Nunavik air buffs get a remote buzz

Pascal Poulin’s son eight-year old son Liam holds Hobby Zone plane.

Kangiqsualujjuaq’s pilots participate in an air show at the end of the 2008 school year. From left to right: Elijah Embeault, Elijah Annanack, Elijah Etok, McCombie Annanack and Chris MacPherson.

Pascal Poulin holds his Senior Telemaster, one of the larger models of remote-controlled airplanes.

Erik Etok, left, and Samuel Brisson, right, do a pre-flight check.

A Corsair makes its final approach for landing.

SARAH ROGERS
Special to NUNATSIAQ NEWS

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PASCAL POULIN

A passion for remote-controlled airplanes has driven the hobby of a group of Nunavik aviation buffs to new heights.

The whirr of their planes is a common sound in Kangiqsualujjuaq where more and more residents of this Ungava Bay community belong to a club for budding pilots — of planes that have a wingspan of about 40 inches.

The mini-aviation bug first hit the Kangiqsualujjuaq two years ago, not long before teacher and flying enthusiast Daniel Annanack first got behind the remote controls.

Annanack now owns five remote-control planes between himself and his son, and sometimes you can see all of their aircraft in flight at once.

“When you know what you’re doing, it gets easier,” Annanack said of remote piloting. “Flying a plane is not like operating a remote-controlled car — landing your plane is very hard.”

Some of Annanack’s models have crashed several times, but they suffered nothing that a little glue, tape and care couldn’t fix — the planes are surprisingly hardy structures and inexpensive to repair, said Annanack, who is one of several dozen flyers in the community.

The pilots now plan to designate a new landing strip for their aircraft on the outskirts of town — a wider, longer strip that will be safer for beginners to use.

Generally, nothing stops these dedicated pilots who fly their planes in the coldest weather. Some have even added lights to their models for night flying.

“Anytime from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. at night, people are flying,” said Chris MacPherson, a teacher at Kangiqsualujjuaq’s Ulluriaq school, who was one of the community’s original pilots. “It’s amazing to see.”

The now-popular activity grew when MacPherson and another teacher, Pascal Poulin, came up with the idea of bringing remote-controlled planes to the village about two years ago.

They sent away to a specialty store for $200 “Super Cub” plane kits, and after only minutes of assembly, the first of many planes was flying above a nearby lake.

A few crashes later, the rookie pilots were comfortable enough to fly within the town limits, only to realize they weren’t the only ones looking up.

“A lot of people watching us were really interested,” said Poulin. “The following [September] we started the flight club at school.”

Ulluriaq’s principal, Mark Brazeau, has been a big backer of the program, which he says is the only one in Nunavik.

“There’s nothing like this that’s been offered before,” Brazeau said. “For students that don’t go for volleyball or other sports, flight club has become their niche, [and] we can also use the flight club as leverage so kids are encouraged to do well in school.”

Flying remote-controlled planes is not as expensive as people think, when you consider the startup costs of many sports, including hockey, he said.

“This is a realistic hobby for the North,” Brazeau said. “I’d love to see other villages enjoying this.”

Money from the Brighter Futures program helped fund the after-school flight club, which now has new remote controlled planes and a computer flight simulation program for its members.

Poulin, a science teacher, trains flight club members with this program — the same one that real pilots use — until they get comfortable enough to move on to the real planes. In this way, students absorb a little bit of science while learning aviation techniques, Poulin said.

Newbies start flying with a beginner foam model — which can withstand crashes — before trying the sturdier balsam wood model.

A start-up kit costs about $200, plane and battery-powered controller included, and if cared for, these planes can last for decades.

About 20 high-school students — only males so far-now belong to the flight club.

Grade 11 student McCombie Annanack says he has become so at ease with the planes that he can now fly on automatic pilot — without much thought.

“I was nervous the first time, but after I got used to it was really fun,” Annanack said. “I’ve tried a couple planes and now I’m thinking of buying a new upgrade.”

Poulin says he can’t believe how fast the aviation bug has caught on and just how positive an experience piloting has been for his students.

“The relationship between the pilots is great,” Poulin said. “The atmosphere out on the field is great too — it brings a lot of people in the community together.”

As a teacher pushing his students to realize their dreams, Poulin wonders if these planes may have an impact on the future of some of these young flyers.

“One day, you never know, one of these students may be a pilot for Air Inuit,” Poulin said. “That would be the cherry on the cake.”