Many people have probably experienced takeoff while riding a larger passenger plane like a 747. But it’s different when riding up front in a four-seat Cessna 172.
That feeling of having your seat tilt slowly upwards to a 45-degree angle as the plane begins to float through the air is magnified in a way that can’t quite be explained.
That feeling of flight — it’s what drew David Eastwood, the base manager of Sea to Sky Air, to become a pilot.
“Flying was always something I wanted to do, and in previous chapters in life I’d just never given myself the opportunity to do it,” said Eastwood.
He moved out to Whistler in 2007 for six months of skiing. At one point, however, his interest shifted from the slopes to the skies.
“After a little while of that, I kind of realized... ‘Okay, there’s a little bit more to life than just getting a new pair of skis and a new bike,’” he said with a chuckle.
After he did an aerial tour, he decided that he wanted to get in the pilot’s seat.
Fast forward and that dream became a reality.
And it’s that same love for flying that Eastwood displays as he guides the Cessna onto the runway, which is adorned with faded white stripes.
“We just do it all ourselves,” he says as he mans the controls, explaining that there’s no radio tower to co-ordinate takeoffs or landings.
The plane makes its way to the start point. The sun glints through the clouds and from this point, the runway seems to stretch out forever as it gets absorbed at the horizon by the mountains looming in the distance.
Under Eastwood’s guidance, the Cessna begins to lurch forward, faster and faster until it starts levitating off the concrete. To the left of the plane, a windsock flutters.
As the plane begins to soar above the airfield, a new perspective on Squamish begins to form.
The familiar layout of the district seems to gain a new dimension, and within moments common sights have a certain newness to them.
While anyone who’s boarded a flight at YVR has had a taste of this experience, there’s something different about having an aerial trip tailored specifically for the Squamish area.
The raw landscape here offers up a show that, for nature lovers, may trump a takeoff from Sea Island.
“If I could make someone either see or realize or experience something they didn’t realize they were going to see or realize or experience — that is honestly my goal,” he said.
From above, the Squamish River can be seen snaking its way through town.
Echo Lake, still frozen over, is a sheen of glass with snowy whitecaps surrounding it like a picture frame.
Downtown Squamish refracts into a set of Lego cubes and water vapour from nearby clouds splits the sunlight into a panorama of colours — a rainbow wavers faintly for a minute before disappearing.
“Just looking out that front window blows your mind,” Carlo Galvani, owner of Sea to Sky Air, told The Chief on the ground.
“You don’t get to go up front in a cockpit anymore,” he said, recalling how commercial airline procedures have drastically changed. “I remember as a kid, that was such a huge experience — going and visiting the cockpit.”
However, while that experience isn’t available on big commercial flights, it can still be done on small plane tours like this.
Galvani said that he hopes it can give people the same sense of mystery that he felt the first time his grandpa took him to a float plane dock.
Back up in the air, the plane circles the Sea to Sky Gondola. The massive steel cables joining the base station to the peak look like silk spider webs.
As the Cessna orbits its way around to the Stawamus Chief, it’s possible to see a slackline bridging the gap between two giant crags of the ancient granite formation.
From this point of view, it looks like the final thread of that silk spider web.
It’s not quite a float plane dock, but it does the trick.
