CYQB – Page 2 – Photography, aviation and flight simulation

Pilots regularly refer to flight service specialists (FSS) when preparing for a flight. They can either phone or visit a flight service station. The FSS progressively know an increasing number of pilots who differ a lot in experience.

As with any profession, competence and a professional attitude vary for the same license. Pilots are no exception and I could divide them in three categories: 85% meet the requirements on a continual basis, 10% constantly exceed the expectations and the last 5% deals with more or less important shortcomings.

Here are two small stories involving pilots of very different style and some flight service specialists. Those events happened in the ‘80s and ‘90s:

The pilot with a gigantic ego

One day, a pilot called the Transport Canada flight service station in Quebec City (CYQB) on the local radio frequency and said: “I’ll be landing in twenty minutes at Lac St-Augustin. Call my wife and tell her to pick me up”.

That was not a polite way to request a favor. He obviously had decided that those types of private phone calls were part of our responsibilities. As the flight service specialist was working higher priorities, he told the pilot that this was something he would have to do himself.

Losing his temper, the pilot started to reel off his CV and all the contacts with whom he would communicate to set this employee’s case. His long monologue forced us to lower the air radio frequency’s volume. His ramblings blocked an important frequency and were a nuisance to the other pilots. Eventually, he ran out of ideas and the radio frequency was finally available for essential communications.

A few hours later, the same pilot made a spectacular entry in the flight service station, shouting and blasting the employees. He then left the place by slamming what could be slammed of the swinging doors we had at the time.

Luckily, special cases like that are rare. They so differ from what we are used to that it’s impossible to forget them, even decades later.

An exceptionally cold blooded pilot

I remember of a very experienced pilot who used to visit us regularly at the Transport Canada flight service station in Rouyn-Noranda (CYUY). One day, he entered the station, leaned on the briefing counter, and started to talk about different subjects before finally asking us if we had any documents in our library that were dealing with an airplane crash…

We replied by the affirmative. Considering his calm and the tone in his voice, we figured that he was just curious. He then told us that he had just crashed less than an hour ago and that the machine he was flying was totally wrecked. He was the only person on board and managed to get out with scratches only.

I must admit that I had never met somebody that could be so detached from an event of such importance!

For more real life stories about being a FSS in Quebec City, click on the following link: Flight service specialist (FSS) in Quebec City

(Precedent document: Aviation photography: Rouyn-Noranda aircraft photos during 1986-1988 (Part three of three)

In 1988, I left Rouyn-Noranda for the Transport Canada flight service station, on Baffin Island. Iqaluit is Nunavut’s Capital and a designated port of entry to Canada for international air and marine transportation. Located at the crossroads of both polar and high North Atlantic air routes, Iqaluit airport can handle any type of aircraft.

I had to learn new tasks linked to ICAO responsibilities toward international air traffic crossing the Atlantic Ocean, as well as continue to act as a flight service specialist (FSS) and provide air traffic services.

The departure would be made from the Montreal Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau international airport. I decided to bring my .357 Magnum revolver with which I had been training for several years. Official papers authorized me to carry the gun from my home to the Montreal airport. Once there, I headed to a counter where an agent gave me another document allowing me to carry the revolver in the Nordair Boeing 737 leaving for Iqaluit.

There was no stipulation that the gun had to be left in the cockpit. I went through the security zone. The .357 Magnum was in a small case, in an Adidas sport bag. The bag was put on a moving strap, like any other hand luggage, in order to be checked by a security agent. The bag was not open by the agent; he looked at the screen, saw what was in the bag and that was it. I thought at the time that he might have received special instructions that I knew nothing about.

I was a bit surprised at the easiness with which I could carry a gun, but having never tried it before, since I was not a policeman, I concluded that it was the way things were done when all the papers and requests had been filed accordingly. The screening process being completed, I went outside and walked towards the Boeing 737.

A female flight attendant was greeting all the passengers. I presented her my airplane ticket just as I was ready to board the plane and she immediately asked me if the gun was in the bag I was carrying, and if it was loaded. My answers being acceptable, she invited me to go to my seat.

Once comfortably seated, I placed my Adidas bag under the front passenger’s seat instead of the elevated compartments along the aisles. I wanted to be able to see the bag at all times. The airplane took-off and it was a smooth flight to Iqaluit.

Three years passed and came the time to be transferred at the Transport Canada flight service station in Québec City (CYQB). The world had certainly changed during those three years isolated up in the Arctic. In 1989, Marc Lépine got known for the massacre, with a firearm, of fourteen women studying at the Montreal Polytechnic School.

I headed to the Iqaluit RCMP office in order to fill the appropriate documents that would allow me to carry the gun back to Québec City, a gun that would be sold few months after my arrival at destination. The police officer signed the papers and told me that the revolver would be kept in the Boeing 737’s cockpit.

I asked him, in case it was still allowed, if I had the liberty to carry it in my bag and put it under the front passenger’s seat, like I did for the inbound flight. He looked at me and clearly did not believe a word I had just said. But that did not matter. The gun would travel in the cockpit with the pilots and I would claim it once at destination.

When I think again about this story, almost thirty years later, I realize how the world has dramatically changed. There was a time where I could head to the Montreal international airport with my family to watch the landings and takeoffs from an exterior elevated walkway opened to the general public. From this same walkway, chimney smokers would negligently throw away their still smoking cigarette butts in an area where fuel trucks were operating.

The airport’s management eventually forbid the access to the outside walkway after having received too many complaints from passengers who rightfully claimed that their suitcases had been damaged by cigarette butts thrown from the walkway…

(Next story: Iqaluit and the old American military base)

For more real life stories as a FSS in Iqaluit, click on the following link: Flight service specialist (FSS) in Iqaluit