Mikey McBryan’s Top 10 TV Shows
1 The Simpsons
2 Trailer Park Boys
3 Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
4 Monster Garage
5 Sons of Anarchy
6 Family Guy
7 Darkwing Duck
8 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
9 Mr. Dressup
10 Ice Pilots NWT
It is said that there are two kinds of people living in the North: those who are running from something and those who can’t fit in with the rest of society. After coming to experience life at Buffalo Airways, I would add one more group to that: people who want to become pilots—a.k.a. the “rampies.”
Of all the unique, exciting, and somewhat bizarre things I learned during my time with the Buffalo family, nothing would resonate with me quite as much as the rampies. For the uninitiated, rampies are aspiring pilots—usually, but not exclusively, men—who start their flying careers by working on the “ramp,” that amorphous area on the tarmac just outside the hangar or terminal where planes are loaded and unloaded at all hours of the day or night, regardless of weather, temperature, or working conditions. Those curmudgeons who hold steadfastly to the notion that “kids today” don’t know how to work or are only interested in video games and other narcissistic pursuits haven’t been to The Ramp.
And while paying one’s dues as a rampie is a fact of life for aspiring pilots the world over, nowhere is it quite so demanding as in the world of Buffalo Airways. I know, because I was one.
Okay, saying I was a rampie is a bit of a stretch, since my time as a member of the Brotherhood of the Ramp comprises, well, not a hell of a lot. But it didn’t take long for me to see that the old-school work ethic that so many people yearn for in today’s youth is alive and well.
It was –25°C (–13°F) the first morning I showed up to the ramp, and the wind was screaming across the darkened runway of the Yellowknife airport. I wasn’t sure what the day would hold, so I was woefully unprepared for the work to come. I left my snow pants in the warm confines of my new home away from home, Birches B & B, the same place I left my Canadian Army arctic survival boots. And even thought I had my down parka, heavy mitts, and rabbit-fur trapper’s hat, the icy fingers of the wind managed to pick their way through every microscopic nook and cranny my clothing offered—every nook and cranny.
It was 8:00 AM, and we rampies were anxiously awaiting the arrival of a freighter DC-3 from Hay River. The Hay River–Yellowknife route is just one of many cargo routes that Buffalo flies, but it’s a critical one. Every night, a Buffalo Air Express transport truck drives from Edmonton to Hay River, about one thousand kilometres (620 miles) to the north, loaded with goods and documents bound for various communities across the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
On some days there’s not much cargo to be hauled, and it fits on the sked that Joe flies up from Hay River every morning. Other mornings see heavier loads, and an empty DC-3 or DC-4 needs to be flown down to Hay River at six in the morning to pick up the goods and bring them back to Yellowknife. My guide for this day was Laurent Dussault, a French Canadian from Montreal who goes by the nickname “French Larry.”
Once the plane taxied to the hangar, the work began in earnest. A half dozen Buffalo Airways vans lined up near the plane’s cargo doors, engines running in the bitter cold of early morning. (Running engines are a fact of life in a Yellowknife winter. On –40° days, so many cars are kept running in the city that the streets are filled with ice fog from vehicle exhaust.) Soon the load was being unstrapped from the plane’s interior, and the work hit a breakneck pace. As the various boxes, crates, and envelopes made their way out, their destination was shouted and the package moved to the appropriate van. Despite the commotion, I couldn’t help noticing a man I hadn’t met before, one who intrigued me with his dark and heavily creased face, and the gap-toothed smile that never seemed to stop flashing.
Jimmy Essery—a.k.a. “the Indian”—is one of those guys who rarely gets any Ice Pilots screen time but is an integral part of Buffalo. An on-and-off presence at the Yellowknife hangar since 1986, Jimmy epitomizes what the North and the airline are all about: he works hard—and lives harder.
Ask Jimmy what he does, and the answer comes quickly: “I do everything. Whatever it takes to make Buffalo work.” Doesn’t matter if it’s servicing the aircraft, mopping hangar floors, or building an ice strip in the middle of nowhere, Jimmy has been there. Maybe that’s why I could always count on finding Jimmy in the hangar, whether it was four in the morning or ten at night.
