The Aircraft

Dimensions: Wingspan: 95ft (A320 111ft 10inches)
Length: 64ft 5½in
Height 16ft 11½in
Engines: 2 x Pratt and Whitney R1830-92 (1200 BHP)

Flight controls consist of metal frames covered with fabric. The configuration of dual generators/hydraulic pumps and a 24V electrical system can be found on many of today’s aircraft. Parking brake works by fully depressing the brake pedals then pulling the parking brake knob to mechanically lock the pedals. Pushing the brake pedals releases the parking brake – the parking brake on the 737-300 worked exactly the same way.

Instrument panel was very basic. No autopilot (removed), moving map, radar or flight directors Instead of a DG there was a slaved RMI with dual ADF needles. ADF’s were the “coffee grinder” units – vacuum tube technology. These were later replaced with King Silver Crown ADF’s – these didn’t work nearly as well. Later we had LORAN C installed and during my last year with the company the aircraft were fitted with GPS receivers. Most aircraft had no de-icing boots but we operated all weather IFR. For the props and windshields there was an alcohol anti-ice system. There was no temperature cut-off for the DC-3 (most other companies stopped flying piston engine aircraft at -40C).

The aircraft was certified in 1936 before a lot of the present day rules came into effect. The DC-3 was designed to maintain altitude on one engine. This meant if you lost an engine at 50 feet you’d be flying a 50 foot circuit. A failure of a generator/hydraulic pump/vacuum pump would give you no warning at all. Standard procedure was to start one engine and check everything worked on that engine then at destination shut the same engine down first and make sure everything was working on the other engine.

Propeller feathering was done by two feathering pumps using engine oil. These were checked first flight of the day and were a no-go item.

R1830 required a delicate touch to start without backfiring. The engine was extremely temperature sensitive and had to be warmed up slowly. Minimum oil temperature was 40C for take-off (oil quantity was 24 gallons each side…).

Descent was done with cruise power and only at initial approach or circuit altitude would the power be reduced for landing. We always kept manifold pressure above RPM to avoid reverse loading the main bearing. Reverse loading would starve the bearing of oil leading to an engine failure.

The Company

Buffalo Airways is presently one of if not the largest DC-3 operators in the world. Based out of Yellowknife in Northern Canada, flights are done in support of the mining industry. Buffalo Airways also operates a scheduled passenger service between Yellowknife and Hay River. It also operates DC-3’s on skis in the spring. Owner is Joe McBryan – a no nonsense old school Bush Pilot. He could be the best guy or the worst guy to work for depending on his mood. He expected a lot from his employees – a 60 hour work week was not unusual. I worked for him from 1985-1992. Most of my DC-3 flying was scheduled passenger service.

There were no hangars in my day. The aircraft were kept outside. In the winter months we used engine covers and immersion heaters to keep the oil warm. In addition large portable gasoline heaters (Herman Nelson’s) were used to pre-heat the cabin and cockpit. The wings were covered as well. A normal day would be a 0600 start for a 0730 departure. On arrival at destination all the covers would be put and at 1600 the process would be repeated for a 1730 departure. De-icing consisted of me climbing up on the wing with a broom and sweeping off the snow or brushing the frost so it became a smooth layer.

My Introduction to the DC-3

I was hired by Buffalo Airways over the phone immediately after finishing my multi-IFR. Three days later I was working on the ramp in Fort Smith. The way things worked (and still do) was to start out on the ramp doing every dirty job imaginable. Then if they liked you you’d slowly start doing some flying.

This job paid C$660/month plus accommodation – and you thought your salary was low!

My first impression of the DC-3 was how big the aircraft was. Inside the cockpit it smelled of leather and skydrol. My first flights on the aircraft were as a Flight Attendant. If there was an empty leg then I’d sit in the seat and do some flying. My initial impressions were that the aircraft was much more stable than anything I’d flown before but extremely heavy on the controls (all manual flight controls). You needed headsets as the noise level was very high in the cockpit. In the cabin the noise level was much lower. There was always plenty of vibration to let you know you were flying a radial engine aircraft.

Becoming First Officer

After gaining some experience flying the aircraft in cruise and studying the books I started to do more and more First Officer duties. I found the aircraft impossible to taxi, take-off or land. With the tail wheel configuration the aircraft needs to be controlled at all times when moving. It takes a while to learn how to use a combination of flight controls/differential braking/differential power to keep the aircraft heading in the right direction. On one landing Joe kept the rudders centered and showed me how the aircraft could be steered right and left using aileron inputs. On landing if you had to high a rate of descent or too much power on you’d bounce back 10+ feet into the air. This happened a lot to me in the beginning. Slowly I learned the techniques for flying tail draggers.

