A flight I’ve been meaning to do for a while now is flying a route that would take me from Calgary up to the northern Canadian city of Yellowknife. The recent updates to PMDG’s 737 series seemed like a good reason to get the jet out. This isn’t a review of that update but I was flying the updated airplane and the handling was a tiny bit nicer which is always nice.

Dawn departure

Flying this using real time, I started at Calgary airport at dawn with the first hints of the sun rising in the east. Some light fog and gloom plus some low and mid level clouds were hanging around for good measure. Temperature was -4c contributing to the frosty gloom.

After start-up and bushback, we taxied for quite a while until we got to runway 8. That’s what MSFS wanted me to do but I know that the real airport is transitioning (or has already done so) the runway over to a taxiway. Consider it an unusual departure!

After takeoff we banked away from the airport and climbed away in a sweeping turn, using some imaginary vectoring, towards our first waypoint.

Continuous sunrise

After climbing to cruise altitude, things went very smoothly. Outside we had what amounted to an almost perpetual sunrise. Heading so far north at this time of year meant that the sun rose slightly before starting to set again. The result was a beautifully warm glow despite the frosty weather.

Mid level clouds blocked the view the whole way up so there wasn’t much to see but it was a wonderful flight.

Landing at Yellowknife

The landing was something! People’s frustrations with the ATC system, as immersive as I find it, certainly bore fruit here again as the ATC had me descending late and then coming in below the glideslope for the landing.

As it turns out, low clouds at just 2,000 feet meant that visibility of the runway was limited. As we descended the low altitude actually helped get us out of some low visibility and gave me enough visibility on the airport to visually line-up.

The line-up on Yellowknife’s Runway 34. This is a beautiful approach over Great Slave Lake and then in over parts of Yellowknife itself before hitting the runway itself. This airport is essential for the community here as North West Territory’s capital and its home to several interesting aircraft, Buffalo Airways and was featured in the TV show Ice Pilots NWT. Flying into here was really cool as a result!

The touchdown was one of my smoothest and I think the updated flight model on the PMDG 737-600 was part of that. It felt responsive and smooth and I was able to correct for the slight crosswind and the blowing snow with ease. Really enjoyable!

After that, it was a quick taxi off the runway and over to the terminal. The sun was still up but very low on the horizon having slightly set during the flight as we both traveled north and descended from our cruise altitude. Perpetual sunrise!

This isn’t a big airport and its a small terminal but also very fun to fly into. I’ll be going here again soon!