Bluegrass Airlines, August 2009

Canadian Pacific Airlines – ‘51

By Allan Lowson

(image copyright Bjorn Larsson www.timetableimages.com)

Canadian Pacific Airlines

Canadian Pacific Airlines, also called CP Air, was a Canadian airline that operated from 1942 to 1987. Based at Vancouver International Airport in Vancouver, British Columbia, it served Canadian and international routes until it was purchased and absorbed into Canadian Airlines.

In the early 1940s, Canadian Pacific Railroads purchased ten bush airlines including Canadian Airways, finishing with the purchase of Western Canadian Airlines in 1942, to form Canadian Pacific Airlines.

CP Air battled with the government owned Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA) for international and trans-continental routes for much of its history. Despite early attempts to merge them into one national carrier, CP Air continued to operate routes based on its previous bush-flying heritage.

The federal government established limits on domestic market share and, through international agreements, limits on which countries CP Air could fly to. This barred CP Air from the traditional routes such as London and Paris. CP was forced to develop other overseas routes. The development of the great circle or polar route to the Far East from its Vancouver base would become one of the cornerstones of the airline.

In 1987 CP sold its airline to Pacific Western Airlines. The name of the merged airlines became Canadian Airlines International. In 2000 Canadian Airlines merged into Air Canada.

Canadian Pacific Airlines Routes

Canadian Pacific had services spread right across Canada, due to the way in which it had absorbed so many smaller operators. Therefore we have selected four sample flights covering operations from the Noorduyn Norseman, through the DC-3 and DC-4 to the Canadair North Star. These routes were taken from the 1951 timetable of Bjorn Larsson on www.timetableimages.com.

Vancouver – Calgary Route (DC– 3 route)

Heading	Distance	Down	City Name	Code	Frequency
058	0	0700 PST	Vancouver	CYVR
069	69.0nm			HE	245.0 NDB
059	110.0nm			YDC	113.90 VOR
	140.5nm	0815 PST	Penticton	CYYF
077		0830 PST	Penticton	CYYF
342	218.4nm			EF	206.0 NDB
	220.8nm	0915 PST	Castlegar	CYCG
055		0930 PST	Castlegar	CYCG
054	283.0nm			YXC	112.10 VOR
	295.4nm	1115 MST	Cranbrook	CYXC
018		1130 MST	Cranbrook	CYXC
018	382.7nm			TV	299.0 NDB
340	404.2nm			ZCA	233.0 NDB
	408.0 nm	1245 MST	Calgary	CYYC

Vancouver – Prince George – Fort St. John – Whitehorse Route (DC– 4 route)

Note the time zone changes on this flight.

Heading	Distance	Down	City Name	Code	Frequency
058	0	0700 PST	Vancouver	CYVR
342	69.0nm			HE	245.0 NDB
319	148.1nm			YZA	236.0 NDB
322	245.5nm			YWL	113.60 VOR
330	290.4nm			YQZ	359.0 NDB
322	342.8nm			XS	272.0 NDB
	346.6nm	0830 PST	Prince George	CYXS
360		0855 PST	Prince George	CYXS
	502.4nm	1105 MST	Fort St John	CYXJ
283		1145 MST	Fort St John	CYXJ
315	506.9nm			XJ	326.0 NDB
	670.0nm	1205 PST	Fort Nelson	CYYE
262		1245 PST	Fort Nelson	CYYE
266	785.5nm			ZL	263.0 NDB
360	875.4nm			YQH	114.90 VOR
	1046.6nm	1255 YST	Watson Lake	CYQH
253		1305 YST	Watson Lake	CYQH
	1065.5nm	1440 YST	Whitehorse	CYXY

Vancouver – Tokyo – Hong Kong Route (C–4–1 route)

These are the direct routes between airports; a high altitude route is contained in the flightplan. A day is lost heading West as you cross the international dateline on this flight.

Heading	Distance	Down	City Name	ICAO
276	0	2300 (Mon)	Vancouver	CYVR
	2304nm		Shemya	PASY
245			Shemya
	4079nm	2030(Wed)	Tokyo	RJTT
252		2230(Wed)	Tokyo
	5632 nm	0700(Thu)	Hong Kong (Old)	VHHX

Edmonton – Norman Wells Route (DC– 3 route)

Heading	Distance	Down	City Name	Code	Frequency
001	0	0700 MST	Edmonton	CYEG
255	218.4nm			YMM	112.00 VOR
	221.7nm	0830 MST	Fort McMurray	CYMM
333		0850 MST	Fort McMurray	CYMM
290	421.8nm			SM	254.0 NDB
	426.1nm	1020 MST	Fort Smith	CYSM
270		1040 MST	Fort Smith	CYSM
	549.4nm	1140 MST	Hay River	CYHY
223		1200 MST	Hay River	CYHY
272	550.0nm			YHY	113.90 VOR
		1230 MST	Providence	CYJP
257	609.8nm	1240 MST	Providence	CYJP
		1235 PST	Fort Simpson	CYFS
264	716.9nm	1255 PST	Fort Simpson	CYFS
296	718.7nm			YFS	117.90 VOR
274	821.0nm			YWY	113.10 VOR
	823.5nm	1350 PST	Wrigley	CYWY
299		1400 PST	Wrigley	CYWY
290	939.7nm			ZFN	392.0 NDB
			Fort Norman	CZFN
271	939.8nm		Fort Norman	CZFN
	977.6nm	1515 PST	Norman Wells	CYVQ

Fort Norman is served by a flight back from Norman Wells on Mondays and Tuesdays, landing conditions permitting. If you drop in to the 3,000ft runway in the DC-3, I’m sure your passengers will appreciate the shorter journey.

Norman Wells – Aklavik Route (Norseman route)

Heading	Distance	Down	City Name	Code	Frequency
287	0	0700 PST	Norman Wells	CYVQ
256	72.4nm			YGH	245.0 NDB
	73.1nm	0830 PST	Good Hope	CYGH
262(ZFM)		0855 PST	Good Hope	CYGH
	67^o 27’0N 133^o 45’0W		Arctic Red River	26nm from CZFM bearing 229M
			Arctic Red River
080	235.8nm	1105 MST		ZFM
	236.2nm	1145 MST	Fort McPherson	CZFM
320			Fort McPherson	CZFM
	285.0nm	1440 YST	Whitehorse	CYKD

Note that Arctic Red River is currently a floatplane base, and is missing from fs2004. However there is a bridge across the river, which has the correct shape at this location at a bearing of 229M and 26nm from Fort McPherson.

Flight Simulator Files

The Noorduyn Norseman in a Canadian Pacific scheme is available as nocnobg.zip at avsim.com. There are two paint schemes for the default fs2004 DC-3 at flightsim.com. A period one is in text_cp.zip and there is one in the final CP Air orange scheme in cporange.zip. If you have the MAAM-SIM payware DC-3, then the orange scheme is linked from the MAAM-SIM site in maam_orange.zip at avsim.com.

The DC-4 package from Jens Kristensen includes a Canadian Pacific scheme and the latest version is DC4_V21.zip at flightsim.com. If you have a previous version of Jen’s DC-4 loaded be careful to check with the readme.txt for any compatibility or duplication issues.

The Canadair North Star for Canadian Pacific is included in Jen’s Canadair Argonaut package, which is in argo_v21.zip at flightsim.com.

Flight Plans

Flight plans for fs2004 are contained in Canadian_Pacific_Flightplans.zip.

These should be extracted to the folder that contains all your flightplans. In Windows XP this is likely to be C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\Flight Simulator Files