In 1986 Buffalo Airways got a contract to fly night freight between Calgary and Edmonton. I went down with the aircraft and flew as First Officer for a month. After this I did my initial Prof. Check on the DC-3. Took 14 months from the time I joined Buffalo.

Flying in the high Arctic

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?MAP-STYLE=&MARKER-STYLE=default&PATH=CYZF-CYCB-CYUX-CYVN&PATH-COLOR=red&PATH-MINIMUM=&PATH-STYLE=&PATH-UNITS=mi&RANGE=&RANGE-COLOR=navy&RANGE-STYLE=best&SPEED-GROUND=&SPEED-UNITS=kts

Flew from Yellowknife to Cambridge Bay then along the DEW Line to Hall Beach. Cambridge Bay has almost 45E variation – Hall Beach almost 45W. So in 4 hours there was 90 degrees of variation to account for. Our slaved compass was useless as a free gyro (no latitude compensator) – so we flew the trip in magnetic converting the true tracks. Gyro error in Hall Beach was only 10 degrees. From Hall beach we continued across Baffin Island then southeast to Cape Dyer. Baffin Island has some of the most stunningly rugged scenery I have seen anywhere in the world. The Base Commander was an old DC-3 Pilot and invited us to join them on their Canada Day BBQ the next day. We timed our second arrival in Cape Dyer in time for the BBQ. Before we left we were given boxes of doughnuts for the return flight to Yellowknife.

On the way back we flew low level over some of the abandoned DEW Line sites. As radar technology improved they needed fewer sites so 2/3 of the sites are abandoned. Most people think of the Arctic as a pristine wilderness undamaged by man. It’s quite the opposite. At the abandoned DEW Line stations they cut the guide wires on the antennas and let them fall then the bulldozed the entire camp off the nearest cliff into the sea. You can clearly see the debris trail all the way down. At another location there must be 1,000 45 gallon drums rusting away leaking their contents into the ground. The USAF refuses to pay for cleanup costs. At a lot of sites there are number of crashed aircraft from the 1950’s when the DEW Line was originally built.

We also came across a solitary Moose – we chased him across the Tundra by buzzing him a few times before completing the flight to Yellowknife…..

Freezing rain

Yellowknife is located on the North shore of Great Slave Lake. During the winter months the lake takes time to freeze over. Open water generates a layer of cumulous clouds containing a lot of moisture and severe icing conditions. Under the right conditions freezing rain will fall as these clouds drift over land.
The morning flight from Hay River to Yellowknife was proceeding normally. We were above the cumulous cloud layer present over Great Slave Lake. Approaching Yellowknife the weather report indicated light freezing rain. No runway surface condition report was available but we were informed no sanding had taken place. Entering cloud we started picking up a lot of ice. Standard procedure was a continuous descent through icing conditions. Both front windows were covered with ice in no time despite the application of alcohol. By moving the windshield wiper up 20 degrees a clear patch remained just below the wiper. This gave just enough visibility to allow the aircraft to be landed.

On landing the Captain cut both mixtures to cut all forward thrust and let the aircraft roll to a stop. Then the mixtures were returned to “auto rich” rich position to restart the still wind milling props. We discovered later that the reason there was no runway surface condition report was because the vehicle sent out to take measurements had skidded off the runway…..

Summer Wages

One of the DC-3’s C-GPNR had a dollar bill with wings and the text “Summer Wages” painted underneath. I was reliably informed this refers to a song with the same title by Ian Tyson – the song is about a person who earns his money in the North and spends it all on the hookers in Vancouver. When we started the first scheduled flights the flight number was 069…

Flying with the boss

After obtaining my initial Prof. Check I continued to fly freight between Calgary and Edmonton. Joe came down to fly as my Captain. He was a little lost in this environment – I was familiar with this area so I was able to help him out a bit and prove I wasn’t completely useless.

Some days I was allowed to fly, some days I was allowed to talk on the radio, some days all I did was operate the gear and flaps. I normally flew all the approaches – Joe would take over once we were visual. He was much happier at 200’ in marginal VFR than at 6000’ in cloud – a real old school Bush Pilot. I think they basically gave him his Instrument rating in the early 70’s.

