Page 12 - April 2018

News arrived that the government’s Northern Air
Operations branch, which operates the province’s
forest fire-fighting aircraft and “bird dog“ spotting
aircraft, faced a shortage of pilots due to illnesses.
Could he help?
CAHS – Regina Branch This was easy to arrange, he told our chapter,

A Summer Job Like No Other because both groups of pilots (plus the provincial
-by Will Chabun air ambulance service) all were members of the
same union. Although Norm had plenty of
Norm Swayze recalls
multiengine time, he’d never flown a floatplane or
a memorable summer seaplane. He went through three long days of
flying and fighting fires.
ground school with several exams, then nine hours
When you fly in the of flight training followed by a flight test, after
mighty CL-215T, you which he found himself in the right seat of a CL-
learn. quickly to put 215T operating out of La Ronge.
not one, but two,
ballpoint pens into
your shirt pocket. If you drop one, then you won’t find it
till you’re back on the ground. That’s because there is a
long well between the crew seats that runs forward from
the cock-pit to a hatch in this powerful flying boat’s nose.
So, finding your pen needed for jotting down important
things like radio frequencies and the names of lakes
means leaving your seat and doing a search.
Time -- that’s something you’ll lack when you’re busy
flying and helping to fight a fire.

That’s just one of the many things Norm learned in the
summer of 2014, when he temporarily left his job with

Saskatchewan’s Executive Air Services branch to fly as a
first officer on a CL-215T operating out of La Ronge. His captain, he noted, had been flying tankers for 27
years. Some other pilots had even more experience.
Norm is no stranger to the aviation community in Regina.
It is relevant to review Northern Air Operations
He’s now in his 27th year flying a Bellanca Scout tow fleet. Spotting aircraft were three Beech Barons and
plane for the air cadet gliding program at 15 Wing Moose
three Aero Commanders (in the past called Ted
Jaw. He also flew Vintage Wings Canada’s Stearman
Smith Aerostars, though the Canadian Civil Aircraft
biplane trainer in 2013 under the “500 Dreams Take Register calls them Rockwell 690As). The tankers
Wing” program, which aimed to get air cadets into
used in 2014 included four Convair 580 tankers, two
aviation and other science, technology and engineering
CL-215 tankers with radial engines and five
fields. He now flies as a first officer in WestJet’s 700, 800 upgraded CL-215Ts with turbo-prop engines and
and MAX series Boeing 737s, but in the spring of 2014, he other enhancements. The main base was at La
was flying for Executive Air Services on various models of Ronge, with sub-bases at Buffalo Narrows, Stoney
the King Air.
Rapids, Hudson Bay, Meadow Lake and Prince
Manufacturing rights to the ‘215 now are held by Viking Albert.
Aircraft of Victoria and Calgary.
A few laudatory words about the CL-215 are in
The 215’s turboprop engines each generate 2,380 order. It was, of course, designed and long
horsepower and it can carry 10,000 lbs. of fuel, though it manufactured by Canadair (which became
burns about 1,900 lbs. an hour when working on a fire. Bombardier).