Out of Grande Prairie!!

Had a good long day into Missoula.


We left at first light and the wind was picking up as we got ready. I filed to Springbank planning to decide there if I would continue on to Lethbridge without fueling and that's what we ended up doing.
I called Calgary and told them I'd be under their class C as I skirted Springbank, which was a mistake because I didn't have to and he spent about 30 minutes vectoring me around like a drunken sailor trying to catch the localizer.
The Lethbridge FBO was pretty cool and loaned us a computer to file with Customs. I asked about my planned route through a pass and they told me to just go over the top into Glacier so we did.

On into Glacier was nice and rugged.


Customs was no sweat. A lot of "talking", you know how they subtly quiz you, but also he ran a Geiger counter all over the plane, which was weird. He said "Looking for material to make a dirty bomb". And it buzzed a bit which made me nervous. Yikes.
We hadn't decided where to stop, and I was considering staying, but we had a good lunch in the terminal which perked me up enough to want to move on to Missoula. There was a big fire just across the road from the airport so lots of firefighting traffic. You could smell smoke downtown.
The Neptune firebombers have 2 R3500's (I think) and 2 jet engines they use for boosters.





They had converted this BE-146 to a firebomber.


Missoula was great - pretty nice downtown. We had a really nice walk and dinner. Then some civilized breakfast flight planning.

When we were leaving, we ran into a Medevac pilot we'd met the day prior in Grande Prairie. We borrowed his red carpet and one of the paramedics took this shot.

End