a pain.

When the wx was crap it was often calm and you could smell the Crofton pulp mill as you went over it. If at max smell you put in about 3 degrees of left bank you would get a gentle turn that would have you cross the beacon just as your heading was aligned with the final approach track. Level the wings and descend and you would break out with the runway dead ahead

[rookiepilot]

Max smell. Love it.

[pelmet]

Well there was the Crofton Mill waypoint for the old Nanaimo NDB approach.

Back in the early 1990’s I flew a Navajo on a Victoria, Vancouver, Nanaimo bag run.

The only approach was a NDB which had a big bend to the left at the beacon (FAF). This meant you had to re-intercept the final approach track outbound from the beacon after passing the beacon, which was a pain.

When the wx was crap it was often calm and you could smell the Crofton pulp mill as you went over it. If at max smell you put in about 3 degrees of left bank you would get a gentle turn that would have you cross the beacon just as your heading was aligned with the final approach track. Level the wings and descend and you would break out with the runway dead ahead

Great. The TSB would never know that the copilot with a lactose intolerance, who had deviled eggs that morning, resulted in going off course into a mountain.

Bottom line.....you had to know how to actually use a map. And using time, such as when one might want to start a cloud-break descent after passing over a mountainous area, for example, to a destination on the coast. Which means calculations based on estimated groundspeed.

Then there is the weather radar one might use to paint the walls when flying up a fiord at night. The NDB with its extremely high minimums is in range but everyone prefers to just descend over the ocean to get low(about 1500' below minimums) using the radar altimeter. On descent, head straight towards the wall that is painted red on the radar screen while repeatedly adjusting range downwards as one gets closer. As one does get closer and lower, the outline of the fiord in black appears on the radar screen surrounded by red(unless it is an old radar). Make the turn into the black area to enter the fiord and ideally see the isolated faint light of the town ahead. If it is not in sight, well some are more brave than others in their decision-making. After all, the CFS says that only pilots who are very familiar with this airport should go into it at night.

Keep the airplane symbol over the black on the radar screen but also stay close to the red which is the high fiord wall beside you, so that you have enough room to do a 180 at the appropriate time across the fiord to the airport on the other side of it. On nights with a moon, you can see the cliffs out the window. On a pitch black night....it is pretty dark. The airport does come into view and you continue but you don't want to go too far as there is another wall out there patiently waiting for those who do. Make the turn and start the descent. Of course, there are Papi's for assistance but they will take you too far down the very short runway, which has a dropoff at either end, so they are ignored. Come in low(but not too low) and touchdown a few hundred feet down the runway. No reverse, so you want good braking on the snow covered runway. And there's another airport that's sometimes worse as the next destination(make the 180 turn to final from downwind when the landing lights illuminate the wall ahead).

Anyone recognize this place?

[robshelle]

IMG_0321.jpeg (81.97 KiB) Viewed 2988 times

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Thats during in good weather at least!

[pelmet]

That looks like the approach into Grise Fiord to me. Different place. Been there in daytime only. If I remember correctly, it does have curved approach lights. Coming in from the opposite direction is more interesting. But it is still fun to imagine coming in there in pitch black with just the few lights of the town and airport visible(noon at Grise in the winter). One should have any go around procedure well planned in advance.

Nice pics.

[PilotDAR]

Pre GPS, my colleague and I did a few ferry flights...

We delivered a brand new Cessna 303 from Wichita to southern England. Though we did carry the equipment required for a Transatlantic crossing, we also carried a King marine LORAN C. I was very familiar with the use of this unit, but LORAN C was not intended for lat/long navigation very far off coasts. My colleague found a North Atlantic marine LORAN overprinted chart, so major time difference lines for each chain were printed over the entire ocean. I contacted King, to fine the optimum wire antenna length - approximately 100'. So, with the King LORAN C, the chart, and my 100' roll of wire. off we went. I trailed the wire out the parking ticket window, and the LORAN came alive, though not in full lat/long mode, only with a master and/or slave time difference line for one or two shown (minimum three for lat/long navigation). Using exact times crossing the lines, and actual plotting on the chart, it was quite easy to have a pretty precise location every ten to fifteen minutes!

