Flight 41: Deer Lake to St. Anthony

Porter at St. Anthony

After switching to a more traditional bush plane, the Pilatus PC6, I left Deer Lake amidst the same blizzard I encountered on the way in from Gander.  Perhaps it would have made more sense to wait for the snowfall to end?

St. Anthony is a town on the northern reaches of the Great Northern Peninsula of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. St. Anthony serves as a main service centre for northern Newfoundland and southern Labrador. St. Anthony and surrounding area has an approximate population of 4,330.^[1] The population of the town itself was 2,418 in 2011, compared with 2,476 in 2006 and 2,730 in 2001.

St. Anthony is a popular tourist destination known for it's whale watching

St. Anthony Airport (IATA: YAY, ICAO: CYAY) is located 19 nautical miles (35 km; 22 mi) west northwest of St. Anthony, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

The airport is served by Air Labrador and Provincial Airlines with flights to Black Tickle, Cartwright, Charlottetown (NL), Fox Harbour, Goose Bay, Mary's Harbour, Port Hope Simpson, Williams Harbour, Blanc-Sablon, CFB Goose Bay, St. John's, and Wabush

Victor route V381 connects these two airports, so it is pretty much a straight flight.  At 5500 feet, I am above the clouds.  My first two attempts at landing failed because I did not see the runway soon enough so I flew over the airport.  My third attempt was successful.  But this really was not VFR weather.  St. Anthony did not have an ILS approach, however.

I used the default scenery, which was not too great.  But given the snow, I would not have really seen all that much with nicer scenery.

The Pilatus PC6 by FSD International was something of a disappointment.  It did not taxi nicely.  Instead, if I gave it enough throttle to move, it would raise up, then drop down.  It did this repeatedly.  It's response when hand flown was sluggish.

FSD had a half price sale on this plane.  I got the full package with wheels, skis and floats.  All in all, it cost about $12.00.  At about $4.00 per plane, I got what I paid for.  However, I would not recommend paying full price for this addon.  I eagerly await the Aerosoft Pilatus PC6.

I might try a couple more flights with this, but will probably move onto another plane fairly quickly.