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Post by Starsteward on Jul 6, 2015 5:54:13 GMT -8
As a reaction to the current drought and wildfire situation in BC a change.org petition has been started regarding the Martin Mars water bombers. "petitioning Premier of British Columbia Christy Clark Contract the Martin Mars Waterbombers for 5 more years to protect BC effective immediately!" As of 2pm July 5 there are over 8 000 supporters. I had heard somewhere over the week-end that the Martin Mars were no longer being used to fight wild fires. No other details were forthcoming. If they aren't being used just because there is no current contract with the BC government, given the 'Mars' capacity to fight wild fires, why wasn't there a contract for their services in place long before now??? I think we are long past the post in terms of worrying about any fire fighting "budget over-runs". Ya think???
As a native Vancouverite, I have never seen smoky haze hang over the downtown peninsula as thick as I'm seeing this morning.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 6, 2015 6:04:47 GMT -8
As a reaction to the current drought and wildfire situation in BC a change.org petition has been started regarding the Martin Mars water bombers. "petitioning Premier of British Columbia Christy Clark Contract the Martin Mars Waterbombers for 5 more years to protect BC effective immediately!" As of 2pm July 5 there are over 8 000 supporters. I had heard somewhere over the week-end that the Martin Mars were no longer being used to fight wild fires. No other details were forthcoming. If they aren't being used just because there is no current contract with the BC government, given the 'Mars' capacity to fight wild fires, why wasn't there a contract for their services in place long before now??? I think we are long past the post in terms of worrying about any fire fighting "budget over-runs". Ya think???
As a native Vancouverite, I have never seen smoky haze hang over the downtown peninsula as thick as I'm seeing this morning.
Here's a link to a BC Govt sheet explaining how they choose which aircraft to use. HERE
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Post by Starsteward on Jul 6, 2015 6:22:30 GMT -8
I had heard somewhere over the week-end that the Martin Mars were no longer being used to fight wild fires. No other details were forthcoming. If they aren't being used just because there is no current contract with the BC government, given the 'Mars' capacity to fight wild fires, why wasn't there a contract for their services in place long before now??? I think we are long past the post in terms of worrying about any fire fighting "budget over-runs". Ya think???
As a native Vancouverite, I have never seen smoky haze hang over the downtown peninsula as thick as I'm seeing this morning.
Here's a link to a BC Govt sheet explaining how they choose which aircraft to use. HERE Thanks for the technical posting Mike. Did a quick scan of it, will do more when time permits. Quickie read aside, wouldn't the Mars be appropriate for fires on Vancouver Island, especially the one in the Port Hardy area? Apparently there's a fire nipping at the edges of Sprout Lake as we speak, fighting that one might make sense? Very interesting read that I'll get back to later today. Thanks again.
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Post by westernflyer on Jul 6, 2015 9:09:43 GMT -8
Here's a link to a BC Govt sheet explaining how they choose which aircraft to use. HEREWhile I have no basis to argue the validity of the facts presented in the government 'factsheet', the firefighting history of the Mars is legendary, and the one-time drop capability is unrivaled, so I understand the desire to see it back in operation. As of this posting the number of supporters of the 'Bring back the Mars' petition has surpassed 15,000. That being said, I am not a proponent of this petition as I believe that it is an exercise in futility, and I doubt we will ever see the Mars being brought into action again. It seems likely, however, that the resources available to fight the extremely volatile wildfire situation in BC are inadequate. A cabin has been destroyed by the fire at Sproat Lake within sight of the mothballed Mars, which is no doubt frustrating for the locals.
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Post by Curtis on Jul 6, 2015 11:36:45 GMT -8
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Post by Starsteward on Jul 7, 2015 6:45:28 GMT -8
Every once in a while, it's nice to observe "COMMON SENSE" winning out over defeatist attitudes expressed within this thread. The BC government's 'fact sheet' does present an unfavourable cost analysis for using the Martin Mars water bomber, fair enough. However, lest the dire nature of the forest fire situation has escaped anyone living in British Columbia at the moment, we are in BIG trouble this year and the government must throw every available resource at the fire monster at hand. Costs be damned! We are not in a Grecian type financial predicament in this province, therefore any debates about "costs" of saving property, lives and resources should cease at least until we have this year's fire season behind us. Yesterday's air quality reading in Vancouver being compared to that of Beijing, was but one indicator of the seriousness of the problem at hand. Shame on the BC Government for having to be dragged via a public poll into deploying the Martin Mars!