Originally from outside Hearst, Ontario, Jimmy arrived in Yellowknife on April Fool’s Day, 1970, just a few weeks before Joe started Buffalo Airways in Hay River. It didn’t take long for Jimmy to settle into his favourite Yellowknife haunts. “I wasn’t old enough to go to the bar, but I still did.”
From what other people tell me, Jimmy’s relationship with Buffalo is a strange on-again, off-again phenomenon. When he’s there, he’s there. Then he’ll just disappear for a while. “I make up my own hours. If I feel like I’m doggin’ it and not producing, I just wander off and come when it’s busy.”
You get the feeling, though, that sometimes his disappear-ances come as a surprise to those who sign his paycheque. “I don’t know how many times I’ve been fired at Buffalo,” he said with a huge wheezing laugh and a smile so big it actually closes his eyes. “I’ve been fired one afternoon and Joe will have everyone looking in every bar in town for me the next morning.”
Jimmy is well aware of the rampie routine. Each van represents a different route in the Buffalo Air Express chain, which Joe began in 1983 to provide the company with a consistent revenue stream. Goods are trucked to Hay River and then flown to Yellowknife, where they continue their distribution. From there, the packages continue their journey. Many are hand-delivered by the rampies to various residences and businesses across Yellowknife. Those bound for the Mackenzie River Valley communities of Déline, Tulita, Norman Wells, and Fort Good Hope are delivered on the Buffalo planes that also carry groceries to those towns throughout the year. Packages destined for communities not on Buffalo’s regularly scheduled routes are handed off to Buffalo’s partners, which finish the delivery.
“Indian” Jimmy Essery and co-pilot Ian Bottomley guide a pallet loaded with goods into the belly of an Electra. Ian has made a name for himself at Buffalo through his commitment, work ethic, and persistence.
The details of this intricate distribution web were lost on me, though, as I fumbled with package after package, desperately trying to remember which van serves which part of Yellowknife.
“Kingland Ford?” I cried out as captain A.J. Decoste tossed me a bumper.
“That’s ours!” said Larry as I struggled to find space in the quickly filling cube van that Larry drives every morning through the streets of Yellowknife.
The scene was one of organized chaos: boxes and packages flying in every direction, the air filled with the smokescreen of localized ice fog, and bleary-eyed rampies calling to one another. The cold, it would seem, affects nobody. Nobody but me, that is. It’s hardest on the feet.
“Uh,” I mumbled to Larry. “I’m just gonna step inside the hangar for a minute. I, uh, have to interview Mikey.”
He eyed me suspiciously, but nodded his assent. Clearly I don’t have the rampie work ethic. But I don’t want to be a pilot, either, so I’m okay with it.
Rampies who join the Buffalo team are the subject of an informal pool. Other staff members size up the new recruits, then place bets on how long it will take before they quit, the rigours of the job too much for their sorry asses to take. In the rampie odds-making world, I’m a long shot.
My time on the ramp was not intended only to give the boys a helping hand. I was also hoping to impress Joe, show him that I’m not just a pencil-pusher with what the boys up here call “bankers’ hands.” I’m pretty sure he saw me when he emerged from the cockpit, but just to make sure, I went out of my way to cross paths with him in the hangar. “Morning, Joe!” I exclaimed as cheerfully as possible.
“Morning,” he mumbled, giving me as little regard as possible.
“I’m just working out on the ramp if you need me!” I called after him, but it was too late. He disappeared around a corner, and I knew enough not to run after him.
After my too-brief hypothermia-prevention visit to the hangar, I was back on the ramp, finishing the unloading of the “3.” Larry and I jumped inside the van (which had warmed up sufficiently to keep my feet from turning blue) and made our first stop at the Buffalo Air Express office, located just around the block from Buffalo’s hangar at the Yellowknife airport. After picking up a few more packages, we were off in earnest. Between stops, Larry offered me a rare glimpse into the life and culture of a Buffalo rampie.
