St. Lawrence, Ottawa & Rideau Rivers Expedition

For Wednesday January 11, 2023

                                                                                                                                                                                                  Quebec City - Fairmont Le Château Frontenac over looking the St. Lawrence River.

The St. Lawrence River is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting the American Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean, and forming the primary drainage outflow of the Great Lakes Basin. The river traverses the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, as well as the U.S. state of New York, and demarcates part of the international boundary between Canada and the United States. It also provides the foundation for the commercial St. Lawrence Seaway. The estuary of the St. Lawrence, one of the largest estuaries in the world, begins at the eastern tip of Île d'Orléans (QC) (Island), just east of Quebec City, and extends and drains into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Atlantic Ocean.  

In the first part of this expedition, we’ll be following the “The St. Lawrence” starting at Quebec City (QC), and after a brief Quebec City tour we’ll head upstream, which is south west, following the path of the river and traveling to many points of interest along the shores. In addition, we’ll visit some poi in the cities of Trois-Rivières (QC) and many poi in Canada’s second largest populous city, the city of Montreal (QC). Additionally, we’ll take a 95 nm diversion from Montreal and head northwest.  Instead of following the route of the St. Lawrence River we’ll follow the route of one of its tributaries, the greatest one, that being the Ottawa River. We’ll follow the route of this river that will lead us to Canada’s capital city, the city of Ottawa (ON).

 

The second part of this excursion starts upon arrival into Ottawa: At Ottawa Rockcliffe Airport (CYRO) we will switch from a fixed wing aircraft to that of a rotorcraft to run a Heli site seeing tour around the city of Ottawa and also travel some of the Rideau River and Rideau Canal.

Aircraft-Part One: Quebec City to Ottawa: (289 nm) - Fixed wing capable of 170kts-200+ kts: IE: Caravan, C310, C414, DA62, war-birds etc (I'm leaning towards the C414). Airports: Departing CYQB CNV9 CYRQ CSY3 CYHU CYUL CYRO* (*Change to Rotor-craft at CYRO).

Aircraft-Part Two: Ottawa City Tour by Helicopter (31 nm) - Cabri-G2, Bell206, Bell407, H125, H135, H145, R44 etc. ( Plan to use the H145 for this Helicopter portion). Airports: Departing CYRO CPP7 CYOW-Final Destination.      (Total trip is 319 nm)

Detailed Flight Itinerary/Narrative, Flight Plans and add-on scenery package are all included in this Tour Download; link: HERE

Add-on Scenery Package NOTAM:

MSFS Canada WU11 was released Sept. 2022. There were many very good updates from enhancements to airports, bridges, improvement to cityscapes as well as landscapes so in that regard we will just add five terrain fixes which correct water and foliage issues created by the WU11 update, five scenery pieces that enhance the activity on the St. Lawrence River and one required helipad that is located in Ottawa.

Since the add-ons in the scenery package are very small, all of the following scenery pieces have been set up and are included in the download link provided above. Note: Some photogrammetry is not great which was the big issue with the WU11 but for the most part all is passable).

Direct Links to the included add-on scenery pieces are listed below: (for those who want the original files). (Thanks to aviateur, FreakyD and Jean-Pierre Fillion for their work in creating these scenery pieces).

https://flightsim.to/file/45566/quebec-province-trees-corrections-wip (v1.1)

https://flightsim.to/file/45564/quebec-province-water-corrections-wip (v1.5)

https://flightsim.to/file/42430/montreal-water-and-foliage-cleanup (v1.4)

https://flightsim.to/file/41258/montreal-foliage-water-clean-up-montreal-qb-canada (v1.02)

https://flightsim.to/file/42383/ottawa-foliage-water-clean-up-on-canada (v1.0)

Helipad CPP7 (Ottawa) which is required >> (whiskey-airport-cpp7-ottawa-civic-hospital-heliport*)

    (CPP7 is just one helipad of a huge Ontario Helipad package (The big package is not included but CPP7 is).

   (Link to the full package (3gb) is https://flightsim.to/file/37009/ontario-area-hospitals-and-helipads)

St. Lawrence River Enhancements include:

1.       Whales of the St. Lawrence Collection v1.1 (2021-04-03)  (We might be lucky enough to see a whale?)

https://www.jpfil.com/quebec-fs2020/scenes/Baleines-du-Saint-Laurent.zip

2.       Landscape Corrections to the St. Lawrence (2022-11-21)

https://www.jpfil.com/quebec-fs2020/scenes/Corrections-St-Laurent.zip

3.       Lighthouses of the St. Lawrence Collection v2.2 (2022-10-02)

https://www.jpfil.com/quebec-fs2020/scenes/jpfil-feux-phares.zip

4.       Hydrobases (Power stations) of Quebec v1.8 (2022-12-19)

https://www.jpfil.com/quebec-fs2020/scenes/Hydrobases-du-Quebec.zip

5.       AI Ships of the St. Lawrence Collection v3.0 (2022-12-04)   (Compliments GAIST)

https://www.jpfil.com/quebec-fs2020/scenes/Navires-Saint-Laurent.zip

 

Time and Weather
For takeoff on Wednesday, set the simulator @14:00 local. 

Prefer to fly real weather if possible but if not, Few clouds or High Clouds preset might make a nice choice.

Multiplayer Particulars
Date and time: Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023. 1800 UTC
Where: AVSIM RTWR Teamspeak - Casual Flights Channel
Teamspeak Server Address: ts.teamavsim.com
Multiplayer: Microsoft Flight Simulator MP. East-USA server
If you want to help others enjoy the multiplayer experience, don't forget to enter your aircraft details on the multiplayer spreadsheet (use the Wednesday sheet here). Your courtesy will save others a lot of time and effort. Thanks!

 

And that’s all folks. Hope you enjoy travelling some of the St. Lawrence River, visiting Quebec City, Trois Rivières, the cities of Montreal and Ottawa and some of Canada’s most scenic and important locations in Quebec and Ontario. This is Part one of the St. Lawrence River excursion with the next continuing in Ottawa where we left off and heading southward to catch up with and resume the route of the “St. Lawrence”.

Norm Richards Jan 2023

Edited January 6, 20233 yr by nbrich1

This looks most appetizing!  After a quick flight out of CYQB, I have added the airport to my scenery to eliminate the duplicate runway markings that I found there.. If that happens to you... get this version:

https://flightsim.to/file/34757/cyqb-quebec-jean-lesage-international

Edited January 6, 20233 yr by Bert Pieke

Dup runways? Ok Bert thank-you. Will keep an eye and give it a try! (The only reason I didn't include this one was because it is older and issued 4 months before WU11 and there was no change log on v1.1)

 

 

make that 1900 UTC! (1400 ET)

Edited January 7, 20233 yr by nbrich1

57 minutes ago, nbrich1 said:

make that 1900 UTC! (1400 ET)

You trying to confuse me?

Sorry bout that m8... (That 1800utc was the old time before the time changed to the new time!). Boy now I am confused!  Just be on-time ok?

Edited January 7, 20233 yr by nbrich1

You might enjoy this lovely story about the reach of the Montreal Canadiens and Maurice Richard into rural Quebec in 1946. The Sweater.