Good morning from Calgary-Springbank Airport!
My name is Alex, and welcome to this…
100% serious trip report.
Today I’m headed down to Claresholm, Alberta, on board what is probably the smallest aircraft
I’ve bothered making one of these videos about.
On July 1st, a Canada Day Fly-In was held at Claresholm Industrial Airport, a small
airport that’s located about 100 kilometres south of Calgary.
I’ve never actually been to a fly-in before since I only got my PPL last fall, so I thought
it’d be fun to tag along!
Today I have the privilege of flying in this Cessna 172 Skyhawk SP, registered as Charlie
Golf Papa Echo Whiskey.
The catch is, although I do fly these particular planes right now, I’m flying with two of
my instructors, and therefore I’ve been demoted to back seat status.
Should make things interesting!
After clearing security, and being handed this… just, work of art for a boarding pass,
it was time to fold myself into the back seat of ‘PEW’ for this hour-or-so flight.
To my surprise, the back seat of the 172S is… not awful, assuming the front seats
aren’t all the way back.
The idea of me in a 172 for those who’ve watched my videos is comical at best, but
there’s actually a good amount of space to stretch out!
Thankfully, due to weight and balance restrictions, there’s no possible way you could fit a
fourth person in here, so it kinda beats Basic Economy on most airlines!
Pretty quickly, we started up for our departure from Springbank, off of runway 17.
CYBW ATIS: "Springbank Information Alpha, weather at 1300 Zulu. Automated observation."
"Springbank ground, good morning, Cessna 172 GPEW at the Paddy Graham with Alpha, with flight plan to Claresholm."
It really is a beautiful summer day for flying, and although I’ve been to Claresholm before
for some circuits, I’ve never stopped there for long.
Either way, it was fun to relax in the back without actually having to do anything.
In the back of the mighty 172 is this thoroughly detailed safety card.
The 172 also has safety features such as clearly identified exits, just in case you forgot
where the doors are.
For the low, low price of an iPad and a ForeFlight subscription, there is in-flight entertainment,
except it’s only a moving map and, well, some very useful tools for flying.
There’s also some light reading just in case you feel like learning how a G1000 works.
In case that’s not enough entertainment for you, there is some music provided courtesy
of the folks up front, except… it’s not royalty-free and I need money to live.
And also fly.
In terms of on-board service, well, I found this Biscoff in my pocket.
God knows how long that’s been there, but hey, it was pretty tasty.
With the back seat to myself, the 172 is surprisingly decent, although I think I enjoy being up
front a little bit more.
Eventually, we neared Claresholm about half an hour over the prairies and foothills of
Southern Alberta.
Claresholm usually isn’t too busy, but with the promise of free pancakes on the ground,
some traffic was to be expected.
"Claresholm traffic, Cessna 172 Golf Papa Echo Whiskey- (radio chaos ensues)"
Here’s our arrival into Claresholm, landing on runway 21!
Thank you very much for watching this trip report in the Cessna 172!
Hopefully you all enjoyed that different flying perspective.
I certainly had a great time in Claresholm that morning, it was super cool to see so
many different aircraft up close like that.
Big thanks as well to Keagan and Rafael for letting me tag along on this flight,
and as always, I’ll see you next time.