Originally Posted by David
...How limited are they in winter by weather? Is IFR flight possible?
The helicopters and the Dash 8s operate in IMC, the Twin Otters - because they are floatplanes - are VMC only. The Twin Otters always operate with two pilots, this is an operational rule relating to scheduled passenger service, not a certification rule.
The Twin Otter's regular customers have a pretty good idea of what weather conditions the aircraft can and cannot fly in, and that, combined with the generally more relaxed West Coast approach to life (I'm referring to the geographical area here, not the operator) generally mitigates any momentary interruptions caused by poor weather. The weather conditions out here change pretty quickly, so what might ground everything at 10 AM can easily evolve into clear blue sky at 11 AM. There's really not much of a 'winter' out here - just the May to September season (mostly sunny) and the October to April season (mostly rainy). I don't think the town even owns a snowplow.
The Twin Otter pilots themselves are extraordinarily experienced on the route. In fact, one pilot retired at the beginning of this month with 42,000 hours in his logbook, of which 20,000 were in the Twin Otter.
Jim Devlin Retirement - West Coast Air (Photo Credit: Darren Stone, Postmedia News)
Our local TV station ran an interesting story when Jim retired a week ago - here is the link to the video:
Jim Devlin "Last Flight" video.