Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

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Chuck Ellsworth
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Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by Chuck Ellsworth »

Finally after over a week of just plain tough flying weather the stars came out and we would depart Johnston Point on Banks Island for what should be an easy flight. This flight would turn out to be remembered forever as one of the closest calls I have ever had in almost fifty years of flying. The year was 1975, late February. We were flying supplies to a cat train that was shooting seismic lines for oil exploration on Banks Island in the high Arctic.

Johnson Point, an oil exploration base camp with a paved runway, was the main airport for supplying the western Arctic. In these very high latitudes winter means total darkness for months and navigating in that very hostile environment is difficult at the best of times. We had just gotten our first twin otter equipped with a new navigation aid called Global Navigation System. G.N.S. was based on very low power radio transmitters located in various parts of the world. In order for the computer to be able to navigate it had to acquire at least three G.N.S. transmitters.

Latitude and longitude had to be entered, for both our departure and destination points, in the computer. This entry was done with little wheels to select the numbers and other information for each trip. A further limiting factor with G.N.S. was that we had to have accurate positions for the computer to navigate to wherever we set it. Cat trains are always on the move, consequently requiring a navigator with each train to take celestial shots whenever he could to accurately keep track of their new location.

Once the G.N.S. stations were acquired and the trip was set up it was so accurate we could fly several hundred miles and then return to our parking ramp at the airport without a hitch. To us G.N.S. was like having died and gone to heaven. Being able to navigate so accurately in the high Arctic, where the magnetic compass always points strait down, was a "god send". This particular trip to the seismic train was uneventful with no cloud cover at all just the stars from horizon to horizon. After the last week of flying all our trips from takeoff to landing on solid instruments while relying on two radar altimeters one in front of each pilot for our landing decision height this one had been easy. The only visibility restriction we had was the complete loss of forward visibility in the snow which blew up when we went into reverse to stop on the short runway, which had been ploughed for us, on the ice.

Sometimes these strips were not much over 1000 feet long due to the location of the cat train at that time therefore, reverse was a necessity to stop before we ran off the landing strip. With clear weather and no rush to get back to Johnson Point we went to the cookhouse, had a leisurely meal, listened to the tape recorder playing music such as North to Alaska, which we of course changed to South to Alaska. Finally, off to the airplane we went where we decided to hell with waiting to reset the G.N.S. Instead, with such a clear night, we would fly back to home base using the astro compass. After lighting up the two P.T.6's we taxied back to the runway and lined up with the flare pots. We got the almanac out and shot Arcturus. It is one of the easiest stars to identify and shoot due to its position and brightness in the sky. Arcturus is the first bright star out from the handle of the Big Dipper. We read our heading on the astro compass, set our direction indicators (gyros) and off we went for Johnston Point. Once leveled off in cruise there was nothing but the sound of the engines and the big canopy of stars that ended in a faint white blur which was the endless Arctic snow just barley visible below us in the faint starlight.

Sitting in the warm cockpit with only the sound of those dependable turbine engines and no sense of movement through the dark night I slowly became aware that something was wrong but could not quite figure out what it was. I remember asking the co-pilot to see if Johnson Point was showing up on the A.D.F. After a few minutes he had no luck, now I came wide awake and said, "This doesn't look right. Let's get another shot on Arcturus.". Once more I gave him the time and he read the almanac to set the astro compass. Again there was no change in our D.I. settings. All of a sudden a possibility came to me and I asked him what time he had. When he read his watch we both knew we were really in trouble as there was almost three hours difference between our watches. I will never forget the feeling of real fear when I realized that we had departed the cat train with a D.I. setting that was almost forty-five degrees in error.

The sudden realization of just how serious our position was made it very difficult to convert the position of the stars versus what I figured they should look like. Now there was no doubt, in my mind, we were far off our track for Johnston Point, so far in fact I knew we might never be found.

Time was now critical. We had to decide which watch was right. Making a quick position guess based on nothing but the time we had flown on this heading and instinct we turned ninety degrees to the right starting a slow cruise climb for better fuel burn. All we could do now was wait and hope.

In this part of the high Arctic, at night, there is absolutely nothing but endless white, to try to recognize any feature below you is hopeless. Now both of us were really worried, questions and doubts started. Whose watch was set wrong? Had we turned the right way? Why had we not noted the runway heading after landing? Why had we not written the heading down so as to be able to confirm our star shot? Why did we not check both of our watches, especially in that the clock in the airplane did not work which in these temperatures was normal? Radio reception was so poor we could not raise anyone on H.F. or V.H.F. then all of a sudden the A.D.F. came alive and there was the Johnston Point N.D.B. strait ahead. Soon we could see the lights of our destination on the horizon. For some time I had been quite concerned about our fuel state. Seeing the lights in the distance was just to good to be true. However, to be on the safe side we stayed at eleven thousand until we could definitely make the airport as distances can be so deceiving at night in the high Arctic.

