Norseman CF-GUE, Northway Aviation Ltd. (NFB Vid)

[CamAero]

A little Cheese-Tastic, but well worth the watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlI2qAzQh9U

CA

[flyinthebug]

Awesome video! I used to be Jim`s CP at Northway in the 90s. Great guy to work for and its nice to see some history of the company and Jim directly. RIP Mr. Johnson.

[CamAero]

I wonder what became of 'the Banker'?

GUE is toast.

It was exported to Alaska as N225BL and was written off a couple of years ago.

[Siddley Hawker]

It was exported to Alaska as N225BL and was written off a couple of years ago.

A friend of mine ferried it up there. Here's what he had to say about the accident.

<< The new owner was taking off from a village strip on the Kuskoquim river not far from Bethel, and had an engine failure. He tried making it back to the strip but ended up in the tundra and flipped over. It needs a LOT of work. I think he sold it to a guy in Fairbanks but it's still sitting in Bethel under some tarps. Too bad. He was the third owner since I brought it to Alaska in 99.>>

[beechnut]

The Banker lives in Campbell River and returned to banking

[single_swine_herder]

Re-post of content ......

The first time I saw that video, I had asked a Transport Canada System Safety guy to come into our company about 1981, to give a briefing on safe operational practises and give our guys the lowdown the value of having a Company Aviation Safety Officer. We were "lucky" enough to get the Regional Manager to do the presentation.

The first minute had me cringing to see a single-engine VFR airplane flying through cloud during a safety briefing to a small VFR/IFR operation ..... zeesh. The 100% ex RCAF TC guy saw absolutely nothing unusual about that concept of the VFR separation from cloud.

It does make for entertainment though.


Then "Switchflicker" posted ....

We were "lucky" enough to get the Regional Manager to do the presentation.

Was his initials M.J. ?

Sw


..... and I responded with .....


Indeed those were the initials Flicker.

Like in excess of 85% of the TC staff of the day, he was ex Air Force (not that there is anything wrong with that,) and in fact I was quite envious of his RCAF career. He was however, one of the subset who had never flown a civilian minute before going over to TC to regulate the civil aviation world. Many of the ex-RCAF guys had gone out into the real world and flown for a few years and as a result, had a hot clue about the real world.

Many of those guys made the transition to their role at TC effectively and were pretty sympathetic to the poor civie trying to eke out a hand to mouth beggars existence living provided by the pickings found in the lower layers of the dumpster of Canadian aviation as if they were playing support roles in a flying version of "Slumdog Millionaire." However, with respect ..... a few of the ex-RCAF guys didn't ever come within a thousand miles of figuring out the realities of the business.

Not too long after the mid-80's, TC began an active campaign to hire people with diverse civilan experience to be a part of the regulation of the civil aviation world.

How successful the civies were in making even a slight difference in the direction of the ship of state is difficult to gauge without engaging in some historical revisionist thinking which is almost always flawed.

The ones I came in contact with all were pretty reasonable real-world pilots who were trying to better the lot in life of the "Average Joe & Jane" in Canadian aviation.