Airliners-India.com

[PAL@YWG]

Background:

My daughter attended a boarding school in a small town, about 50 miles south of Portland in Oregon State. For last few years in every June, I have enjoyedmy trip to scenic Oregon to attend parents’ weekend. Some of you may recall last year this time I posted a TR covering Seattle (the trip was part of the annual journey to the school).

So this year she was graduating from High school and that made an otherwise-routine trip, very special. I came to know the dates of her graduation ceremony long before, in fact in September 2011 when I was planning a trip to Calgary using my Aeroplan reward miles, I had firm dates for my upcoming school trip of June 2012. While planning the Calgary trip, suddenly an idea popped up…

Stretching my Aeroplan miles:

Aeroplan (Air Canada’s FFP) allows you to fly return from Point A to Point B within Canada & continental USA for 25000 miles. Moreover it allows you to have a stopover en route or an open jaw in the itinerary. So I thought why don’t I kill two birds with one stone? YWG- YYC-YWG will cost 25,000 miles and YWG-YYC-PDX- YYC-YWG will also cost 25,000 miles. Why don’t I get a ticket with YYC stopover (YWG- YYC in September 2011 and the rest of the itinerary with June 2012 travel date)?

A long call (to aeroplan call centre) later, I got an itinerary like this:
Winnipeg- Calgary- Vancouver- Portland- Vancouver- Edmonton-Calgary-Winnipeg

Winnipeg- Calgary: Sept 15 2011
Calgary- Vancouver- Portland: June 1st 2012
Portland- all over western Canada- Winnipeg: June 4th 2012

Did I worry that a short hop (Portland- Calgary:2 hours) will now have to be done by flying Portland-Vancouver-Edmonton- Calgary? Not at all…I knew those guys at the call centre will call me later on and offer me a better connection.

As expected, sometime in April 2012, I got a call..”Sir your flight schedule has changed for Portland- Calgary sector, would you mind if we put you on Portland- Calgary non-stop flight departing little later than your original plan?”
- Well, let me see…hmm…ok, I can do that if you insist.
While I kept my pseudo-seriousness with the agent, I am counting $90 of change fee has been saved since Aeroplan initiated the change.
So much for a semi- free ride!

Date: May 31, 2012
Route: YWG- YYC
Flight#: AC 8343
Airline: Air Canada Jazz
Aircraft: CRA
Departure: 2130
Arrival: 2232


Winnipeg- Calgary was a paid ticket since this sector of my rewards ticket was used up last September. I got a pretty cheap ticket picked up from one of the many seat-sale promotions of Air Canada.

YWG still has no direct connection to Europe. Lately immigration to Winnipeg has picked up, hopefully that will help to garner enough body count to convince at least one airline to fly direct to Europe. Winnipeg has got a new terminal last year but this time of the day, the airport is pretty empty.


The check-in was completed on line and I had no bags to check in, so I straight went to security. After security, I found myself in an empty boarding area. No souls to be found.


empty tarmac

My aircraft has just arrived

Being last flight of the day to Calgary, the load was pretty light. The flight was uneventful. Same Pretzel packet and Diet coke can- but who cares nowadays. The aircraft is in immaculate shape, seats are comfortable with PTVs, what else you need for a two hour flight?

We landed at Calgary on time and my flight to Vancouver is 7 hours away. I could have gone to a hotel but I decided to loiter around and check out the nightlife inside YYC. Given a choice, I would always opt for staying inside a terminal.

Haven’t I spent nights at old DEL domestic terminal on many occasions? Having arrived from N.America /Europe in the middle of the night and to save a few rupees (in taxi fare) by risking a ride in so-called shuttle (between two terminals) guarded by a sentry whose rifle resembles the one from Vasco da Gama’s time. After letting my bum to get pounded by the seat cushion (or lack of it) coupled with the shakes and jumps from the bumpy road (or lack of it), I couldn’t stop doubting my decision- was it worth saving that 200 rupees? Once inside the domestic terminal, I am thirsty, hungry. I can see “Tooti-Fruti” inside the freezer but shutter of the shop is down. Wait till 7am. Then try to find a place to seat and catch a nap but who will guard my bags? So, place your legs over your suitcases and use your handbag as pillow. Many others are doing the same.