We also ferried a Twin Otter from Holland to Lesotho in South Africa. He had been as far as Egypt before, but further south was new to both of us. VFR and LE charts for the route were pretty well unobtainable. He did find British Airways high enroute charts, but they were or marginal use, as we could rarely fly the minimum route altitude, which were reception based. Not knowing the MOCAs for the routes created its own worrying event, but that's a different story. To complicate things more, this Twin Otter had the magnetic compass, and left and right RMI's, but no directional gyros. He also had a [rather large] marine sat nav (which was not a GPS at all), but it only seemed to tell us where we had been, and where we were, but not how to get to the next place. The RMI's would regularly drop a heading flag and quit. I was able to track outbound south from Nairobi 93 miles, before I lost the VOR. While tracking outbound, I also lost the RMI heading, but I kept going. By the time we got to Zambia, and saw Lake Malawi, we could get a firm position. I was three degrees off course - correctable. My colleague wanted to know how I had flown a decently straight heading for a couple of hours with nothing more than the magnetic compass as a reference. I held my secret till the end of our trip... I had flown nearly all of the trip left seat, and on the left side. The left instrument panel had a slaving meter for the RMI. The slaving meter would try to slave the failed RMI, so would indicate the error when the RMI card would not turn. As long as the RMI failed on the heading I wanted to fly, and as long as I flew the slaving meter in the center, I was flying my desired heading!

Yeas later, GPS came along, and I wondered how it could be better than LORAN... It is!

[pelmet]

Interesting Loran stuff. I flew one aircraft with it but as soon as you went north of civilization, it stopped working, so of little overall use. There had been Omega where I worked but it was out a little before the time I arrived and the system was shut down. We did have one aircraft with an INS. It was used not only for navigation but the vertical gyro as well. It drifted a lot and every waypoint had to be entered manually with lat and long entries. Not fun when there are 50 waypoints on the flight plan.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Well there was the Crofton Mill waypoint for the old Nanaimo NDB approach.

Back in the early 1990’s I flew a Navajo on a Victoria, Vancouver, Nanaimo bag run.

The only approach was a NDB which had a big bend to the left at the beacon (FAF). This meant you had to re-intercept the final approach track outbound from the beacon after passing the beacon, which was a pain.

When the wx was crap it was often calm and you could smell the Crofton pulp mill as you went over it. If at max smell you put in about 3 degrees of left bank you would get a gentle turn that would have you cross the beacon just as your heading was aligned with the final approach track. Level the wings and descend and you would break out with the runway dead ahead

Great. The TSB would never know that the copilot with a lactose intolerance, who had deviled eggs that morning, resulted in going off course into a mountain.

Well back in the day all the bag runs were single pilot, in any case if you turned too early the relative bearing angle on the ADF would open instead of close. Since the ADF was usually all you had you got pretty good at keeping situational awareness by assessing needle movement.

But hey I guess you are right. Cutting the corner on an approach you flew twice a day is way more dangerous than, at night descending 1500 ft below minimums and driving straight at a cliff

[pelmet]

Well there was the Crofton Mill waypoint for the old Nanaimo NDB approach.

Back in the early 1990’s I flew a Navajo on a Victoria, Vancouver, Nanaimo bag run.

The only approach was a NDB which had a big bend to the left at the beacon (FAF). This meant you had to re-intercept the final approach track outbound from the beacon after passing the beacon, which was a pain.

When the wx was crap it was often calm and you could smell the Crofton pulp mill as you went over it. If at max smell you put in about 3 degrees of left bank you would get a gentle turn that would have you cross the beacon just as your heading was aligned with the final approach track. Level the wings and descend and you would break out with the runway dead ahead

Great. The TSB would never know that the copilot with a lactose intolerance, who had deviled eggs that morning, resulted in going off course into a mountain.

Well back in the day all the bag runs were single pilot, in any case if you turned too early the relative bearing angle on the ADF would open instead of close. Since the ADF was usually all you had you got pretty good at keeping situational awareness by assessing needle movement.

But hey I guess you are right. Cutting the corner on an approach you flew twice a day is way more dangerous than, at night descending 1500 ft below minimums and driving straight at a cliff

Welcome to the Arctic, where the home-made approaches were frequently safer than the published approaches. GPS straight-in versus NDB circling. And in the case of the wall on a dark night, the visual maneuvering from the NDB minimums required figuring out where the walls were and descending between them, probably in some sort of a spiral. Only the inexperienced did that(or maybe some Twin Otters). But TC designed it all from their shiny offices down south, so it must make sense as they are here to help us.