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Post by westernflyer on Jul 7, 2015 11:33:41 GMT -8
Every once in a while, it's nice to observe "COMMON SENSE" winning out over defeatist attitudes expressed within this thread. I'm sorry to say that I don't think "common sense" enters the picture here. If "common sense" prevailed, we would not see this kind of reaction to a situation that is already way out of control. It was obvious months ago that we were entering a drought and that the fire season would likely be very active. With all due respect to the impressive Martin Mars and her crew, expecting one 70+ year old flying boat to deliver the province from it's current situation does not really seem like "common sense" to me. It seems more like the government is grasping at straws, reacting to a situation that it should have seen coming.
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Post by westernflyer on Jul 7, 2015 16:32:27 GMT -8
The Hawaii Mars is back in the water. More info here
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Post by Starsteward on Jul 8, 2015 8:39:26 GMT -8
Every once in a while, it's nice to observe "COMMON SENSE" winning out over defeatist attitudes expressed within this thread. I'm sorry to say that I don't think "common sense" enters the picture here. If "common sense" prevailed, we would not see this kind of reaction to a situation that is already way out of control. It was obvious months ago that we were entering a drought and that the fire season would likely be very active. With all due respect to the impressive Martin Mars and her crew, expecting one 70+ year old flying boat to deliver the province from it's current situation does not really seem like "common sense" to me. It seems more like the government is grasping at straws, reacting to a situation that it should have seen coming. If I lived in a burning house that was half a mile away from the nearest fire hall and that fire hall had only one vintage pumper truck available to respond to my crisis, the sound of a siren, even if it was of hand-crank vintage, would be music to my ears. This old pumper truck wouldn't be up to the task of saving a burning city block, but "common sense" says that the truck would be serving a dire immediate need. You are 'spot-on' that the government should NOT have assumed that this years' fire season would be comparable to last years', given the increasing drought conditions brought about in part by record low snowfall levels throughout the province. The province was hoping against hope that maybe they could wriggle through this year with last years' budget, but the serious reality now facing the government forces them to, as you say, grasp at straws. The Coulson Group should have at least been on a standby contract basis. Their airworthy Mars would have been ready to respond should the need arise. If their services weren't called upon this year, fair enough. The cost of the standby contract would have been valuable back-up insurance and seen as good planning. Coulson's aging Mars isn't the answer to many of the fire situations the province faces this year, however hindsight being what it is, the government looks rather inept at having to ring Coulson's doorbell at this stage of the game.
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Nick
Voyager
Chief Engineer - Queen of Richmond
Posts: 2,078
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Post by Nick on Jul 8, 2015 10:08:21 GMT -8
I'm sorry to say that I don't think "common sense" enters the picture here. If "common sense" prevailed, we would not see this kind of reaction to a situation that is already way out of control. It was obvious months ago that we were entering a drought and that the fire season would likely be very active. With all due respect to the impressive Martin Mars and her crew, expecting one 70+ year old flying boat to deliver the province from it's current situation does not really seem like "common sense" to me. It seems more like the government is grasping at straws, reacting to a situation that it should have seen coming. If I lived in a burning house that was half a mile away from the nearest fire hall and that fire hall had only one vintage pumper truck available to respond to my crisis, the sound of a siren, even if it was of hand-crank vintage, would be music to my ears. This old pumper truck wouldn't be up to the task of saving a burning city block, but "common sense" says that the truck would be serving a dire immediate need. You are 'spot-on' that the government should NOT have assumed that this years' fire season would be comparable to last years', given the increasing drought conditions brought about in part by record low snowfall levels throughout the province. The province was hoping against hope that maybe they could wriggle through this year with last years' budget, but the serious reality now facing the government forces them to, as you say, grasp at straws. The Coulson Group should have at least been on a standby contract basis. Their airworthy Mars would have been ready to respond should the need arise. If their services weren't called upon this year, fair enough. The cost of the standby contract would have been valuable back-up insurance and seen as good planning. Coulson's aging Mars isn't the answer to many of the fire situations the province faces this year, however hindsight being what it is, the government looks rather inept at having to ring Coulson's doorbell at this stage of the game.