Or what about that night at SOF (Bulgaria) in the nineties when my flight to LHR that evening got cancelled? Asking for an accommodation (due to cancellation) at Balkan (LZ) counter, the lady gave me a look that resembled as if I claimed 50% stake in her airline! My best option she indicated by her hand gestures that lousy transit lounge there. Well, once settled down for next 12 hours, I discover a group of fellow countrymen (at least I thought so) at a corner gauging my status “One more bakra got trapped”. By the time night got younger, I came to know those guys were planning a better life in Denmark leaving behind their war-torn country, Sri Lanka. But their adventure ended at Sofia airport, now waiting for flight back to CMB.

So I am ok inside YYC. Some pictures

Pretty empty

Alberta is Canadian version of "wild west"

Mini space centre inside the terminal

After doing few rounds to get accustomed, I settled down on a comfy couch on the upper floor. At around midnight, someone patted my shoulder and said “Sir, you need to vacate this place. All transit passengers need to go to arrival level”. Alright, once there I find other transit passengers. Quite a good facility, in no time I am back to sleep.

Date: June 1, 2012
Route: YYC- YVR
Flight#: AC 201
Airline: Air Canada
Aircraft: E90
Departure: 0600
Arrival: 0626

Air Canada has hourly flights to YVR starting at 6am. Quite a busy route with good business class load. I landed on time at cloudy and rainy Vancouver.

Aircraft that brought me to Vancouver

Date: June 1, 2012
Route: YVR- PDX
Flight#: AC 8121
Airline: Air Canada Jazz
Aircraft: DH3
Departure: 0845
Arrival: 1000


This is the last leg of my outbound journey and the most looked forward to. This will be a new aircraft type (de Havilland Dash 8-300) for me. Though I flew on variety of aircrafts but this will be my second flight on a turbo prop. The first one being a Beech 1900D on a short flight between MCO and MIA. To beat an incoming hurricane, I vividly remember we were one of the last few flights that were allowed to take off that evening before the hurricane slammed the coasts of Miami. Intensely bumpy ride in that small aircraft left me with an uncomfortable feeling and later on I intentionally avoided turbo props being part of my itinerary.

At YVR, flights for SEA and PDX depart from a dedicated area that is situated at one end of the terminal building. Passengers have to walk up to the aircraft.

My aircraft getting ready

Alaska Airlines Q400 SEA bound

Once airborne, I was pleasantly surprised by lesser noise and smooth ride I was having. The aircraft is old but I felt comfortable.

Decent legspace


Landing at Portland was smooth.


Next few days went off as planned. As my daughter was graduating, most of the time was spent at various functions organized by school.
Few pictures of the school event and the surroundings:


Wildlife at the doorfront

Students put up commendable performance in a play

Proud moment for the kids and parents alike

But highlight of this trip from an aviation enthusiast’s point of view would be my visit to Evergreen Aviation Museum. It is about half an hour drive from the school and on your way to Portland city. During my previous trips I noticed this museum building holding an empty B747F on its rooftop! Quite unique for museum architecture, I thought, shouldn't miss a visit next time. Glad that I could make it this time.




View from the other side

Evergreen Aviation Museum:
This museum is located in a small city called McMinnville with a population of 35,000. From Portland it takes about 40 minutes on I-5 and my first impression when I looked at it from highway was “Why this museum is here?” It’s actually in the middle of nowhere but then when you dig up a little history you realize that it was realization of a dream of a local aviator named Capt. Michael King Smith. The museum draws good amount of crowd from all over US and it houses the “The Spruce Goose: Largest aircraft ever constructed”

I don’t think my pictures can do full justice to the aircraft’s massive size but my first glance at it left me awestruck. Wow!