[PilotDAR]

Aviation back then.... The first avgas I bought was red - 80/87. It cost me $0.38 - per imperial gallon. The first plane I rented was a C 150 at Brampton Flying Club. It cost me $18/hr - wet. After I was old enough to hold a PPL, I switched to renting Brampton's 177RG, it was way more expensive - $55/hour - wet.

None of those planes had any displays at all, much less any with magenta lines. I could still live with that!

[Donald]

Anyone recognize this place?

Sounds like Pang?

[cdnavater]

My first multi-ifr job was a C414 single pilot, the weather radar had a green screen, no color and it had a rubber boot attached to it. Without the boot the screen was not bright enough to see in the daytime, the AP was not very good so SP IFR in thunderstorms was fun, tracking with ADF that had a tendency to point at lightning strikes also.
Most places I went had a low power NDB that would only point accurately with 10 nm, so after you lost the VOR, maintain your heading and timing for descent and then hope you didn’t end up more than 10 off course to pick up the beacon. As you can imagine the upper wind forecast was not as good then either.

[Old fella]

My dedicated Air Ambulance days- 9yrs(1980-89) of it in Maritimes. The wx, the back end, people, happy/sad stories. Plenty still vivid, some of it I would rather forget.

"Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these Time passages. There's something back here that you left behind." - Al Stewart

[pelmet]

Anyone recognize this place?

Sounds like Pang?

https://www.agefotostock.com/age/en/det ... -fil8316/1

The GPS really lined you up perfectly with the runway centreline. I remember one time flying with the chief pilot on a particular type who insisted on the NDB approach to minimums when he actually could have done a visual approach to the reciprocal runway(fog over the water on the published approach end). After mentioning more than once that the GPS was showing off course, we broke out high and to the right. Then the big dive and turn happened and we touched down halfway along the runway. Without giving details, there were a lot of ‘officials’ at this location out to watch us land who I believe were not impressed.

GPS straight in with a 3 to 1 descent worked much better in my experience. Really not sure why he went back in time to the old ways that day.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Back in the early 2000's I used to do a every 6 month IFR proficiency flight for a friend of mine in a very nice twin Cessna. The route was CYYJ to CYPW for a full procedure NDB, missed over to YBL for the back course LOC, missed over to CYQQ for a PAR, missed over to CYCD for the straight in NDB flown as a GPS overlay, missed and then back to CYYJ for an ILS to a full stop.

Today only the ILS into CYYJ still exists. Now everything is a ILS, LPV or LNAV + V. Better living thanks to high technology

[TeePeeCreeper]

First job had me lucky…

An Apollo II GPS. She was a fine tool indeed. Although I still wore that little VNC paper out!

It complimented the on board Loran C which was pretty much useless at that point. (Early 2000’s)

In many ways although I loathe what has happened to the next generation of pilots, I love to ask odd ball questions to new FO’s relating to RMI’s and bearings to a station!

Aviation has progressed immensely, Pretty sure I haven’t!

TPC

[JL]

For me, a well executed DME arc always brought immense satisfaction.

[Big Pistons Forever]

For me, a well executed DME arc always brought immense satisfaction.

A couple of years ago I was going to an airport that actually had one and the guy I was mentoring wanted to give it a try instead of going to the IF for the LPV approach. I told him to ask for the straight LPV in for the downwind runway as the tail wind was only 5 kts. This would save over 20 track miles. The arc was gone on the next CAP revision. I feel kind of bad they probably will never see a DME arc again and I denied them probably the last chance to do it old school.

[rookiepilot]

Searched DME arcs — never have done one, maybe once in training? — lo and behold this old thread appears

http://avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopic.php?t=71451

[Big Pistons Forever]

Searched DME arcs — never have done one, maybe once in training? — lo and behold this old thread appears

http://avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopic.php?t=71451

Ah yes the good old "Yay" method

[Radaltalive]

Well there was the Crofton Mill waypoint for the old Nanaimo NDB approach.

Back in the early 1990’s I flew a Navajo on a Victoria, Vancouver, Nanaimo bag run.

The only approach was a NDB which had a big bend to the left at the beacon (FAF). This meant you had to re-intercept the final approach track outbound from the beacon after passing the beacon, which was a pain.

When the wx was crap it was often calm and you could smell the Crofton pulp mill as you went over it. If at max smell you put in about 3 degrees of left bank you would get a gentle turn that would have you cross the beacon just as your heading was aligned with the final approach track. Level the wings and descend and you would break out with the runway dead ahead

Great. The TSB would never know that the copilot with a lactose intolerance, who had deviled eggs that morning, resulted in going off course into a mountain.

