Canadian Xpress September Fly-In – Equipment Delivery
In August, 1949, Joey Smallwood, Premier of Newfoundland, had the opportunity to see Churchill Falls for the first time and it became his obsession to develop the hydroelectric potential of the falls. After years of planning, the project was officially started on July 17, 1967. The machine hall of the power facility at Churchill Falls was hollowed out of solid rock, close to 1,000 ft (300 m) underground. Its final proportions are huge: in height it equals a 15-storey building, its length is three times that of a Canadian football field. When completed, it housed 11 generating units, with a combined capacity of 5,428 MW (7,279,000 hp). Water is contained by a reservoir created not by a single large dam, but by a series of 88 dikes that have a total length of 64 km (40 mi). At the time, the project was the largest civil engineering project ever undertaken in North America.
This month we are adding a bit of a twist as the event is not only a fly-in, it’s got a challenge feeling as well. The power station is getting ready for fall maintenance work now that the Continue reading
Canadian Xpress 5th Anniversary Fly-In
Canadian Xpress was established on April 1st, 2009 and was officially launched on September 4th, 2009.
As part of the ongoing celebrations leading up to the 4th of September, we will be running our August Fly-In at 2 different times of the day so that all pilots that are located world-wide can celebrate this historic event.
Canadian Xpress would like to invite all pilots & virtual airlines to join us on Saturday, August 23rd at 10h00edt (14h00z) and 20h00edt (24h00z) for our August 2014 fly-in where we will travel from our training center in Moncton Airport (CYQM) to our corporate offices in Montreal (CYUL).
This is an open invitation to Continue reading
VATCAN Presents Moncton Monday – Weekly Fly-In
Moncton Monday is VATCAN’s longest running weekly event, providing full-coverage ATC every Monday night, beginning at 2200z, encompassing over six terminal controlled airports, and dozens of smaller fields.
Each Monday, airports including Halifax (CYHZ), Moncton (CYQM), St. John’s (CYYT), and Gander (CYQX), will be staffed from top to bottom, including Moncton Centre, in a fun and relaxed Monday night.
All kinds of traffic, whether VFR or IFR, airplane or helicopter, are welcome and pilots of all skill levels are invited.
Come and fly our friendly skies!
Canadian Xpress® July Fly-In – Isle of Man
The International Isle of Man TT (Tourist Trophy) Race is a motorcycle racing event held on the Isle of Man that was for many years the most prestigious motorcycle race in the world. The event was part of the FIM Motorcycle Grand Prix World Championship during the period 1949–1976 before being transferred to the United Kingdom after safety concerns.
Today the Isle of Man TT fuelled by Monster Energy is the most demanding road race in World. Run on a 37 mile public road course in a time trial format. No other motorcycle race is held on such a challenging track. A Mountain Course with its seemingly never-ending series of bends, bumps, jumps, stone walls, manhole covers and telegraph poles, makes for an exciting race and very deadly as well. Average lap speeds of 130mph+ have been Continue reading
Canadian Xpress June Fly-In – Summer Solstice
Summer is here. For those of us in the south, we have been enjoying the warm weather for a few weeks now. Cottages are open, boats are in the water, and motorcycles are filling the road ways. However, the day still ends sometime between 8:30 & 9:00pm when the sun finally sets below the horizon.
This isn’t the case for everyone. Canada’s Northern Territories and Alaska, the first day of summer is the peak of all day sunlight as the sun never sets in some places. Wouldn’t it be great to go golfing at 1:00am with the sun still high in the sky?
This month we celebrate the peak of 24 hour sunlight in the north with a trip to Ketchikan Alaska on the Summer Solstice
Canadian Xpress® would like to invite all pilots to Continue reading
Canadian Xpress May Fly-In – Mount St. Helens
On May 18th, 1980 at 8:32pst, Mount St. Helens after 2 months of increased seismic activity, catastrophically erupted. The eruption triggered an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale causing the North face to collapse into the Columbia River basin and reducing the mountain’s summit elevation from 9,677 ft to 8,365 ft.
By 17:30pst that evening after more than 9 hours of a vigorous plume of ash, reaching 16 miles above seas level, the ash column began to decline. On that day 34 years ago this month, Mount St. Helens released 24 megatons of thermal energy, 1.5 tons of sulfur dioxide and 2.8 cubic kilometers of debris. Sadly the event also killed 57 people, and nearly 7000 big game animals from the mountain area.
Canadian Xpress would like to invite all pilots to Continue reading
Canadian Xpress April Fly-In – Concorde
45 years ago, on March 2, 1967 Concorde made its first test flight. It took thousands of hours of testing with 2 prototype models and 7 years to gain type certification of the Concorde.
On April 10th 1976, Air France made its first commercial passenger flight with Concorde. That first flight took passengers from Paris to Rio via the Azores which later changing to Dakar. The stop in the Azores was needed so that Concorde could refuel. The aircraft used an astonishing 2 tons of fuel just to taxi to the runway (2% of its total fuel load) in Paris. Normal operations called for the two inboard engines to be shut down as the aircraft exited the runway after landing, to help save on fuel cost. In 2003 BA and Air France both announced they would stop flying the Concorde after 27 years of service. Lots of reason still float around today as to why it was retired. But truth be told, it was simply due to cost. The Concorde was Continue reading
