The Midnight Sun Fly In Association is hosting the 2015 Midnight Sun Fly In from July 10 - 12, 2015 in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Planned activities include a fly-out picnic, live entertainment, dockside dining, airplane rides, pancake breakfast, memorial fly-past, and great bush pilot conversation.  See their website for more information.  Yellowknife is home to a large number of float planes, and the Fly-in is a great attraction in the town that, in many ways, exists because of bush pilots.

The popular History Television series Ice Pilots NWT has aired its final episode.  The series ran for 6 seasons, and became an international success.  It features stories about the north's most interesting airline, and the many vintage planes in the Buffalo Airways fleet. The History Channel has episodes from the last season available on line, in case you missed them.  And of course, Buffalo Airways continues to do business across the North.

This is a picture of one of Buffalo's Curtiss C-46A, taken by Darian Froese.

The runway at CYFB Iqaluit has been redesignated.  The runway is no longer designated 17/35. The NEW DESIGNATION is 16/34. All published navigational information that referred to 17/35 will now use 16/34. Here's the NOTAM:

140146 CYFB IQALUIT
  CYFB INSTR PROC PRODUCT REFERENCES FOR:
RWY 17 ARE NOW FOR USE ON RWY 16
RWY 35 ARE NOW FOR USE ON RWY 34
1406262024 TIL 1409180901

This is, of course, due to the significant movement of the north magnetic pole in the last few years.  It is estimated that the poll is now moving about 55 km a year.  There are maps and some rather interesting explanations of the pole movement here and here

Most other Nunavut runways are not affected, as runways in Northern Domestic Airspace are designated in degrees True.

The Canadian Transportation Safety Board has completed its report into the crash of a First Air Boeing 737-200 C-GNWN at Resolute Bay, Nunavut on August 20, 2011.  The final report was released at a news conference in Ottawa, Ontario on Tuesday, March 25, 2014 at 11:00 am ET.

The report was more than two years in the making.  It looks at a range of issues around the accident, and provides a comprehensive analysis of what happened.  The TSB identified problems in communication between the captain and the first officer, and an inadvertent mode change to the autopilot as key factors in the accident.  They called for First Air to improve CRM training (Cockpit Resource Management) , and for Transport Canada to update CRM standards across the country.

CBC News has a detailed story, including links to the TSB's explanatory animation of the final minutes of the flight.  There's also more on the TSB's site here.  It is unclear yet what impact the TSB report will have on a number of lawsuits filed following the accident. A full copy of the TSB's Aviation Investigation A11H0002 is available here.

Alexis Peltier and Michel Laplace-Toulouse finished their trans-Atlantic flying adventure on February 9, 2014. The pair flew a 1957 Piper SuperCub on big tundra tires from the west coast of North America, across Canada, then on to Greenland, and Paris in the summer of 2013.  Their trip plan included Canadian stops at Montreal, Sept Illes, Quebec, Wabush, Labrador and Kuujjuaq, Quebec; then on to Iqaluit and Qikiqtarjuaq Nunavut before crossing Davis Strait to Greenland.  You'll find maps of their complete trip plan here .

They did the next leg from Paris to Kenya, via the Sahara desert from January 13 to February 9, 2014. You'll find their journey tracker on the web here.

Alexis once held the record as the youngest Canadian pilot, and he's been on some really interesting aviation adventures in North and South America and in Africa. You can read about his Air Adventure personal air safari company here.

They called this adventure Flying4Conservation. Alexis and Michel are involved in conservation projects at home in Kenya, including using the aircraft to assist with wildlife surveys and other projects.

You can also find them on Facebook and on Twitter @F4C_SuperCub

We've added a few more photos taken around the ramp at CYFB, Iqaluit, Nunavut.  At left is one of a pair of US-registered Beech 65-A90-1 aircraft operated by Dynamic AvLease that stopped by in July of 2013. N97D is holding short on taxiway Delta, for a 35 departure, following N90D, which had just taken off. These planes display an interesting array of antennae. You can see more of our Planespotting photo collection here.

ArcticNet and the Canadian Coast Guard have found and retrieved the wreck of a Coast Guard helicopter that crashed near Banks Island.  Working from the CCGS Amundsen, ArcticNet's remote controlled underwater vehicle found the wreck and photographed the site.  A couple of days later, they were able to bring the wreck to the surface to assist in the investigation into the cause of the crash.  CBC News has more here. The Transportation Safety Board also has information on their website.

Canadian Coast Guard Messerschmitt BO-105-S-CDN-BS-4 (C-GCFU) crashed in McClure Strait in the high arctic on Monday, September 9, 2013. CBC News has a story here. The helicopter was operating from the CCGS Amundsen, north of Banks Island.  It isn't clear what caused the crash.  Pilot Denis Dube, Amundsen Commanding Officer Marc Thibault, and scientist Klaus Hochheim all died.  The Canadian Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

The photo at left is the same model as the helicopter that crashed, also with the Coast Guard icebreaker fleet  It was photographed in Iqaluit, Nunavut. This one is call-signed C-GCHU.

