A new visitor to Victoria like me never knows that the strip of water at its inner harbour is the airport for seaplanes.It was the first time in my life (on October 15th) I saw a seaplane taking off from the sea. At about five o’clock, we were walking along Belleville Street. The throbbing sound of an engine attracted my attention . I crossed the road to the waterfront to track the sound so that I could locate where the seaplane was. It would be best for me to take a photo of one such seaplane home.
It was by luck that the plane was heading towards my direction and still sailing on the water surface. I believed that it had to reach the farthest point in the harbour to allow the waterway long enough for it to take off.
There are two seaplane companies in operations at the moment–
(1) West Coast Air and (2) Harbour Air.
The one in the photo was a West Coast Air seaplane which could carry 18 passengers to and from Vancouver each flight.
3 comments:
It is good that there are natural water runways and no need to build expensive concrete ones.
I have passion for seaplanes. I knew about airplanes at a very young age. I knew about seaplanes late in my secondary school days. It opened up my vision for variations in some familiar things.
I like to watch seaplanes land on and took off from the water. I wondered what provided guidance for them to do so. What happens if a speed boat is suddenly in the way, etc., etc.
There must be some measures taken for the safety for landing and taking off of the seaplanes.
There are schedules for flights and the ships, sailboats must follow certain waterways out of the harbour. They may not sail across the harbour, but near the shores, leaving more room for sea planes to land.
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