October 23 2013

          I haven't read many blogs in my time, and this will be the first blog I've ever written.  Together, my blogging knowledge doesn't sum to a whole lot.  The following will not likely fit to the classic standard of what you might expect from a seasoned blogger, but I'll try to share some stories and excitement of my life thus far, and maybe the stories will find added value in being shared publicly.  As well, if you like any of the photos that I post, please contact me as I would love to sell the framed originals.

To begin this thing, my name is Chris Welter. This blog will likely take off on many tangents over the course of its life, but primarily I want to share my enjoyment in flying fixed-wing aircraft from the airport in St. Andrews, Manitoba. I'll often fly over downtown Winnipeg in the early sunset to witness the urban sprawl come to life. Its similar to a tree on Christmas eve, but available year round. Maybe a more accurate analogy would be alike a quilt of lights. It's very cool how farmers' fields can look like blankets of alternating colors as far as the eye can see.  A favorite flight route is northward to Elk Island along the east coastline of Lake Winnipeg, passing Grand Beach, Patricia Beach and Victoria Beach along the way.  I've flown to Brandon on occasion and picked up VIP's in time to make a return to Winnipeg for exciting events in the city.  It's rewarding doing sightseeing over motocross race-day events or exploring the lakes around the Kenora, ON area.

At the time of writing this, I have a Private Pilots License endorsed with a night rating.  It might sound confusing to anyone not understanding the steps involved with aviation licensing, but it basically means I can fly during the day or night, not within low visibility conditions.  When I finish the Commercial Pilots License, I'll be able to fly over the clouds, and once I finish the Instrument Flying Rules endorsement, I can fly right through them.  There's also a multi-engine rating for the larger aircraft that would be used in commercial air services.  At this point I'm undecided if I'll go down that route with my career.  I've had a great time with what I've done so far, so we'll see where it goes from here.  The next step is acquiring a float-plane rating so that I can land seaplanes, and use those hours to finish up the CPL.  Now I'm going to include a bunch of awesome aerial shots on the page and we'll see what happens.

This shot was taken just a few days ago before the signs of Manitoba's mighty winter storms began to roll in. We are just south of Mars Sand Hills, looking towards a storm forming over Lake Winnipeg in this picture.  It was a rocky flight out to Lac Du Bonnet for a few shots over the lake as we were dodging rain plumes on the way there. On the returning journey along highway 317, we nailed some really beautiful photos of the changing of the seasons.

This was one of the super shots nailed over Lac Du Bonnet, looking into the storms from which we danced through on the 066° radial out of St. Andrews.  We were going to do a quick landing and take off again at the airport (a touch & go), but with all the localized storms, we were satisfied with the quick snapshots nailed over the lake and began the return journey towards Libau.   

Usually when I've flown to the east, my returning leg will pass through the St. Andrews practice area and over the steam plant in East Selkirk.  That way, we can orient ourselves somewhat for the steel rolling mills, Selkirk's pride & joy. It is also a reporting landmark for the 5 nautical mile control zone around the airport, so we'll make our contact with the tower on 118.5 MHz at that time. Generally speaking, we state who we're talking to, our aircraft identification, our location and height, and our intentions, with the present weather code.  An example would be, "St. Andrews tower, this is Cessna One Seven Two Foxtrot Lima Pappa Uniform, over the Selkirk rolling mills, at 2000 feet, inbound for a full stop with weather information Bravo."

This is the St. Andrews airport in the early evening.  As an observer it might be difficult to distinguish the length of the runways from pictures, but here is the 3000' runway, oriented with magnetic north / south. Each of the lights along the runways are 60 metres' apart. 

This shot is of runway 31 at the Winnipeg International airport during another beautiful sunset. This runway is over twice as long, at 8700'.








That's enough of a start for now, I hope you, the reader, have found the write-ups interesting and the photos as captivating as I have.  Many more to follow soon.  Thanks goes out to a very helpful lady in the Pulse gallery at the Winnipeg forks for inspiring me to create a blog.