TDTurbo,
Sorry for the delay in responding.
A couple of recommendations:
I would recommend not doing it IFR. I would recommend flying along the Alaska Highway. These recommendations come from my personal preferences and experiences. You may hear other opinions, your results may vary.
I would do the trip VFR. I’m not a big fan of IFR in single engine aircraft in he mountains. In the event of an engine failure, you’re going down in some pretty inhospitable terrain. You have very few options. In a lot of places in the lower 48, you may be within gliding distance of an airport, you may be over relatively flat terrain which may allow a survivable forced landing. Once you get past the prairie provinces in Canada, you won’t have those options. There are places where it is literally hours of flying time between the nearest airports. Another factor against IFR is icing. Icing is a year-round thing here. Your options for dealing with it are limited. There’s very few alternates, so your choices may be limited to returning to your origin or continuing to your destination. Frequently, descending out of it is not an option. The MEAs are high, (13,000 feet between Whitehorse and Watson Lake) and the freezing levels are low (6000-8000 feet is common in the summer) I’ve managed to find an abundance of ice in August at 10,000 feet. I’d rather not have to wrestle with it in an unprotected single engine airplane. Safety aspects aside, why go IFR? I can assure you that the inside of a cloud in the Northwest Territories looks just like the inside of a cloud in the upper Midwest. I’ve seen them both and there’s no difference. If you want to see the inside of clouds, you can do that in your area a lot easier and less expensively. For me the whole point of a recreational flight is to see the country. If you go VFR you’ll see the North. You’ll see barren mountains, the unbroken spruce forests, wildlife (if you fly low enough) , the raw austere beauty of the sub-arctic.
If you really have your heart set on flying IFR there are some differences Here in the US, when transitioning to an airway segment with a higher MEA, you start your climb at the fix which defines the segment with the higher MEA. A minimum climb gradient is assumed by the TERPs. Not so in Canada. There, and in many other parts of the world, you begin your climb so as to cross the fix at the new MEA. Failure to do so may mean an abrupt an unfortunate end to your trip. Be comfortable with non-radar procedures. Once you are past Edmonton, you’ve been given your last radar vector until you arrive in Anchorage. Know how to give a correct position report. They are expected and they are expected to be correct. FSS and ATC can get pretty snippy if you don’t give reports in the correct format. (or so I’ve heard) Make sure that you are able to get from the enroute structure to the approach and complete the approach without assistance. (if you’ve flown in the Caribbean you’re probably reasonable familiar with Non-radar. Know that departure procedures and missed approach procedure s are not merely advisory (this got a vacationing pilot in a lot of trouble in Valdez recently, and an f-15 pilot in Kodiak a while back) If the procedure says immediate turn, it means immediate turn. Make sure you check your plates for a departure procedure before getting starting up. If there is one, read it, use it.
In my opinion, the safest route is along the Alaska Highway. Most of the airports and services are along this corridor. RCO’s and navaids are closer together, there. It gives you the most options. If things go badly, you can land on the highway. The highway leads you through the lowest terrain. I’m not a real big fan of the coastal route from Washington through Southeast Alaska. The southeast is very rugged. The weather tends to be much worse than it is inland. If you have to make a forced landing your choices are usually limited to very steep, rocky mountains with very big trees, or the ocean which is very, very cold. The other side of that is that Southeast Alaska is one of the most astonishingly beautiful places on the planet. I’ve flown up and down the coast a number of times, but always in a twin. I’d have to have a really good reason to chose it over the highway route in a single engine land plane.
I would recommend starting no earlier than June. I’ve been snowed on in Fort Nelson, BC in May. There’s still ice on many lakes in Alaska then. Mid June through mid-August will probably give you the most pleasant weather. Most of my trips have been in the winter, it’s cold, and there’s not much daylight.
Regardless of when and how you go, make sure you have survival gear. It’s required both by Canadian Law and Alaska State Law. Survival gear should at the minimum meet the legal requirements of both Alaska and Canada. I would recommend bringing camping supplies; a lightweight tent and a good sleeping bag, freeze dried food, backpacking stove. Having the necessary supplies to comfortably spend the night might affect your decision making process when faced with the choice of continuing into deteriorating weather, turning back into deteriorating weather, or landing at a remote airstrip to wait for better weather. A little unscheduled camping trip is a lot better than a CFIT, VFR into IMC adventure. Be prepared Besides, you may *want* to camp out at some of the more remote places. Until a few years ago you were required to carry a firearm in your plane Alaska. It’s not a bad idea, I do in some circumstances. If you want to do that, be aware that Canadian firearms laws are much more restrictive. Handguns are illegal, and I think that shotguns and rifles with folding stocks are also. Look into it before you go.
Mu2driver has some good observations on Alaska also. (I gotta say that going into Seldovia in a MU2 must have been sporty) He’s especially on point about the weather. Take heed. Those of you in the lower 48 enjoy much more reliable weather information. Alaska and the Canadian Northwest are very large, and weather observing stations are few and far between comparatively. The geography is much more extreme, and thus the weather patterns are far more chaotic. The weather can change very quickly. All of this adds up to less reliable weather reporting and forecasting. Be careful, don’t take forecasts as gospel, realize that two stations reporting good Wx may have bad Wx between them. Keep your options open, have a plan B and a plan C, D etc
Charts and Stuff:
The Canadian Charts are much like our own. They have Sectionals and WACs Unlike our own, they are valid until updated, whenever that happens. The current edition of a VFR chart may be several years old. They have a very useful chart for doing hte trip. It’s the Alaska Highway Cchart. It’s at the same scale as a sectional, and shows all the same features as a sectional, but it is a strip along the entire Alaska highway. I would highly recommend it for any trip up here. Make sure that you have the Canada Flight Supplement and the Alaska Supplement. The Alaska Supplement contains the same information as the Airport and Facility Directories for the lower 48. The airport info. is in the same familiar format. In addition it has quite a bit of other information about flying in and to Alaska, including the survival gear requirements for both Alaska and Canada. The Canada Flight Supplement is one book which has all the information for all airports and navaids in Canada. The format is different but it has the same type of info as the US A/F directory. The best source that I’ve found for Canadian Charts is Sporty’s they carry the full complement of IFR and VFR charts and the Canada Flight Supplement. On a few occasions that they’ve not had the current version of charts I ordered, they sent me the previous version free of charge until they could get the new update. Sporty’s also carries Alaska Charts and the Alaska Supplement.
I’m running out of advice here, but I’m more than happy to answer questions. It’s a great trip, it’ll be an experience of a lifetime. I still have vivid memories of my first trip Anchorage to OldTown, Maine in December in a Cessna 180, and back to Anchorage in January.....Flying through the Liard River Canyon, Canadian Fuel truck drivers competing for your business, landing in Watson Lake with at 30 below with my tailwheel frozen solid, partying with the Fort Nelson FSS staff on a multi day Wx delay......
Regards
On the other hand, if you ever want to go buzz around the lakefront drop me an IM, I am always flying around Meigs, my home airport is Lansing. BTW, where are you based out of?
I am terrified that the engine won't be nearly as reliable, it has 2300 hrs on it now and 0 problems.....ever! With all the problems Lycoming is having with quality control, I'm afraid it might blow up after 300 hrs.
I can't wait to see what Toyota has in store for the US GA market, it should be a big wake up call for Cessna and the like. Thanks again everybody for your helpful response!