Like most rampies who have crossed the tarmac outside Joe’s hangar, Larry is in his early twenties and just beginning his career as a pilot. Short, dark, trim, and sporting a thick mop of black hair that seems to have a mind of its own, Larry went to a vocational college in Chicoutimi, Quebec, a small town about 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Quebec City. Larry had been fortunate enough to be accepted to Cégep de Chicoutimi, one of a number of flight schools in Canada funded by provincial governments. The Canadian flight school experience varies widely. Some people, like Larry, spend two to four years getting a college or university degree that includes a pilot’s licence. For those who have the financial resources to attend private flight school, the route to the cockpit can be as short as a year.
Either way, Larry knows he’s lucky. Most pilots graduate from flight school with debt that can total as much as sixty thousand dollars. Larry wasn’t saddled with the same baggage, so instead of looking for a job—any job—that would help pay off his debt, Larry went north because he knew it would offer him something a southern Canadian airline couldn’t: adventure.
“I wanted to get as far north as I could to get the best experience and become the best pilot that I can be,” he told me over the roar of the van’s heater fan. “I want to fly with the best.” The way Larry sees it, there’s no comparison between flying a piece of living history and cruising in a modern aircraft on autopilot.
Larry has the wisdom of someone far older than his twenty years. “Because when you’re gonna be forty and sitting in your Airbus 320, you at least want to be thinking that you pushed yourself at some point in your life,” he said, talking as if forty is just a step or two away from the grave. I resisted the urge to throttle him. “When your captain asks you what you did before you came to Air Canada, you’d be proud to tell him you flew for Buffalo.”
Understandably so. Pilots who survive the Buffalo Airways grist mill and make it to the cockpit are widely respected throughout the aviation world. “If you actually become a captain of one of our planes,” Mikey has told me, “you’re probably one of the most highly regarded pilots anywhere.” Buffalo alumni are now flying for some of the world’s most prestigious airlines, in all corners of the globe. “As my dad says, after Buffalo, they never really have to fly again. The plane flies them.”
The daily grind. C-gwzs is one of the three DC-3s that Buffalo uses for its daily scheduled service between Yellowknife and Hay River. Every morning the plane is unloaded of thousands of pounds of goods—regardless of the temperature.
Although the ramp is a fact of life for many flight-school graduates, it’s not the only route to the captain’s seat, a spot known reverently in the aviation world as the “left seat” (the co-pilot sits in the right seat). After spending a small fortune to get through flight school, some graduates will then shell out an extra eight to ten thousand dollars to get their instructor’s licence. Once they are certified instructors, pilots can begin to accrue the holy grail of a pilot’s life: hours.
The more hours a pilot has flown, the more proficient he or she is deemed to be. The major North American airlines won’t even look at pilots until they have at least a thousand hours under their belt. Novice pilots can accrue precious hours by becoming instructors and taking other would-be flyboys through the air.
Before being handed control of a huge jet, however, most Canadian pilots pay their dues at one of hundreds of small charter airlines dotted across North America. Here they ply their craft on in-between planes like the Beechcraft King Air, Piper PA-31 Navajo, or the de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter. Some might jump from there onto a major airline’s regional service, where planes such as the Dash 8 are ubiquitous.
For the rest, though, the ramp is the first step to the cockpit. And at Buffalo, the ramp means insanely long work hours in brutal weather conditions. Larry and his compatriots work seven days a week. Their only break comes during the lull between late Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon, because the Hay River–Yellowknife sked doesn’t fly Saturday afternoons or Sunday mornings. As we talked about his work schedule, Larry waxed melancholic about the rampies at neighbouring Air Tindi—another Yellowknife company that provides scheduled and charter air services throughout the north—who get four days off for every four days they work.
When I asked Larry to ballpark how many hours he works each week, his eyes glazed over. “I’ve never figured it out,” he said, which I assume is an act of self-preservation. “If I did, I’d probably get Buffalo in trouble.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math, though. By my estimates, these boys are putting in anywhere from sixty to seventy-five hours a week. The million-dollar question, of course, is “Why?”
The answer is surprisingly simple: Larry figures he has to put in his ramp time somewhere, so why not do it at a place where you get to experience flying a piece of living history? “The fact that I’m young makes it easy,” he said, thankfully refraining from yet another being-forty-is-just-like-being-dead comment. “I have some responsibilities, but not many. And I don’t really mind the hours, because I don’t really have a choice. There’s no other operator of DC-3s like Buffalo. I had other opportunities. I had a job in Manitoba and one in Quebec and said no to all of them. Because I want to be here.”