The Coulson group WAS offered a standby contract, where they would be called on an as needed basis, but they refused. They wanted a full retainer for the full fire season, and I have to agree with the government in this case, where that was not an acceptable use of taxpayer dollars. They are better off using that money to finance other more modern bombers from other jurisdictions such as Ontario and Quebec in the event that they are needed. As far as budgeting goes, sometimes governments deliberately underbudget for events such as this, which then, when they go over budget, allows them to take funds from contingency funds that are held in reserve for a wide variety of possible uses. The Coast Guard, for example, does this quite frequently with their fuel budget during a bad ice year.
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FNS
Voyager
The Empire Builder train of yesteryear in HO scale
Posts: 4,948
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Post by FNS on Jul 29, 2015 22:09:29 GMT -8
It looks like CYVR may be seeing A380 planes soon. "Speedbird" Airlines plans to assign one in 2016. Read this news story if you wish: airlineroute.net/2015/07/29/ba-yvr-s16update2/Hopefully, this plane won't shatter too many residential windows around the Sea Island area. I watched two of these big planes take off from KLAX one day. My concourse was located next to the east end of runways 24L and 24R. They both took off to the west and the power of their thrust really shook and rattled the windows and decking of the north end of Southwest Airlines' concourse. I was waiting to board my plane from KLAX to KSEA with at stop at KSJC (where I've experienced such neat departing patterns a few times).
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Koastal Karl
Voyager
Been on every BC Ferry now!!!!!
Posts: 7,747
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Post by Koastal Karl on Oct 2, 2015 18:23:12 GMT -8
We are flying to LAX at the end of the month and we looked at flights and what is interesting is Air Canada Rouge flies a 767 on a round trip to LAX! Is that something new?? I have never seen a AC 767 flying from YVR to LAX before!
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Post by paulvanb on Oct 2, 2015 21:28:59 GMT -8
That is odd because their fleet are all extended range planes. Bring your tablet for inflight entertainment.
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FNS
Voyager
The Empire Builder train of yesteryear in HO scale
Posts: 4,948
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Post by FNS on Oct 2, 2015 21:55:18 GMT -8
We are flying to LAX at the end of the month and we looked at flights and what is interesting is Air Canada Rouge flies a 767 on a round trip to LAX! Is that something new?? I have never seen a AC 767 flying from YVR to LAX before! Flying a heavy jet on a coastal route is not new to me. Back in the mid 1970s, United flew a 747 between KSEA and KLAX. We took a family trip to California then and flew one both ways. The model we flew aboard was most likely a B742. These were my first flights with music sounding through on board head sets (the tube kind).
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Post by Mike C on Oct 3, 2015 0:01:01 GMT -8
We are flying to LAX at the end of the month and we looked at flights and what is interesting is Air Canada Rouge flies a 767 on a round trip to LAX! Is that something new?? I have never seen a AC 767 flying from YVR to LAX before! This aircraft change is effective about six months ago. Other more recent aircraft changes on this route include Delta and American switching to E175s from CRJs.