If he was happy you heard nothing – if he wasn’t happy you’d know about it. He expected a lot from his Pilots. From 1986-1989 I was pretty well his dedicated First Officer on the DC-3. I must have logged over 1000hours with him. It wasn’t easy – but I learned a lot. I seem to have adopted some his attitudes over the years – I understand him a lot better now than I did then. Things I learned flying with him have kept me out of trouble on the jets.

“I quit”

After a few weeks during which I got yelled at for pretty much everything I did (nothing was good enough) I had had enough. I sat down one evening and wrote a letter of resignation. The next morning I dropped the letter on Joe’s desk and went over to prepare the aircraft for the flight to Yellowknife. When Joe arrived at the aircraft he asked to speak to me in private. “I’m not accepting this!” were his first words followed by a one way conversation about reasons for quitting. I forget what they were but none of them applied to me. He gave me my letter back and as a peace offering I was allowed to start the engines…..

Becoming Captain

In the summer of 1988 I obtained my ATPL. Around the same time I was called in for an interview for a so-called “Airline job” flying a Jetstream 31 in Toronto. I went down for the interview and they offered me the job on the spot. The only problem was that the pay was crap. Salary was about C$1600/mo – the only way to survive was to share an apartment with several other colleagues. I just couldn’t picture myself doing this – so I turned it down. A colleague at Buffalo told me I was crazy.

After this Joe started talking about making me Captain on the DC-3. I was already flying C-402/B-95 as Captain. A few months later I did a left seat Prof. Check on the DC-3 with Joe as my First Officer. I thought it was nice to be able say I’d done a left seat check on the airplane but for the rest I figured it was all talk. All the Captains at Buffalo had well over 10000 hours (most of it on type). I had just over 2000 hours.

One Sunday in January 1989 there was a Charter with a sports team from Hay River to Yellowknife. I was called up by Joe and informed I was going to fly this flight as Captain. Sure enough that’s exactly what happened. The next day I was flying the scheduled passenger flight between Yellowknife and Fort Simpson. That became my fixed route 5 days a week and on weekends I’d do the odd sports Charter. I logged 113 hours in my first month as Captain. Salary was C$50000/year based on C$3000/month and C$0.20/mile flight pay.

Minimum Oil Temperature

Minimum oil temperature for take-off was 40C. Below this temperature oil by-passed the oil cooler. At 40C a valve opened allowing oil to flow through the oil cooler located at the bottom of the engine. In the winter we normally ran the aircraft prior to boarding passengers to get the oil temperatures get above 40C. It took a while to warm up 24 gallons of oil on each engine. Normal procedure was to idle the engine at 900rpm and then slowly increase the rpm as cylinder head temperatures increased. Increasing rpm too soon resulted in cracked cylinders.

I still flew as Joe’s First Officer after I became Captain. One night we were flying down to Hay River from Yellowknife. For some reason the aircraft hadn’t been warmed up prior to departure – oil temperature were well below 40C. Lining up on the runway the needles were sitting one needles width below 40C. Joe took off – it was dark so it wasn’t possible to see the cowlings. Everything was proceeding normally until turning final in Hay River. The right propeller started going out of sync and as we crossed the threshold the low oil pressure warning light came on for the right engine. Subsequent inspection revealed the right hand oil cooler had blown a line due to excessive oil pressure. Joe never said a word – it was his airplane. If that had been me….

How low can it go?

Shortly after I started flying as Captain we started doing a lot of flying for a mining company building a new gold mine about 1 hour North of Yellowknife. You’d think they’d ship in basic supplies on the winter road and use the DC-3 to ship in essential goods. I regularly flew up to the mine with loads of plywood, nails, chain and ammonium nitrate which they used for blasting.

Yellowknife gets very cold in the winter – coldest I’ve seen is -48C. We operated DC-3’s outside in these temperatures. I froze my fingers, toes and face too many times to mention.

One day in the winter we landed at the mine and I knew it was unusually cold. While putting on the engine covers I felt the rubber soles of my winter boots becoming stiff – first time ever. DC-3 is fitted with an OAT gauge located above the Fist Officers right shoulder. It was calibrated down to -45C. When I looked at it was sitting on the stop which looked to be approximately -50C. I have no idea how cold it was. -50C? -55C? We got the load off as quickly as possible….

Severe Icing

Weather was good in both Yellowknife and Fort Simpson. Once enroute we started encountering icing including freezing rain. Changing altitude made no difference. We ran out of alcohol for the windshield pretty quickly. Did the usual trick with the wiper to keep a small patch clear for landing. Aircraft didn’t have any boots and I regularly had to increase propeller rpm to sling off the ice on the blades (vibration was the indication of ice build up on the props). This was becoming a problem but we were past the halfway point. No choice but to continue.

