Sunset in our six. FL270 Eastbound.
-28 degrees. Normally we don't use a Ground Power Unit for a whole lot on the airplane I fly. Only very few fellow pilots who fly this type use a GPU regularly and for reasons I can't quite pinpoint, I find it a little too pretentious. However, today we're going to pull a little juice off of one to fire up the electric heat and preheat the cabin. You see, for some unknown reason the airplane was left outside for an indeterminate period of time in pretty frigid temperatures and everything is cold soaked. Now normally a warm butt and some idle chatter from the passengers is enough to soften things up until we have the engine fires burning, but today we will have to go with option B - preheat. Our passengers happen to be super-ultra VIP - that translated means 'No Cold Bums'.
So the First Officer takes care of the GPU and the walkaround and the fuel order - but more importantly the commissary and liquor. I take my seat and program the FMS and grab an IFR clearance so we are ready to go when the kings and queens finally arrive.
I'm just finishing up when the passengers begin to board. I quickly recognize the telltale signs of loud boisterous chatter punctuated with abrasive and irritating laughter. They've already been in the sauce. Super. This should be fun..
With the safety briefing complete we taxi out. We can hear the loud crunching of snow as we pivot on the right main gear to make a tight exit off the company ramp - every Canadian knows when the snow is noisy like that, it means it is very cold. Too cold to even be slippery.
We blast off into the cold twilight. We are going against the flow of the evening inbound rush hour traffic on climb out. We are quickly cleared to our planned altitude and then direct to destination. The visibility tonight is fantastic and we can see the lights of all the major cities for over 100 miles. We level off and I trim the airplane and reluctantly transfer control to the autopilot. There is another plane 50 miles ahead of us on the same airway at the same altitude and their contrail is hanging lifelessly just a few hundred feet off our left wing - illuminated by the last few rays of the setting sun.
My attention is drawn back inside the airplane as I hear the clinking of glasses. The passengers are knee-deep in the onboard booze. One guy closest to the flight deck taps my shoulder so I make sure the FO has the airplane and I take off my headset. Turns out this guy is a pilot and owns his own Cub - cool little airplane - and we get into a discussion of this disease we call aviation. Some of the other guys and gals start to join in and turns out these people are all right. They're not the snooties I thought they might be. Super nice and friendly.
As we're chatting away the FO motions for me to put my headset back on. I do and he tells me we have some interesting traffic going to cross at 1000' above in about 2 minutes. There is an F-18 on its way back to base from a training mission and is on the airway at FL280. I spot him in the distance and closing fast. I turn all the interior lights in the airplane waaayy down and tell the rosy cheeked Cub owner what's up and a few of the others seem interested as well. First thing we see are the red and green nav lights, then a big fat contrail, then the dark silhouette of a military jet just starts to become distinguishable. I'm thinking to myself this is very cool (Canada does not have a huge military presence and seeing them in action is fairly rare, especially in flight). Then just as he's about to cross overhead he pulls the nose into a kind of high alpha and wags the wings. Then he's gone. Wow. Very cool.
Centre come up and asks if we got a nice view. Thats a big 10-4. Thanks for the show.
Wonder where we'll be and what we'll see tomorrow..
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