Inside of the beast


Excerpts from the museum’s website:
The Spruce Goose
Built entirely of wood due to wartime restrictions on metals, this massive airplane stands as a symbol of American industry during World War II. Learn more about the history, first flight, and legacy of this mammoth plane.
Its History
The largest airplane ever constructed, and flown only one time, the Spruce Goose represents one of man’s greatest attempts to conquer the skies. It was born out of a need to move troops and material across the Atlantic Ocean, where in 1942, German submarines were sinking hundreds of Allied ships. Henry Kaiser, steel magnate and shipbuilder, conceived the idea of a massive flying transport and turned to Howard Hughes to design and build it. Hughes took on the task, made even more challenging by the government’s restrictions on materials critical to the war effort, such as steel and aluminum. Six times larger than any aircraft of its time, the Spruce Goose, also known as the Flying Boat, is made entirely of wood.
Originally designated HK-1 for the first aircraft built by Hughes-Kaiser, the giant was re-designated H-4 when Henry Kaiser withdrew from the project in 1944. Nevertheless, the press insisted on calling it the “Spruce Goose” despite the fact that the plane is made almost entirely of birch.

The First Flight
The winged giant made only one flight on November 2, 1947. The unannounced decision to fly was made by Hughes during a taxi test. With Hughes at the controls, David Grant as co-pilot, and several engineers, crewmen and journalists on board, the Spruce Goose flew just over one mile at an altitude of 70 feet for one minute. The short hop proved to skeptics that the gigantic machine could fly.
Perhaps always dreaming of a second flight, Hughes retained a full crew to maintain the mammoth plane in a climate-controlled hangar up until his death in 1976.

The museum has a vast collection of military aircrafts. I am requesting Sumantra to help identify these aircrafts.








Ford Tri-motor

No mistake here. Mikoyan Gurevich 27. Sumantra?



MiG-21

Some sort of a spy plane

Well, I truly had a fulfilling trip on a shoe-string budget. I may not have a reason to visit this part of the world again but I now have a reason to admire the entrepreneurship of small town America.

My return leg was uneventful “departing late afternoon- arriving at midnight” PDX-YYC- YWG sectors. Some more pictures:


A Frontier Air aircraft approaching PDX. Mount Hood(?) at the background

Nothing much happening mid-afternoon at PDX

Delta MD-80 or (83?) just landed

Crossing Canadian rockies from south

Thanks for reading! Comments are always welcome.
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Tally Sheet:
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[sumantra]

Mr. Pal - I am spell-bound. Spending a couple of days travelling meant me being away from reading my favourite forum. And I can definitely say that I missed a lot - more so, the `first-cut' reactions. This was one fo the three I missed out on, the other two being Varun's and Rishul's nice reports.
First, this is a report in your inimitable style - you build up a preamble to the trip beautifully - you get the reader `in the mood', and with you, at that point in the journey. Let me, on behalf of all AI.netters, begin by congratulating you and your family on your daughter's graduation! This trip would have had even more significance that the others. And thanks for linking this to your earlier Seattle report - this puts things into better perspective!
As any other report from you Mr. Pal, this also has some lovely vivid descriptions, and beautiful photographs, showing your fine eye for detail, and nice photographic skills!
Mr. Pal, the way you describe your optimisation using your miles - I am sure you are not alone. I was reminded of the very long time I have spent trying to optimise and stretch each of the miles that I have earned, on various carriers, at the start of a trip! This strikes a chord in many an airline enthusiast's heart.
While the
Winnipeg- Calgary- Vancouver- Portland- Vancouver- Edmonton-Calgary-Winnipeg
itinerary looked quite exciting to me, your trademark humour was evident in you reaction to the expected call - I loved it!
WYG and YYC are not airports commonly encountered in trip reports on AI.net (or A.net, for that matter - thanks a lot for the nice pictures and the descriptions!)
You had the reader visualising the two `situations' you have been in , at DEL and SOF, so vivid were your descriptions. The greedy pig that I am, can I request you to post two trip reports, each describing those two incidents and the backgrounds, too? Given the time-frame, I would not think that you would have nice photographs describing those, but even without photographs, we would love to hear about these trips.

Your images of Portland - in the areas adjoining your daughter's school, are fantastic. One academic campus in India which has deer all around, is the IIT Madras campus in Chennai - I remember posting some pictures from it on my March 2012 trip.

For the aviation enthusiast in me, the highlight of your trip was (as you have written) the Evergreen Museum - wow! I had only read about this place in the news. The name Evergreen reminds me of an Air India connection. Air India had once leased one of their B743 frieghters, which was in a hybrid livery.