Bottom line.....you had to know how to actually use a map. And using time, such as when one might want to start a cloud-break descent after passing over a mountainous area, for example, to a destination on the coast. Which means calculations based on estimated groundspeed.

Then there is the weather radar one might use to paint the walls when flying up a fiord at night. The NDB with its extremely high minimums is in range but everyone prefers to just descend over the ocean to get low(about 1500' below minimums) using the radar altimeter. On descent, head straight towards the wall that is painted red on the radar screen while repeatedly adjusting range downwards as one gets closer. As one does get closer and lower, the outline of the fiord in black appears on the radar screen surrounded by red(unless it is an old radar). Make the turn into the black area to enter the fiord and ideally see the isolated faint light of the town ahead. If it is not in sight, well some are more brave than others in their decision-making. After all, the CFS says that only pilots who are very familiar with this airport should go into it at night.

Keep the airplane symbol over the black on the radar screen but also stay close to the red which is the high fiord wall beside you, so that you have enough room to do a 180 at the appropriate time across the fiord to the airport on the other side of it. On nights with a moon, you can see the cliffs out the window. On a pitch black night....it is pretty dark. The airport does come into view and you continue but you don't want to go too far as there is another wall out there patiently waiting for those who do. Make the turn and start the descent. Of course, there are Papi's for assistance but they will take you too far down the very short runway, which has a dropoff at either end, so they are ignored. Come in low(but not too low) and touchdown a few hundred feet down the runway. No reverse, so you want good braking on the snow covered runway. And there's another airport that's sometimes worse as the next destination(make the 180 turn to final from downwind when the landing lights illuminate the wall ahead).

Anyone recognize this place?

Pang and Qik

[goldeneagle]

A couple of years ago I was going to an airport that actually had one and the guy I was mentoring wanted to give it a try instead of going to the IF for the LPV approach. I told him to ask for the straight LPV in for the downwind runway as the tail wind was only 5 kts. This would save over 20 track miles. The arc was gone on the next CAP revision. I feel kind of bad they probably will never see a DME arc again and I denied them probably the last chance to do it old school.

When I was doing my initial Ifr the instructor wanted to do a longer Xc than what they normally did, said the radio range at destination would be decommissioned in a couple of days, doing an approach on the range would be a story for the grandkids. I thought he was just trying to upswell me, but agreed to go anyways. Can probably count on one hand the number of folks here that have done a range approach, and in the end he was right, today it’s a great ‘back in the day’ story.

Back when I still flew for a living the gps hadn’t been invented yet, most of us had a LORAN, and everybody was sharp on the ndb approaches. My favorite one was the egg island approach to nowhere. Bonus points for anybody else that used it, and can tell us where it took you, and why.

[iflyforpie]

If I had to guess it was for a safe let down over the ocean so you could .. run to Rivers Inlet.

Still do the same thing to Bella Coola from Bella Bella on occasion.

[pelmet]

Searched DME arcs — never have done one, maybe once in training? — lo and behold this old thread appears

http://avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopic.php?t=71451

Used to do one down in Cuba in the old style jet. Seem to remember we started the turn a couple of miles before reaching the arc centerline(start turn at 17 DME for a 15 DME arc when at 250 knots - unless there was a big wind calling for an adjustment). Was amazed to see the newer technology aircraft do it automatically and taking winds into account.

Looking further 'Back Then'......there was one place up north where we would get the 15 DME arc on a fairly slow turboprop on a regular run. We would normally just fly in VFR. But, it was controlled airspace. Therefore, if the cloud or vis was too low, we would have to get an IFR clearance. The approach had a 15 DME arc and our arrival from the enroute phase was 90 degrees from the airport's runway. It really was a waste of time doing a big 90 degree arc designed for jets. It was non-radar airspace, and it wasn't uncommon for there to be an aircraft patiently waiting for us to land(perhaps so they could takeoff or perhaps at a much higher altitude to be next on approach). ATC would clear us to that airport for an approach, which meant that the airport was ours and we could maneuver as desired for any approach that we wanted. Then we would advise them of what approach we were going to do(typically the ILS via the 15 DME arc). In reality, we would just do a 5 DME arc and save lots of time. Much appreciated by the jet guys burning lots of fuel while holding at a low altitude.