Aviation Nostalgia Forum | Ice Pilots

Anyone else watching that on Discovery Channel...?

I'm addicted. Lovely old C-46s, DC3s, DC4s and Electras being flown by Buffalo in the Canadian North West, and recorded in top quality HD format. It's one of those real-life documentary shows which are normally either appallingly badly made or the complete opposite, and this is top quality.

They must have good continuity people on the show as every single shot is of the right plane! No "plane swaps" mid flight that are so annoying to enthusiasts, and full of characters you can actually become interested in and warm to.

repeats of the earlier series currently on daily at 5pm (if you can SkyPlus it) and I watch the new series on Thursday evenings.

Been watching it for a few years now, great series.

Although I have no idea how they keep flying with the amount of emergency landings they have

Saw 2 of their Commandos when I was in Canada.One was parked up at Gimli but the other did a couple of overshoots at Winnepeg,awesome sight !

I'd like to but don't think we have Discovery, I'll check thanks.

I never used to think about watching it but recently because I'm stuck at home a lot due to illness I spend time channel surfing and have got right into it.

Sorta OT but I'm also addicted to Pawn Stars and American Restoration on History Channel as well. Those two are half hour shows, so Ice Pilots is even better at an hour a time. Amazes me that Yellowknife also gets heavy diversions now and again such as United 777s with engine issues.

I've just got into watching it and think its great. I loved the episode where they had to ready the water bombers to fly to Turkey.

As they put it, 'prepare an aircraft designed to fly at a few thousand feet in summer to fly across the North Atlantic in winter'.

Another reason I like Canada, they keep these birds going. Never saw any that old when I was there but flying into YOW and seeing the 727 and 737-200's being made ready for the next flight was great.

Love it! Got it on series link. Buffalo do an amazing job up there in sometimes what seems to be the harshest of conditions - they're not scared of anything! A good way to live life, I feel.

Just as a heads up on a similar note - there's a programme on CH5 tonight at 8pm titled 'Worlds scariest landings!' (or something like that).

Saw it tonight, excellent. Was never into props - don't collect them anymore, but the sight of those old planes in the blue sky looked awesome.

Must remember to watch this every week.

Been to Canada 3 times and am amazed at the "can do"attitude of the Canadians.To them nothing is broken,everything is fixable.Watch out for the episode where they have a tailwheel puncture with a C-46.In temps of -35 with a hell of a wind they calmly use a bottle jack standing on bits of broken pallet to change the wheel.These guys are mental!

me and you both. Props were something regarded as a nuisance in the 1970s by spotters as they got in the way of watching jets.

Nowadays it's like seeing people restoring classic cars, watching those old radial powered props being used in the Canadian north. That mechanic Chuck on tonight's episode must be one hell of a wrench monkey and orders of magnitude better at his job than the way Airbus and Boeing technicians just swap out modules nowadays. Great seeing the Electras flying too.

I'd love to go over there just to ride the Sched! A passenger flight on a DC3...and scheduled too. How rare is that?

Yes, was thinking that myself, the chance to ride in a DC-3 on a scheduled service is just one of those extra special routes that hardly exist anymore.

Forgot to mention, the colour scheme's really make the planes youthful too.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said of tonight's showing of "The World's Scariest Landings" on Channel 5! Funny how, according to the commentary, a JetBlue A320 can suddenly metamorphosise into a B737...and since when did Concorde have only two engines?!

Another mistake they made on that show was they called said a C-130 Hercules helicopter. More research needed I think

Agreed, although I suspect that, in reality, they probably 'nicked' (aka downloaded) most of it off YouTube!

I thought that I heard that, he said "because the design of the 737 means it can't dump fuel" and did you hear the bit where he said "into a waiting C130 Hercules helicopter.


Wouldn't be surprised, the saint maarten was and the barthelmy and the Lufthansa!!!!