Descending through one thousand feet the low fuel light came on telling us we had eleven minutes of fuel left in the front tank. I really don't remember how much fuel remained in the rear tank. Of course, how much fuel there was in the rear tank is now a mute point. It really doesn't matter, because like in Earnest Gann's great book "Fate is the Hunter", that night so many years ago the hunter did not find my young co-pilot, whose name I cannot even recall, and me. Had we turned left instead of right we would have been so far off course it is possible no one would have ever found the airplane or us in those millions of square miles of ice and snow. After landing and going into the Atco Huts, that were our accommodations, we finally found out it was my watch that was wrong. To this day I do not really know why I chose to make the decision it was my watch, even stranger the damn thing worked just fine after this what should have been an uneventful trip.

That just leaves fate as the best explanation for my decision to turn right that night. Isn't it strange how words like Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate can have such chilling meaning when flying airplanes?
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After over a half a century of flying I can not remember even one trip that I refused to do that resulted in someone getting killed because of my decision not to fly.
Phlyer
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Re: Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by Phlyer »

Great story . - keep 'em coming! :smt023
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Xander
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Re: Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by Xander »

Wow. Sends chills down the spine.
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The Old Fogducker
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Re: Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by The Old Fogducker »

Well written ..

Its through "tales" like this that you can make a great contribution to the website, and far more important, to the "youngsters" coming up that think they've seen everything there is to see and experience about life in the sky.

Welcome back from,
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Cat Driver
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Re: Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by Cat Driver »

Just a quick update Fogducker:

I am not back, this thread is an old one that someone brought back.

I am not P.C. enough for the purists who moderate Avcanada and beyond doubt far to old school for the vast majority in aviation today.

To waste my time trying to swim against the current is not worth my while therefore I only read the forum now and keep my opinions and suggestions to myself.

But thanks for the compliment, just be careful you don't annoy the experts who run the show here now. :prayer:
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The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no


After over a half a century of flying no one ever died because of my decision not to fly.
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The Old Fogducker
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Re: Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by The Old Fogducker »

Thanks ..

I've had the PC crowd in my office when I owned a radio station, trying educate our staff in the acceptable way of speaking to the masses. I had some entertainment at their expense, and showed them to door. They left threatening to write the CRTC, Human Rights Commission, the Broadcast Standards Council, stage protests outside of the station, and all manner of pestilence would befall me.

I just said "Go ahead. It's your right to do so, ... a right that many tens of thousands of young Canadians died for, so fill your boots if you think anyone will take you seriously."

Not a peep heard from there on out. Fortunately, I live in the west. If I had done that in downtown Toronto, they would have headed to the local Starbucks and rounded up a posse of bleeding heart Liberals!

The Old Fogducker
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AMM
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Re: Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by AMM »

Wow, you'll just take any opportunity to spew political diarrhea on this site.
And its sure getting tiring trying to sieve through it.

At least cpl_atc sticks to his own threads...
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The Old Fogducker
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Re: Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by The Old Fogducker »

Well, yet another reason for me to cry myself to sleep I guess.

Or ... were you referring to Cat Driver's post? Your comment was non-discriminating.

If you read the thread, I was responding to .'s comment ... in what is supposedly his material.

Plus AMM, I guess you could put me on your "Ignore List" as I have designated cpl-atc's posts....that way you'll be saved the onerous task of sifting through my posts for the valuable content vs the political commentary that is so beloved by many.

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Last edited by The Old Fogducker on Tue Jul 13, 2010 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by HS-748 2A »

:D :lol:

I'd love to see somebody tackle Old Fog' and get away with it.. :mrgreen:

'48
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Re: Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by AMM »

Seeing how this is Cat's thread, its pretty obvious - at least to most people - that I wasn't referring to him.
AMM wrote:At least cpl_atc sticks to his own threads...
Critical thinking OFD, critical thinking.
Then again, thats probably a strange and alien concept for you "right wingers".
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peakbagger
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Re: Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by peakbagger »

Great story
I should do some research on how to navigate by the sun and stars. I have the general idea (former Surveyor) but have fallen victim to the D button on the GPS. Thanks for the wake up call:)
Hang on to er out there!
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2R
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Re: Arcturus, Missing Hours and Fate

Post by 2R »

Some night flights can be spectacular.Up high flying south towards the northern lights .It can be magic.
Looking up the spaces between the aurora is like looking up a tunnel to the stars.When you think about the energy levels in those sprite and lights ,if harnessed could be our gateway to the stars.External engines powered by ION propulsion by repulsion like giant light magnets that repulse might be feasible with newer materials technologies to create an engine that climbs up the magnetic rivers that surround the earth to the stars.Just like some starbound maglift train.
Flying through the dancing lights is just pure magic.
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