and we packed her stuff, loaded up the canoe, paddled across the sound and hiked on up to the Dean River strip. From there it was up and across to Bella Coola for fuel, and then Anahim Lake, keep the rock on the right wing to the Frasier River, and then fly down the canyon and into Hope, BC. For those of you who haven't been there, Hope is a beautiful little town with a grass strip, right on the Frasier, where the river comes out of the mountains and opens up into the valley.
Not wanting to mess with Vancouver airspace or traffic we parked the 180 at Hope, grabbed a rental car, and spent a couple days driving around southwest BC, ending up at Horseshoe Bay to go ride the BC Ferry system making random trips on the boats just to see where they went. Inexpensive fun, beautiful scenery, and a great way to explore. There's a little motel right across from the terminal, and plenty of places to eat and get beers a short walk away. If you're in to that sort of thing, it's hard to beat.
Play time over, I drove Satan's sister to CYVR, put her on the jet, and drove myself back to Hope and dumped the rental car. The car guy gave me a ride to the airport, and since it was too late in the day to want to fly anywhere I pulled the camp gear from the Cessna, pitched the tent and set up the barbecue, and sat there sipping my whiskey and watched the world go by in Hope, BC. Actually lots going on there with glider ops and a helicopter service flying Bell Rangers, so I was quite entertained. A steak dinner, more sips of whiskey, and once darkness showed up at whatever hour it does in June in southern Canada, this boy was ready for the sleeping bag and some shut eye. In my tent I went, and it was a good night's sleep for me.
So there I am, nice and snug in my bag, sleeping like a baby, when at some ungodly early hour I hear one of the Rangers whining to a start. I just chuckled, thought how glad I was that it wasn't me having to get up that early to fly, and after the helicopter flew off, went right back to sleep. Didn't hear another sound. Woke up a few hours later, stretched and crawled into my clothes and opened the fly on the tent...
Holy Shit!!!!!
RCMP cars surrounded me, the pilot house for the helicopter guys, and the airport. I didn't know that had that many Mounties. I'm standing there bleary eyed, stinking like old booze, scratching my nuts, under the wing of a beat up old Cessna 180, and do the only smart thing I can think of, which is walk up to the nearest Mountie and ask, "WTFO?"
Well, turns out that earlier, at O' Dark-Thirty, armed men busted into the helicopter pilot house, grabbed one of the pilots at gunpoint, and proceeded to hijack a helicopter. They flew down river to the big prison, got into a gunfight with the guards, and sprung two inmates, and flew off to a logging strip up in the mountains. Luckily they didn't shoot the helicopter pilot, but instead tied him to a tree, then bad guys climbed into a Cessna 210, and flew off to parts unknown.
And I slept through the whole deal, just glad they didn't figure my 180 into their plans. About five years later I struck up a conversation with a guy at Revelstoke airport while tying down the airplane, and told the above story. Turns out he was the former owner of the helicopter service (and the one who said bad guys escaped in the C210, and not a car like reported in the paper). According to him the pilot that was hijacked was so traumatized, he never flew again, and as far as he knew, the escapees had never been caught.
Gump
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource. ... ug=1078080
Not sure about the getaway in the 210.
BTDT.