I want to be here. If there’s one anthem that rings consistently from every rampie I meet at Buffalo, it’s that. I want to be here. And if you don’t want to be here, well, you figure it out pretty damn quickly. As Mikey says, the rampies are part of a self-policing wolf pack that answers to its own code of ethics and makes its own rules.
“We rarely have to fire or lay off rampies,” Mikey told me one day. “The other guys get rid of them. Because if one guy is slacking, it means the other ones have to work harder. And if they have to work harder, it means they’re probably gonna fall behind and get in shit. Because ultimately, we don’t give a shit how the job gets done... just get it done.” When everyone pulls his own weight, the system works. Make life difficult for the other rampies and it’s just a matter of time before you’re out the door.
Mikey has spent enough time with rampies and is savvy enough to know how important they are to Buffalo’s success. “The heart and soul of Buffalo?” he said. “It isn’t me, it isn’t Joe, it isn’t Rod, and it isn’t the pilots. It’s the rampies. They’re underpaid, they’re overworked, and without them, the whole thing collapses.
“I get to hang out in the hangar, answer emails, talk to people,” he continued. “But the real guys are out there right now, in minus thirty-five degrees, hauling boxes around town, actually making money for the company.” The way Mikey sees it, rampie life is an internship that weeds out the weak from the strong.
The result is what Mikey calls the best pilots in the world. For Joe, it makes perfect sense to demand so much from the rampies. “When you’re twenty-five years old, you don’t get exhausted,” Joe said in a rare moment where he actually made time to talk to me. “You’re fireproof and bulletproof and waterproof and inexhaustible.”
Good thing, since the rampie internship at Buffalo is anything but easy. Rampies start their careers at Buffalo’s operation in Hay River, doing the same work they would in Yellowknife: preparing planes before and after they fly, loading and unloading cargo, and making deliveries and pick-ups around town. Yet in the Buffalo world, Hay River is the minor leagues. If you’re ever going to get behind the controls of an airplane, you have to make the jump to the bigs: Yellowknife.
Some rampies will wallow away in Hay River indefinitely, thanks to a personality clash with Joe, poor attitude, less-than-ferocious work ethic, bad luck, or some combination thereof. Though he has since been laid off, I can’t help but think of the case of a rampie from northern British Columbia who for me is the poster boy for how not to get ahead at Buffalo.
Like most Buffalo pilot wannabes, Jordan (not his real name) started in Hay River as a junior rampie. Huge and ponderous, Jordan seemed to have the perfect physical attributes for the heavy lifting his new job demanded. But something about him never seemed quite right. He grumbled about his job—a lot. And as Mikey is quick to point out, a quiet rampie is a happy rampie is a rewarded rampie. At Buffalo, the squeaky wheel does not get the grease. Jordan was a squeaky wheel.
Still, Jordan did have opportunities to advance. When the rampie ahead of him was promoted to Yellowknife, he moved to the top of the Hay River food chain; Yellowknife seemed a short step away. Yet the only way he was going to get out of Hay River was to find a suitable replacement to assume his responsibilities. He found one, but when that fell through his attitude worsened. He became dour and mopey. Eventually, Jordan did get to move to Yellowknife to take a flight attending course.
For a rampie, the step from the tarmac to the inside of an airplane is a huge one, regardless of the work. And for Buffalo’s rampies, flight attending is the most meaningful way to initiate that process. This is a career move you’d never have to make while working for a southern Canadian airline, but little about Buffalo Airways reflects most airlines’ reality. In other words, if you want to get behind the controls of a World War II legend, you first have to get acquainted with the coffee and the cookies.
Serving drinks and snacks to passengers on the Hay River–Yellowknife run may be a far cry from the romantic notions that most young pilots hold about their profession, but flight attending also gives rampies the chance to see how planes operate. If nothing more, flight attending is a great opportunity to learn the standard operating procedures (SOPs) of each aircraft.
