Around the World with Santa: Day 1

If you have ever looked at a map, you have probably noticed that the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Now it would certainly be possible to construct a runway in the winter up at the North Pole. However, the company owning Santa's chartered 747s would probably take a dim view of landing the aircraft at an unregulated airstrip which does not appear on any global navigation charts. (Besides, Flight Simulator X has no mechanism for this, either.) So, in order to comply with the terms of the lease agreement, Santa's elves have agreed to schlep the toys from their workshop at the North Pole using their fleet of flying reindeer to Iqaluit Airport, located in the far northern territory of Nunavut in Canada. This will be as close to the North Pole as the 747 aircraft's owners will allow it to land.

From here, we are going to make a run down to Montreal's Mirabel Airport for the first leg of our journey. Mirabel was originally intended to be a replacement for Montreal's Dorval (now Trudeau) Airport, but it never really quite caught on. Instead, Mirabel mainly sees lots of use by cargo, general aviation, and even some MEDEVAC flights. This makes it quite an ideal destination for staging Santa's toy deliveries to all the good boys and girls living in French Canada.

Here we are at Iqaluit, ready to go. The snow is blowing hard, and the weather is rather cold. Takeoff time is around 10:00 in the morning. Being in the far north of Canada, the sun rises very late and sets very early:



Our flight path will take us roughly due south over the Hudson Strait and into northern Quebec. We will go in and out over a few small portions of western Labrador as well. When we reach Baie Comeau, QC at the St. Lawrence River, we will turn southwest and follow the river the rest of the way to Mirabel.

We are airborne, at last. Here we fly above the snow. You can see the Hudson Strait below us:



Here we are in the great white north over Ungava Bay. We will be crossing back onto land in northern Quebec near Kuujjuaq, a largely Inuit village:



At Baie Comeau, we turn southwest. Here is the wide expanse of the St. Lawrence Seaway ahead of us:



We are getting close now. Montreal Center has directed us for an approach on Mirabel's Runway 24, so we will begin to vector into position:



Here we are on final approach. We expect a few bumps on our way down as we pass back through the snowy clouds:



We touch down in the snow at Mirabel. Gee, snow seems to be a recurring theme in the Canadian winter, eh?



Here we pull into a slip at the cargo terminal next to a UPS bird. There appears to be a problem with the texture on PMDG's Boeing dreamliner livery. I will have to check and see if a fix exists:



Our first leg of the journey is complete. Merry Christmas to all our friends in Quebec and the surrounding areas!