YELLOW WINGS IN MONTEBELLO

Aug 31

Last year at the Challenger Owners Association annual ski-plane rendezvous at the historic Chateau Montebello resort hotel on the frozen shores of the Ottawa River, Vintage Wings of Canada launched the 2011 Yellow Wings trans-Canada Tour with our first-ever winter mission. Last year, we tried it with only our de Havilland Tiger Moth, and the response was jubilant and positive. So, this year we are running the Yellow Wings tour eastward to our Atlantic region - a less ambitious affair, but this year we got the program off to a much bigger start, launching three of our BCATP training aircraft along with staff aircraft down to Montebello to check out the runway situation and assess whether we could land to take part in the event. Tiger Moth pilot and blog-stud Blake Reid led one two-plane group and reports back on the day's flight.

by Blake Reid

This year was the 22nd Annual Challenger Winter Rendezvous with over 30 Challenger Ultralight aircraft expected. One can imagine that potential challenges for the Challengers include, overly cold temperatures, wind, general weather condition and the landing area. Despite the endless bad possibilities, the weather was perfect - achingly blue skies, light winds, and perfect ice conditions for ultralight aircraft operations

Located on the Ottawa River half way between Ottawa and Montreal, Montebello is a short 20 minute flight from the Vintage wings facility also located along the Ottawa. Vintage Wings has participated in the rendezvous last two years with Second World War BCATP aircraft. Last years participation by our Tiger Moth attracted much attention. This year, we upped the ante with the addition of the Cornell and Harvard.

It appears that in this age of warmer winters and unpredictable thaws intermixed with cold snaps and strong winds, mother nature once again looked favourably down on the Challengers. A large high pressure system settled in over eastern Ontario with not only light winds to go with the clear skies, but moderate temperatures as well with a high of -5°C.

With varying reports of the landing surface at Montebello, an actual landing was considered a possibility but a very remote one at best. However, it seemed like a reasonable excuse to check out the strip and see for ourselves what exactly the situation was. The Tiger Moth had a further problem with its participation on the ground in that hand propping is required for start, which is not really a comfortable thing to do on a slippery or uneven surface by inexperienced helpers.

With a time over target of 1 P.M. and 29 miles to travel, we left Gatineau at 12:30 for a two ship formation of Tiger Moth and Cornell. The Harvard with a two ship RV8/RV6 home-built escort left separately. John Aitken, the highly experienced test pilot with Vintage wings, with all his formation flying time, flew as Number 2 on the Tiger Moth, and we slowly cruised down the solidly frozen Ottawa River. The river was an unbroken highway of snow-covered ice from shore to shore, interrupted only by black open water of the channel cut by the Cumberland-Masson ferry about five miles east of the Gatineau Airport. Along the the river route, were dozens of smaller ice-fishing hut communities with a large "city" of them east of Montebello.

The Fairmont Hotel's Chateau Montebello is said to be the largest log cabin in the world and has hosted the G7 summit in 1981. Today’s VIP’s were the Quad City Challenger ultralight pilots and their guests. I was honored to be one of them.

Québec photographer extraordinaire J.P. Bonin, himself a vintage Wings volunteer, hitched a ride in a Zlin Savage (C-IZLN), to get us a photo of the Chateau Montebello and the set-up for the ski-plane fly-in. One can see more than 40 aircraft in thi… — Québec photographer extraordinaire J.P. Bonin, himself a vintage Wings volunteer, hitched a ride in a Zlin Savage (C-IZLN), to get us a photo of the Chateau Montebello and the set-up for the ski-plane fly-in. One can see more than 40 aircraft in this shot - lining the the frozen banks and occupying boat slips in the Chateau Montebello, cozy boat harbour. Photo J.P. Bonin

Another view looking north east along the Ottawa River from the back seat of the Zlin Savage. Careful searching of this photo will reveal a long line of aircraft wing-tip-to-wing-tip along the shore in front of the hotel as well a highway created by… — Another view looking north east along the Ottawa River from the back seat of the Zlin Savage. Careful searching of this photo will reveal a long line of aircraft wing-tip-to-wing-tip along the shore in front of the hotel as well a highway created by snowmobile and ATV traffic. It was this highway that would become the runway for the fly-in - shared by the sled-heads as well as the air-heads. Photo: J. P. Bonin

You are probably wondering how comfortable it is to fly in these aircraft in the winter. All three of our trainers were specifically designed for Canadian winter flying. All three aircraft were designed with a separate tube channeling cold outside air through the exhaust tube for heating and into the cabin. In addition, the Canadian Tiger Moth and Cornell were delivered with canopies unlike their predecessors used in other countries. That being said, our Cornell does not have its heater installed at this time, and the Tiger Moth canopy design allows much air to swirl in the cockpit. So how was it? Quite reasonable in the Tiger Moth actually. There are occasional cold areas and gloves did eventually become necessary along with a pulled up jacket collar due to a large breeze just behind my head in the aft cockpit. My feet were quite warm though.

Three flypasts were made to check out the landing area but the hard packed snow was quite rutted from snowmobile traffic. Perhaps next year. However, it was still an opportunity to launch the Vintage Wings of Canada Yellow Wings Tour for 2012 with former BCATP fields across the eastern provinces being visited this summer. We hope to see you there.