Thanks for `tagging' me in the pictures, yes, I love these planes, and their photographs! While I could not but help being awestruck by the Spruce Goose, some other planes also caught my attention. In your first photograph of the Spruce Goose:


The plane under the Goose's wings: is that the Sopwith Pup, or the Camel?
The plane closer to you: is that a Curtis Jenny, the US WW1 trainer, or the French Neiuport biplane?




This looks like the naval variant of the F-86 Sabre, the Fury.



The P-38 twin-boom Lightning. Behind it is the distinctive gull-wing Chance-Vought Corsair!



This is the Republic F-84 Thunderstreak. What a nicely preserved plane!


No mistake here. Mikoyan Gurevich 27. Sumantra?

This is a great image, Mr. Pal, of course you identified it correctly, given your long stay in the former Soviet Union - the IAF's front-line interceptor, the Mig-29 Fulcrum!



This would be the Cougar.



The Northrop F-105 Tiger!


MiG-21

Yes, Mr. Pal, `The Divine Delta', in my opinion, the most good-looking interceptor ever designed. the IAF's Mig-21 `Bison' variants with uprated avionics - are still quite capable aircraft, in the hands of expert operators.


Some sort of a spy plane

The SR-71 Blackbird, or some variant thereof? this was one super-fast plane!

I am somewhat surprised by seeing that no one has really commented on this report till now - thanks once again Mr. Pal, I enjoy each of your reports immensely. You have at least one guaranteed excited admirer of your reports on this forum. It certainly made my day!
Admiringly Yours, Sumantra.

[rutvij]

^ It made mine as well. Wonderfully constructed TR, with the lil bit of Personal Info doled out in a humorous way, gives its a really nice touch. And the pictures complement the Report B-E-A-utifully !

Winnipeg's New Terminal looks aesthetically pleasing, esp the Neon rings around the Circular shapes on the Roof!
The description of the nearly empty Terminal and tarmac was pleasantly shocking to say the least. Reminded me of the various movies on Viruses that create predators, and set off Nuclear Rapacious monsters, resulting in a totally empty city! A bit scary.

The Spruce Goose appears gargantuan indeed. The 2 persons standing below it give a clear idea of its scale. Monstrous! 4 Props each side of the Fuselage !! Is this the same aircraft that was shown in some of the last scenes of 'The Aviator' starring Leonardo DeCaprio. I haven't seen the movie yet, hence asking.

Wonderful pictures of the various warbirds, most of them preserved in Spic and Span conditions! Great work by the authorities.

Bookmarked for future reading, and as reference to the Museum. Very well done, Sir !

[aeroblogger]

I meant to comment on this, but forgot...

Fantastic trip report, please do write more
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Editor of AeroBlogger

[Nimish]

Superb TR - thanks a lot for posting.

That spruce goose looks immense - it's a wonder the thing can actually fly
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We miss you Nalini!

[PAL@YWG]

Interesting piece of information, I thought I should share
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Tally Sheet:
41 Countries ||55 Aircraft types ||60 Airlines ||75 Airports

[PAL@YWG]

Sumantra, many thanks for your kind words! I knew when I was clicking those pictures in the museum, you will be my best bet to identify these exotic birds! Your vast knowledge of military aircarft (irrespective of country of origin) is truly commendable!

[PAL@YWG]

Rutvij, I am humbled by your comments! Very happy that you enjoyed my TR!

[NK380]

Brilliant TR, very different and unique..loved the pictures.

[sumantra]

[HAWK21M]

Amazing pictures....
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Think of the Brighter side !!!

[sabya99]

Mr. Pal; it’s a brilliant TR. I didn’t know of such a large air-space museum in Portland. By the way how they managed to get an intact Mig-27 ? It is still a super secret plane in almost all countries!
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Sabya99

[sumantra]

[sabya99]

[me111993]

Fantastic Pics and an awesome TR sir! Hoping for more such gems!
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Causal Determinism : We are hardwired to need answers. The Caveman who heard a rustle in the bushes and checked out to see what it was, lived longer than the guy, who assumed it was just a breeze.

- Greg House

[PAL@YWG]

[PAL@YWG]

aeroblogger/ nimish/ NK380/ HAWK21M/ me111993

Glad that you all liked my TR. Thanks a lot!
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Tally Sheet:
41 Countries ||55 Aircraft types ||60 Airlines ||75 Airports