Jordan took the course, and he even got to sit in the right seat of the DC-3 beside Joe a few times. But his bad karma seemed to follow him across Great Slave Lake. With each opportunity to advance that came Jordan’s way, there was something else that held him back. Perhaps not surprisingly, Jordan became one of the hundreds of rampies who never make it though their first year with the company.
High turnover rate is a fact of life at Buffalo, though people usually don’t have to be laid off. They just up and quit. Part of the problem is that once pilots graduate from flight school, they realize how few flying jobs there are in Canada. As a result, they send letters of inquiry to virtually every airline imaginable. If Buffalo happens to be the first one to respond positively, they throw themselves into a culture, climate, and geography unlike anything most of them have ever seen. In other words, to last at Buffalo, you have to want to be at Buffalo.
It’s a mantra that rings true for everyone who calls the North home, whether temporarily or permanently. The days can get pretty long and lonely in the dead of winter when your heart is somewhere else.
Back in the van, Laurent Dussault may be overworked and underpaid, but he complained little as we worked our way through the morning delivering packages. He has a great rapport with his clients and seems willing to do anything to get in the pilot’s seat. He knows the opportunity will come.
“You do your ramp time, and at one point they’re gonna need a first officer [co-pilot], either because someone leaves or moves up the ladder,” he said, handing me a series of boxes for our latest delivery. “At that point they prefer to hire someone they know, someone who’s been working on the ramp and has proven themselves, someone they can trust. And that’s when they hire a ramp guy. Usually, it’s the guy who’s worked the hardest or lasted the longest.” In most cases, this happens after about a year and a half on the ramp, and culminates with the bronze ring of rampie life: being “checked out.”
Being checked out is the pilot’s final step to the cockpit, and means he or she has demonstrated enough proficiency with a certain aircraft to be able to fly it. But it’s not easy by any stretch of the imagination; the stakes are high and the pressure intense. The process involves a gruelling written exam covering all of the plane’s operating systems, followed by a flight test in which multiple stressful scenarios are simulated. Fail either one and it’s back to the ramp.
Two young pilots had just been checked out on the DC-3 and were still wearing smiles of success when I arrived at Buffalo. When not busting their humps on the ramp, Graeme Ferguson and Andrew Weich had trained for countless hours on the flight simulator Joe keeps in an upstairs office, where he once ran a flight school called the Buffalo School of Aviation. For Graeme and Andrew, it was a gruelling process: work all day until you’re teetering on the edge of exhaustion, fly the “3” on the simulator after hours, then go home and stuff some food down your throat before settling in with the plane’s hefty technical manual.
When the big day came, both young pilots had the pleasure of sitting down to a 111-item written exam. As part of this, they had to be ready to answer such questions as:
· What is the purpose of the Wing Flap Relief Valve?
· What is the maximum speed for lowering the landing gear?
· What is the normal operating pressure range of the hydraulic system?
· What is the power source for the surface de-icers? · What are the operating limits?
Stressful though it may be, the written exam pales in comparison to the air test, when the young pilot sits behind the controls and has to take the plane safely through a series of unfortunate events. Graeme had legendary bush pilot Arnie Schreder, who at the time was Buffalo’s chief pilot, in the right seat, with pilot Justin Simle, acting as the examiner, sitting directly behind. Hands shaking, Graeme took the “3” through its paces as the pair threw adversity his way: Engine 2 is failing and has to be shut down—now fly the plane. Land the “3” safely in Hay River—without using the flaps. Guide the plane through a series of steep bank turns—and don’t gain or lose more than a hundred feet of altitude in the process.
The mere thought of these scenarios is enough to leave me quaking in my boots, but both Graeme and Andrew passed with flying colours.
And while being checked out is a milestone event for a Buffalo rookie pilot, it doesn’t mean life becomes turbulence-free. They still have to sit in the right seat beside Joe on the DC-3. And if Joe McBryan happens to be in a bad mood, God help you.
Larry has worked as a flight attendant during several of Joe’s tirades against a rookie pilot. “I was wearing a headset and I could listen to what was happening in the cockpit. And I’ve heard Joe unleash on the first officer.”
