Hak's TWC PIREP
N° 5


Castlegar, Saturday 27th January 2002

It was the first relaxing evening snice a log time. Victoria arranged to get us in a warm mineral bath, followed by a professional massage. Afterwards we enjoyed a hearty meal at "Ol' Grizzly", a restaurant that we can recommend to all of you.

The dialysis equipement has been thankfully received yesterday, and I was told that there might be more similar jobs in the future. Well, it always was my dream to become sort of a flying doctor... so I didn't reject this offer. Maybe I can get a new research field for some of the plants I grow in my Lago Espirito greenhouses. Around eight in the evening, Victoria and me went out to the airfield to prepare the Waterpipe for the next day sight seeing trip we planned with a group of tourists. At the airfield, we met our old friend Cpt. Skybuster, and we decided to fly a trip together next day.

Next morning, Victoria was already busy dealing with the tourist group, when I received the phone call from Aki Kaurismäki, the well known cineast. He saw Skybusters "Hey Jude" sitting in front of the hangar, and he was absolutely hot to get inflight pictures of her for his latest, highly secret film project. So, I phoned Skybuster and explained him the situation. His voice got somewhat blurred when he heard that we might fly a bit out of the standard FAA rules for this film cast, but I was sure that he agreed with me to take the job (and opportuity).

Thanks to Victoria's skills and charme, the Tourists were easily converted to actors and agreed to pay a trippled price for the low level flight up to Kaslo. The weather was clear, dry and cold enough to get dense air under the wings. Turbulences were low and the forecast didn't bring bad news. So at 16:12 the film crew, the tourist/actors, Skybuster, Victoria and me met at the airfield. The Waterpipe and the HeyJude were already preflight checked and ready for action. The tourist troup boarded the C-119, the film crew the Waterpipe. Around 17:10 local time, we were ready to taxi and enter the active runway:



Sir Skybuster in his C-119 was a bit surprised when I declared a 120kts flight speed,
but he is skilled enough to keep his baby flying even at that low speeds. 17:21 was take off.


First we flew a couple of circles over Castlegar to get a feeling for the situation with the film team.

We were asked to perform a few rather dangerous but nevertheless very exciting and visually stunning
procedures, and Skybuster showed the skills of a dESPairado. Aki and his team were heavily impressed.

This PIREP contains many pictures for two reasons: first, we had a professional film crew on board,
and second, the flight and the scenery were both so absolutely fascinating that only pictures can
describe the experience.


We performed a couple of low bypasses on various objects (excellent work, Sir DW, absolutely excellent!)
always co-directed by the film crew's wishes and the physical limitations...

Look at this wonderfull bridge with lightings!


But mostly, we were visually chasing the "Hey Jude", and there were some very interesting scenes. At this point, we heard the screaming of the tourists through Skybusters radio...


they seemed to like the steep turns over the port and low bumps over bridges.


We were chasing the C-119 in the very best vietnam movie style, but we had a much more attractive
scenery and surrounding...

At a certain point, I felt the film crew's adrenaline level got a bit low... almost saturated they seemed.
So it was my part to shout back into the cabine: "strap your stuff and fasten the seat belts!", a couple
of seconds before I pulled the stick and when the stall speed approaches, turning the Waterpipe on her
back. Yes, you can do that, and you can fly her quite a while that way. What made the crew greenish
was the low altitude :-)


We now had them awake again, and the filming went on. Here a couple impressions with no comments:

Then it was time to prepare for landing at Kaslo:



The landing went fine, very short as usual, and we saw that Skybuster was safe on the ground too.



Taxied to the AeroPedro hangar where we unloaded the film equipement, the crew and the tourists. Always
thinking in terms of PR, I invited the crew and the tourists to a "dESPairado pint" in the local bar. We were
chatting and telling stories from our lifes as nomads of the sky, and Aki was very impressed by the variety that
our lifes as nomads of the sky provides. We might be featured in one of his films... who knows?

Anyway, the fligt was paid very well, and we had lots of fun, didn't we, Skybusty?



Clear sky!
Hak