The 2013 Iqaluit airshow was held in conjunction with Nunavut day evenings on July 9, 2013.  The weather co-operated for this edition of the bi-annual Iqaluit Air Show.  This event has proven popular over the last few years, and this year was no exception. There was a big turnout for the static displays, and the fly-by of Royal Canadian Air Force Aurora and CF-18 aircraft.

Here in the Eastern Arctic, air travel is the way everyone gets everywhere.  There are no roads between communities, or to the south.  So we all rely heavily on the aviation industry for things like transportation, shipping, medical emergency travel, search and rescue, and exploration.  That translates into lots of interest in planes and flying.  We were lucky enough to participate in the the first Iqaluit Air Show in 2009, when we owned a Cessna 172 here.  It was was fun then, and fun now.

CanAero Publishing has a website with interesting information about their books, ebooks, and Canadian aviation generally.  You'll find some interesting slide shows and articles as well.  CanAero was known for publishing Aviation Canada magazine.  Check out Bob Baglow's CanAero site here.

Jack Wiegand completed the trip of a lifetime in just 58 days. He planned to set a Guinness World Record as the youngest person to fly solo around the world.  He was in Iqaluit for a few days between May 6 and 10, 2013.  His stop here was a bit longer than expected, due to some bad luck with a forgotten passport.  But with that behind him, he set off to see the world and complete his mission.  You can check out Jack's trip on his website, his Facebook page, or his daily Blog.

He was flying a 2006 Mooney Ovation2 GX N432BG.  And he used the trip to raise funds for a couple of his favourite charities.  You'll find more about that on his webpage, along with a complete live track of his round the world flight.

The photo shows Jack in his immersion suit in front of Frobisher Bay Touchdown Services here at CYFB, Iqaluit, Nunavut, just before he headed off to Greenland for the next leg of his trip on May 10th. Clck on the photo to enlarge.

Matevž Lenarčič is attempting something few have tried.  He's flying an advanced ultralight from Slovenia to Iqaluit, over the north pole, and then back to Europe over the north Atlantic.

The project is called Greenlight Worldflight. It takes him through northern Europe, to Svalbard, Norway and over the pole. On the Canadian side, he landed at the Enivronment Canada weather station at Eureka, then on to Resolute Bay, Nunavut and arriving in  Iqaluit on May 7, 2013. After a few minor repairs, he left Iqaluit May 10th, heading south to St. John's Newfoundland. From there, he's following the path of Charles Lindbergh across the North Atlantic to Kerry, Ireland, and then back to Slovenia.  A remarkable trip.

And he's doing it in a small plane.  He's flying the Pipistrel Virus-SW in a standard configuration.  Along the way, he's planning to collect black carbon data for scientific analysis.

We're following his trip on the Greenlight Worldflight website tracking page, which is using real-time tracking data from Spidertracks. You'll find lots of great information about the trip on the Greenlight site.

This Airbus A320-232 Prestige (A6-HMS) was in CYFB Iqaluit, Nunavut on April 23, 2013 to pick up Shaikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Mohammed Al Sharqi, the Crown Prince of Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates. He was in Nunavut on a polar bear hunting trip to the high Arctic. He visited Resolute and Grise Fiord earlier in the week.

A6-HMS is operated by the Dubai Royal Air Wing, the government airline of the UAE.

The Polar Pumpkin has made to the north pole. Alaskan bush pilot Art Mortvedt achieved his goal of flying his 1980 Cessna A185F N90SN to the geographic north pole on April 6, 2012. Mortvedt is a veteran of many expeditions to Antarctica, and 6 seasons of scientific work on the northern polar ice pack.  He landed this plane at the south pole in 1999.

Mortvedlt  made it as far north as the Eureka weather station on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut in 2011.  But bad weather and the closing of the Russian Barneo ice station made it a bad idea to try the Eureka to 90 North trip that year. He has a detailed trip log posted on his website, including photos taken along the way.

He spent more time preparing for the flight and speaking about the trip in various places in the United States. Here's Art at Oshkosh explaining the story of the Polar Pumpkin.

His website features a flight log of this year's trip which took him from Alaska through the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut in Canada, and on to Barneo and the pole.

This 1966 Piper PA-30 Twin Commanche N8234Y had a gear-up problem on landing at CYFB Iqaluit, Nunavut around 6pm local time on March 30, 2013.  The plane was up from the US, having just completed a leg from Kuujjuaq, Quebec. The owner reports that they had a good gear down indication on final, but the right gear was not fully locked when they landed. The other two landing gear collapsed during the landing.  He says it was  "actually not very dramatic, and the damage was light".  The plane skidded on its belly and came to a stop on the west edge of the runway..  Emergency crews were called out, but there was no fire or fuel leak.

Local crews spent a number of hours trying to jack it up and get the gear to drop and lock.  This photo shows the work underway trying to get the plane back up on its wheels. The mishap closed the first 4,000 feet of the 8,500 Runway 34 for about a number of hours while the plane was moved, however most of the evening turbo-prop scheduled flights were able to land.

The plane remained here for a couple of seasons while the owner arranged for repairs.

The Northern Air Transport Association is holding its annual conference and trade show in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories from April 8 to 10, 2013.  NATA brings together commercial aviation operations across the Canadian North.