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Post by Kahloke on Oct 3, 2015 7:49:27 GMT -8
We are flying to LAX at the end of the month and we looked at flights and what is interesting is Air Canada Rouge flies a 767 on a round trip to LAX! Is that something new?? I have never seen a AC 767 flying from YVR to LAX before! This aircraft change is effective about six months ago. Other more recent aircraft changes on this route include Delta and American switching to E175s from CRJs. In this day and age when getting a wide-body aircraft for transcontinental flights is almost unheard of (there are a few, but not many), it seems even more strange to have a wide-body assigned to a much shorter west coast route. AC must be getting a lot of demand for that particular flight to assign a 767 to it, but downsizing of aircraft has been a trend over the last 10 years or so, especially now that newer narrow-body planes can fly much further than their predecessors could, and they are more efficient, too. I think of the last few times I have flown back east across North America, and those flights have mostly been on Airbus A320 or Boeing 737 type aircraft. Go back to 1996, the first time I flew to the east coast, and that flight was on a DC-10. Oh, how times have changed.
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Koastal Karl
Voyager
Been on every BC Ferry now!!!!!
Posts: 7,747
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Post by Koastal Karl on Oct 3, 2015 8:47:14 GMT -8
well I have flown a 767 once and it was on a 1hr flight from Montreal to Toronto which I thought was odd a big plane for such a short route but it might of been continuing on somewhere! This flight to LA I saw was like 8:50am and returning at 12:55pm from LAX! It was a flight we considered taking but it was too early out of Victoria!
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grk
Chief Steward
Posts: 227
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Post by grk on Jan 28, 2016 19:06:48 GMT -8
I would suspect that there are other transportation geeks lurking on this site. If you have kept a log of your flights, there is an incredible web site that you might be interested in. You need to enter all your flights, listing airline, aircraft, dates if available, origin, destination etc. The sight tallies them all up and gives you some facinating statistics. I spend a few dollars and upgraded to give me more details, but even the basic is awesome. A few examples of the information derived:
Flights
In Miles 554,323
In Kilometer 892,096
Earth Circumnavigation 22.26 x
Distance to the Moon 2.321 x
Distance to the Sun 0.0060 x
Hours 1235:53
Days 51.5
Weeks 7.4
Months 1.72
Years 0.141
All 490
Domestic 258
Intra-Continental 145
Intercontinental 35
Other flights 52
Longest Flight (distance): 6,523 mi, 12:10 h, Auckland (International) - Los Angeles (International), 25.02.1990
Longest Flight (duration): 12:10 h, 6,523 mi, Auckland (International) - Los Angeles (International), 25.02.1990
Shortest Flight (distance): 12 mi, 0:31 h, Papeete, Tahiti (Faa'a Int.) - Moorea (Ternae), 09.04.1978
Shortest Flight (duration): 0:30 h, 33 mi, Maple Bay - Vancouver (International), 01.06.1970
Fastest Flight: 536 mi/h, 6,523 mi, 12:10 h, Auckland (International) - Los Angeles (International), 25.02.1990
Slowest Flight: 23 mi/h, 12 mi, 0:31 h, Papeete, Tahiti (Faa'a Int.) - Moorea (Ternae), 09.04.1978
Average Flight: 1,132 mi, 2:31 h
Top Airlines (Distance) details
# Airline Distance %
Your rating
1 Air Canada 250.829 mi 45.2 %
2 British Airways 43.859 mi 7.9 %
3 Lufthansa 31.281 mi 5.6 %
4 Air New Zealand 26.262 mi 4.7 %
5 American Airlines 25.893 mi 4.7 %
6 Canadian Pacific 25.528 mi 4.6 %
7 Singapore Airlines 18.036 mi 3.3 %
8 United Airlines 16.671 mi 3.0 %
9 Northwest Airlines 16.292 mi 2.9 %
10 Delta Air Lines 15.775 mi 2.8 %
11 SAS Scandinavian Airlines 13.037 mi 2.4 %
12 Pacific Western 9.759 mi 1.8 %
13 Westjet 8.159 mi 1.5 %
14 Qantas Airways 7.547 mi 1.4 %
15 Western 7.375 mi 1.3 %
16 Wardair 4.162 mi 0.8 %
