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.

 

VancouverCalgary 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

 

 

 

VancouverPrince GeorgeFort St. JohnWhitehorse 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

 

 

 

VancouverTokyoHong 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

 

 

EdmontonNorman 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

 

 

67o 27’0N 133o 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