Arrival into Fort Simpson was normal. Due to the ice buildup I kept the speed higher and left the power on to touchdown. As I pulled the power to idle and started lowering the tail the yoke was violently torn out of my hands as one of the ailerons stalled.

Visual inspection revealed a lot of ice – including on the underside of the fuselage. The rivets on the wing were not flush but rounded. Even these had ice buildup on them. I’d always heard about how the DC-3 could carry a load of ice – I can personally vouch for this.

In true Buffalo Airways fashion we used broom handles to knock the ice off the leading edges and flew back to Yellowknife……

A close call

Had a number of flights up to Port Radium on Great Bear Lake. Port Radium is where they mined Uranium for the Manhattan Project in WW2. The airport is a dirt strip surrounded by hills. Approach procedure is to come in low over the hills on final the drop full flap and dive down to land. Take-off required a left turn to climb up between two hills. There were not enough First Officers so I was paired with an experienced Captain. Joe forbade me to take off or land at this airport so the other Captain was pilot flying for the trip. He had come back late the previous evening and hadn’t had much sleep.

Outbound flight was uneventful – it was an interesting place to fly to. Lining up for takeoff I could see the Captain was nervous about the hill off the end of the runway. After lift up the Captain commanded gear up. This was a two step process requiring me to reach down to raise a handle located between the two pilots. This mechanically unlatched the gear. Second step was to raise the gear handle located behind the First Officer. This required me to go”head down” for a few seconds. When I looked up we were in a left turn. There was a windsock located halfway down the runway on the left side and we were heading straight for it. Before I could say or do anything there was an impact as we hit the windsock. The aircraft continued flying normally. The Flight Attendant came up and informed us the left wingtip was missing. The Captain was pretty freaked out by this. I figured it was best to let him keep flying to keep him occupied. We continued on to Yellowknife with the aircraft flying normally. After landing in Yellowknife I had a look at the left wingtip. The last two meters outboard of the left aileron were completely gone. It looked like someone had cut off the wingtip with a chainsaw.

I had to call Joe to inform him what had had happened. His reaction: - “This is a joke right?” I assured him I was dead serious. The Captain was allowed to do one more flight then he was sent on his way.

The wingtip was recovered and I saw pictures of the windsock which was completely destroyed. Looking back we were very lucky. Any further inboard and it might have jammed the ailerons. Also this was an aircraft without de-icing boots. If the boot had torn loose from the wing I think the wing would have stalled.

Couldn’t believe someone else almost killed me. DC-3 is built like a tank – I can personally vouch about the strength of the airframe. DC-3 1 – Windsock 0. Just wish I had been flying that sector…..

Engine Failure

If you fly radials you’ll have engine trouble sooner or later. I’d had a few blown cylinders and a governor failure but these were pretty minor. One night in early 1991 the odds finally caught up with me.

Climbing out of the mine enroute to Yellowknife – just getting dark. We cleared the hills and turned south. There was a brief noise from the right hand engine combined with a change in propeller pitch – then everything settled down to normal indications. During cruise I noticed the right oil temperature indicating higher than normal combined with an oil pressure decrease. I reduced the power on the right engine but the trend continued. I waited almost until the low oil pressure light came on before calling the shut down drills. We were only about 50nm from Yellowknife at this point and not very heavy. Propellers take a surprisingly long time to feather on the DC-3. We were able to maintain altitude although the speed came back to 100knots. Everything was easily controllable and we performed a normal landing. I was able to let the airplane roll all the way to the terminal. The main thrust bearing on the engine had failed…..

Leaving

After 7 years and 8 Winters it was time for something new. I left in late January 1992 to try my luck in Holland. The way things worked out I had the entire month of April off so I called up and said I was available for one month. I got off the plane in Yellowknife, jumped straight into the DC-3 for an hour of practice followed by my Prof. Check. Immediately after that I flew the regular flight down to Hay River. The Inspector from Transport Canada signed off my License before the Prof Check started….

Summary

I have a total of 3400 hours on the DC-3 1400 as First Officer and 2000 as Captain. I’m glad I never took that “Airline Job” in 1988 – never looked back. The “Buffalo Airways School of Hard Knocks” was the best training I’ve ever received. I even have a two page letter off reference from Joe.

I’m planning to go back to Yellowknife at some point in the future – who knows I may get to fly the DC-3 again.