From a media release:
Rookie pilots. Antique planes. Impossible jobs.
- Real-Life Adventures of Renegade Airline Unfold As Ice Pilots NWT Takes Off on History Television on Wednesday, November 18 at 10 pm EST/PST
It’s the classic frontier story. Young pilots with a taste for adventure come to Yellowknife-based Buffalo Airways to earn their wings and fly the same vintage aircraft their grandfathers flew in WWII. But it’s a different war now: a war against bitter cold and frequent breakdowns, a war to haul people and supplies in the toughest conditions on Earth.
Premiering Wednesday, November 18 at 10pm EST/PST on History Television, the gripping 13-episode real-life docu series Ice Pilots NWT features the maverick people and extraordinary adventures of the most unorthodox airline in the Canadian North.
Filmed over nine months, the series follows several of the company’s free-spirited pilots, including legendary founder “Buffalo†Joe McBryan, who still flies a classic DC-3 every day
with his beloved dog Sophie in the cockpit. “It’s a chaotic high-wire act of cargo deadlines, sick crew members, late arrivals, breakdowns of temperamental planes and stormy Arctic weather that’s hard on the pilots and even harder on the aircraft,†says series producer David Gullason.
Ice Pilots NWT’s accompanying website, funded by the Bell Fund, will offer an inside look into the people of Buffalo Airways, the planes they fly and the harsh environment they live and work in. A key feature of www.icepilots.com will be an interactive story map of the Northwest Territories using Google Maps, in which viewers can share their personal stories about flying in the North by uploading text, photos and voice recordings. Set to launch November 9th, this innovative website will be entertaining, community-building and not just a little irreverent.
Ice Pilots NWT is produced by Omni Film Productions Ltd. in association with Canwest and with the participation of the Canadian Television Fund, the Rogers Cable Network Fund, the Province of British Columbia Film Incentive BC and the Canadian Film & Video Production Tax Credit Program. The series is created and produced by David Gullason, and executive produced by Gabriela Schonbach, David Gullason and Michael Chechik.
For those of us who flew as crewmembers in Buffalo Joe’s Hell-on-wings airline, BUFFALO AIRWAYS, it’s tough to say which stung more…minus 52 degrees celcius temperatures at Colomac, NWT, where we had to keep one engine running on the DC-3 (with a slipstream windchill of minus sixty-five) while we boarded the passengers, or Joe’s caustic invective…fired point-blank over the radio or in person when one or more of us messed up on a mission. The day-to-day – for years – of flying with Buffalo cannot be explained by any one of us…better to glue your face to a TV set on November 18, 2009, to get a full education on northern flying!
Your show brings back a lot of memories.I spent over a year as a flight engineer on the C-46 over the HUMP during the 2nd world War.Great airplane.Flies good on one engine (empty)I enjoy the show. will celebrate my 90th. birthday next month
Jack