17 Air Tours International 4.018 mi 0.7 %
18 Garuda Indonesia 3.799 mi 0.7 %
19 Eastern 2.861 mi 0.5 %
20 Continental Airlines 2.679 mi 0.5 %
Top Aircraft (Distance) details
# Aircraft Distance %
Your rating
1 Boeing 747 100.280 mi 18.1 %
2 Airbus 320 76.371 mi 13.8 %
3 Boeing 767 73.070 mi 13.2 % 1.2
4 Boeing 727 37.067 mi 6.7 %
5 L 1011 36.538 mi 6.6 %
6 McDonnell Douglas-10 34.599 mi 6.2 %
7 Boeing 777 28.381 mi 5.1 %
8 Boeing 737 24.908 mi 4.5 %
9 McDonnell Douglas-9 23.871 mi 4.3 %
10 Airbus 319 20.672 mi 3.7 %
11 Airbus 321 15.063 mi 2.7 %
12 Boeing 757 12.640 mi 2.3 %
13 Airbus 340 11.042 mi 2.0 %
14 McDonnell Douglas-8 8.861 mi 1.6 %
15 Boeing 707 7.799 mi 1.4 %
16 Canadair 6.931 mi 1.3 %
17 Embraer 190 6.844 mi 1.2 %
18 Dash 8 5.801 mi 1.0 %
19 Airbus 330 4.714 mi 0.9 %
20 VC 10 4.698 mi 0.8 %
Tedious to enter all the flights, but the results are sure interesting to see. There are many other charts, and detailed maps showing all the flights you have taken. It just might interest a few on here!
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grk
Chief Steward
Posts: 227
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Post by grk on Jan 29, 2016 4:39:20 GMT -8
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Post by Starsteward on Jan 29, 2016 12:57:10 GMT -8
Very impressive list of Air Carriers and aircraft types on which you've ventured abroad. Don't know if you're aware of a very interesting investigative story that was done by Al Jazeera -English network and was posted to YouTube.com about a year ago. Check out "Al Jazeera Investigates - 'Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787' I just happened to come across it recently and found the story very, very unsettling as to the 'new Boeing' company.
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grk
Chief Steward
Posts: 227
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Post by grk on Apr 27, 2016 16:54:27 GMT -8
This is view getting more unusual to see as more four engine birds are being withdrawn from service. This taken April 25 aboard British Airways 84 aboard a 24 year old 747-400. British still has over 30 remaining in service, and looking like being kept for a few more years as the interior was all very new. This summer sees the 747 replaced by Vancouver's first double deck A380 service until the end of September when the aged 747's return.
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Post by Kahloke on Apr 30, 2016 15:44:51 GMT -8
This is view getting more unusual to see as more four engine birds are being withdrawn from service. This taken April 25 aboard British Airways 84 aboard a 24 year old 747-400. British still has over 30 remaining in service, and looking like being kept for a few more years as the interior was all very new. This summer sees the 747 replaced by Vancouver's first double deck A380 service until the end of September when the aged 747's return. It's been a number of years, but the last time I flew to London from Seattle was on a British Airways 747-400. And, it looks like they are back to using the 747 on the SEA-LHR flights. They had been using 777's recently.
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Post by dofd on May 1, 2016 8:37:15 GMT -8
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Post by Blue Bus Fan on Jul 2, 2017 14:46:12 GMT -8
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Post by Brandon S on Jul 3, 2017 14:59:15 GMT -8
Seeing as I am a large spotter on Instagram @westcoastaviation I thought I should join in the fun! Airlines I Have Flown: Air Canada WestJet KLM Pacific Coastal Aircraft: Airbus A320/321/330-200 Boeing 737-600/700/800, and 777-200LR Bombardier Dash 8-100/300/Q400 and CRJ-100/200 McDonnell Douglas MD-11 Shorts 360 Airports: Victoria (CYYJ) (my home airport) Vancouver (CYVR) Kamloops (CYKA) Prince George (CYXS) Calgary (CYYC) Grand Prarie (CYQU) Toronto (CYYZ) Ottawa (CYOW) Amsterdam (EHAM) Venice (LIPZ) Los Angeles (KLAX) Cancun (MMUN) And Now For A Few Of My Best Photos!
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