Seaplane Seduction

On the way home.  Same plane - different pilot.
I've forgiven him but don't tell my mother.

On a cold December evening when I was eight months old, I was dropped out of a float plane by the pilot, narrowly escaping the icy cold Queen Charlotte Island winter water by about an inch and a short second.  My father caught me.  My mother said the pilot threw me out of the plane as if I had been one of the bags.  And so began my love affair with seaplanes.

I have hundreds of photos.  Read all the books.  Stalk Pat Bay Air’s website.  Read the syllabus more times than I would like to admit.  Even though in recent years there has been a bunch of not-so-hot press, an inquiry and a ton of sass, it’s still my dream to fly floats.  You cannot be a pilot living next to the sea and not know how to fly a seaplane can you?

Float planes are magnificent to watch from any perspective.  When I am flying 1000 or 2000 feet above them they look like speed boats racing against the blue-grey sea.

When on Salt Spring Island I stay in the same room at the Harbour House Hotel because I know Salt Spring Air is going to fly directly over my room.  I’m the girl that will mow down old ladies for the cockpit seat on a Harbour Air flight.  I had a pilot friend once say to me that he and I could never travel on the same harbour-to-harbour flight because it would be a fight for the right seat.  Here’s a newsflash – I used to box competitively AND I wear high heels every single day.  You try and fight me for that seat and when you get my shoe out of your temple we’ll talk about who is sitting next to the pilot.

When I was younger my girlfriends used to talk about their first dates and I would always say: “Was there a float plane involved?”  Nobody got it.

Now my cougar girlfriends talk about their “dates” and there is always the inevitable “… and you’ll never guess where we went…”  My response is always the same: “I don’t know.  Was there a float plane involved?”  I don’t know why they don’t talk to me about that stuff anymore.

According to the CFS (Canadian Flight Supplement) our harbour is an airport, which means I live on the edge of a runway.  Depending on what direction the wind is blowing, short final is my backyard.  Literally my backyard.  Whether I am on the walkway, in my car, my sun room or Starbucks, every time I see a float plane I look up, point and say to no one: “There’s our guy.”  What I love about being me is that people say it to me now:  “Hey, here comes our guy.”  Could be six planes in a row – they are all “our guy” and they are all for me.

These pilots fly in the craziest weather.

A couple of years ago during a windstorm the winds were gusting 41-48 kts (up to 90 km/hr).  I was shocked to see West Coast Air still flying, and being a bit of a freak, I took my children down to rocks on the shore so we could watch the planes in that wind.  I spotted this rock star turning base and the drift was incredible.  I have never seen a plane pushed like that before – on final it appeared as if the plane was suspended motionless.

I held my breath watching the attempted landing and with the eventual overshoot I let out a huge sigh of relief but couldn’t help but think: “What are they going to do?”  I ran through all of the other possibilities in my mind but watched incredulously as they came around again.  My daughter chanted: “You can do it.  You can do it”, as she held tightly to my leg so she wouldn’t blow away.  One phenomenal landing later and it was like our team had just won the Superbowl!

Another time I was walking on the walkway and was showered by water off the floats as a pilot performed an incredible short run take off directly over me with a steep climb over the condos at the water’s edge.  Again the wind was fierce and I felt as if the only thing keeping them up was the sheer force of my will.  Couldn’t believe my eyes!  I walked away praying to the God of the Float Plane Pilot feeling as if I had just witnessed a miracle.

Even when it’s really nasty out there, these pilots fly with such grace under pressure.  What’s interesting is when you’re sitting in the cockpit next to them; ask any of these cowboys if they love it and they will all tell you how monotonous it is.  Same-flight-a-whole-bunch-of-times-every-day.  And I always answer: “You’re living the dream.  You know that right?”

That’s when they smile and get that twinkle in their eye.

There was a float plane involved.

I knew it!