Tag Archives: grand Caravan

Wichita’s Finest is Everywhere in the Parks

Kenya and Tanzania have many small airstrips scattered around the countryside including in the national parks.  These provide quick transfers between locations if you are willing or able to pay and don’t want the long and bumpy road trips.  There are a variety of types that are used for these services and I shall show some others in upcoming posts.  However, one type does dominate.

The Cessna Grand Caravan is everywhere in the region.  It has the right size for many of the trips, it has sufficient capacity for luggage with the baggage pod beneath he fuselage, it is fine with the rough surface strips that are in most places and it is PT-6 powered so very reliable.  We saw tons of them during the trip and also got to experience a flight on one.  I was surprised to find it was a 1×2 configuration.  I had assumed that they were 1×1 but not in this case.  It got a lot of us in there but getting in and out was not an easy process.  The aisle was minimal!

I have no idea how many Grand Caravans there are in use in rural Africa but I imagine that Cessna has delivered a ton of aircraft from Wichita to the region.  I suspect that the best replacement is another Caravan.  The Islander might once have been this sort of workhorse but the efficiency and reliability of the Caravan must be what has made it so ubiquitous.

Skydive Snohomish’s Jump Ship

I was heading home from Arlington and passing Snohomish when it occurred to me that there might be an opportunity to shoot the Skydive Snohomish jump ship.  They operate a Blackhawk conversion of the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan.  The conversion adds a more powerful engine which is useful for a jump ship that is focused on getting loads to altitude fast and then returning to do it all again.  I turned off to the airport and saw that operations where on a southerly flow which means towards the road.

As I drove around, the plane took off directly over me, but I had no time to stop and get a shop.  I parked up and watched it climbing above me and then disgorging its load of what my friend Bob calls meat bombs.  The descent was pretty rapid, and the plane was landing as the jumpers were making their approaches.  It pulled off the runway and then held on a taxiway for a while.  It appeared that they waited until the next lift was ready to board at which point, they pulled up to the skydive facility and got everyone on board.

It was a short taxi to the hold point and then they were lined up and powering towards me.  It is a short runway at Harvey Field, but they were rapidly airborne and climbing above me and on their way to the drop point.  Once they were gone, I packed up my stuff and headed home.

Experimental Grand Caravan That Was Lost

I was down at Renton and drove around the back of the ramp.  There was a Cessna Grand Caravan parked up and I was tempted to get a shot.  They have made that area a lot harder to see recently and I didn’t bother.  However, I was up on the other side of the field at the overlook when it taxied out for departure.  I heard the call sign was experimental which caught my interest and I grabbed some shots as it took off.

A few days later I heard of a plane crash up near Snohomish.  I had seen this plane flying patterns up there when I was looking earlier in the day and, when I saw pictures on the news sites of the crash, I could see the registration was the same plane.  I understand they were trialing something new – perhaps a baggage pod – but I have no idea what happened.  It looked as if the wing had separated in flight since it was a long way away.  The test pilot was one of the Kenmore Air staff.  He died along with one other person on board.  A very sad story.

Cirrus and Grand Caravan Getting In Each Other’s Way

Boeing Field is constantly operating from both runways at the same time.  The light aircraft traffic on the short runway can co-exist with whatever is underway on the main, long runway.  However, despite the clear ATC instructions, there are occasional when things don’t quite go to plan.  We had a Cirrus and a Grand caravan on approach to the parallel runways.  I am not certain who was at fault, but from my angle, it appeared that the Cirrus was drifting off towards the wrong runway.  It corrected its path but not before the pilot of the Grand Caravan decided that things were not looking good and went around.  It didn’t take them long to get back around the pattern and the second approach was incident free.  I don’t know whether the controllers ended up talking to either crew or not.

Mokulele Flight Services Caravan

When in Hawaii a few years ago I saw Mokulele Flight Services operating a Cessna Caravan.  More recently, a Caravan has been flying out of BFI in Mokulele colors.  I am assuming that Mokulele has sold the aircraft to another operator.  I am not aware of them providing service around here but that doesn’t mean they aren’t.  If it has been sold, I wonder how long before it gets repainted.

Grand Caravan Go Around – Thank-you

AE7I0734.jpgWe spent a day in Stanley Park in Vancouver.  This was not a day for photographing aircraft but there are so many operating in the area that it is hard to avoid.  As we were walking along the shore, a Grand Caravan made an approach.  I didn’t have the camera to hand so just watched it.  Having made a dive at the final approach, it floated long (in the air, not on the water) and the pilot elected to go around.  This gave me an opportunity to get the camera out.

AE7I0742.jpgMeanwhile, I could hear it coming around.  It seemed rather loud for the approach path it had taken previously.  Indeed, this time they took a path right across the bottom of the park.  I got out from under a tree just in time to get some shots of it turning on to final.  A far better angle than its first approach.  Maybe the pilot deliberately went around because he knew what I wanted?

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Grand Caravan is Not the Smoothest!

AE7I0299.jpgIt might seem a bit absurd but, when watching all of the floatplane activity down in the harbor in Vancouver, you can get a bit used to the Otters and Beavers and hope for something a little different.  One operator was using a Cessna Grand Caravan on floats and this got my interest.  I saw it coming in on the approach and watched it all through the touchdown and slowing down to taxi speed.

AE7I0272.jpgThe transition off the step and onto the floats did not seem to be a very smooth process.  As the speed decayed, the aircraft pitched up and then oscillated between level and very nose high.  The tail seemed to get very close to the water and there was plenty of spray.  I have no idea whether this is the normal transition or whether this one got a bit out of sorts due to the conditions but it did no look like it would have been very comfortable inside.  All was well, though.  They flew out again a little while later with no issues.

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