The bad news is it usually takes at least three years to graduate from co-pilot to a full-fledged captain. And that’s only if you’re really skilled. The good news? You’ll learn more from Joe than any other DC-3 captain alive. Better news? You don’t have to spend all of your flight time beside Joe, because captains Justin Simle, A.J. Decoste, and Devan Brooks will also be sharing the cockpit with you. And their demeanours are decidedly less surly than that of their mentor, Joe.
As stressful as it may be to have a living aviation legend tear a strip off your quaking hide, Larry figures it’s all part of becoming a better pilot. “You’ve got this guy screaming at you, and you have to stay dead calm and concentrate on flying.” That’s a task made even more difficult by the retro planes in the Buffalo fleet. They are not easy to fly, and there’s certainly no autopilot button.
For Larry, a quiet Joe is a happy Joe. “From my experience, if Joe doesn’t talk to you, that’s generally a good sign. But if Joe starts yelling, he’ll yell at anybody in his path and not about the thing than pissed him off in the first place. He yells about everything that’s happening. Let’s say you’re rolling up an engine tent, he’ll unleash on you because the tent is dirty or you’re not carrying the seats right.”
As difficult as that may prove for a young man, Larry understands that his boss comes by his hard-to-please nature honestly. “That’s how old bush pilots are. That’s how Joe was taught, and that’s how Joe is gonna teach people.”
Most Buffalo pilots follow the same flight path as they move up the ranks at Buffalo. After getting checked out on the DC-3, they begin to accumulate precious flying hours sitting beside Joe on the daily sked between Yellowknife and Hay River. From there they move to other missions on the “3,” usually cargo runs, this time sitting beside Justin, A.J., or Devan. Then they’ll begin to learn the ropes by co-piloting another one of the planes in the Buffalo fleet, whether it be the DC-4, C-46, Electra, or CL-215.
Once they’ve become sufficiently familiar with a second aircraft they return to the DC-3 in earnest, where they push to accumulate enough hours to become captain. From there they return to their second aircraft to do the same. “Once you’re a captain on the ‘3,’ ” Mikey says, “it’s like you’re fast-tracked to be a captain on everything else.”
Assuming you can survive Joe, that is. For many rampies, Joe’s abrasive exterior can be difficult to handle. Larry takes it in stride. So does David Alexandre, another rampie I spent time with during my induction into the Buffalo family. A Toronto boy through and through, David looked like a rampie long shot when he arrived at Buffalo one cold February afternoon. What people didn’t bargain for was his old-world work ethic. Joe’s management style? No problem for David.
“The reason I get along with Joe is that he runs the company the same way I was raised as a child,” he told me. “My dad is kinda like Joe: very old school. That’s why I think I fit in so perfectly here. And if you know you did something wrong, admit to it right away. He’ll be mad, but he won’t be as mad as if you try to hide it.”
Not everyone adjusts to Joe quite as easily as Larry and David have done. “I think there’s lot of guys who are used to the new way of life,” David said. “You know, technology, your parents can’t hit you, this and that. And once those guys come up here, they find that it’s very old school. All the stuff that is done by technology in other places is done by manpower at Buffalo. And if you’re not used to givin’ ’er all the time, it’s tough.”
As we pulled the van in to the loading dock behind the Yellowknife Walmart for one of our last stops of the morning, Larry informed me that this is where he also eats lunch most days. Given my status as an elder, I chose to eschew the Big Mac combo he opted for, one of the few things he can afford on his rampie salary.
That didn’t stop me from enjoying the warmth of the place. As blood flow gradually returned to our toes and fingers, I asked Larry if he planned on making a career out of Buffalo. “No,” he said decisively. “For me—and I think for pretty much everyone else—Buffalo is a stepping stone. And I think everyone knows it.”
At times he seemed like he had his whole life mapped out. “I came up here to fly these airplanes and spend about five years in total. Then I’ll move on to something else. I don’t want to make my life in the North. But in the short term, flying these planes is my dream.”
1 The Simpsons
2 Trailer Park Boys
3 Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
4 Monster Garage
5 Sons of Anarchy
6 Family Guy
7 Darkwing Duck
8 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
9 Mr. Dressup
10 Ice Pilots NWT