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Bella Coola Airport (CYBD) sits in a steep valley of the Coast Mountains, 6 nautical miles northeast of the town of Bella Coola on the central coast of British Columbia. It is a Day/VFR-only aerodrome operated by the Central Coast Regional District, with a single hard-surfaced runway and no instrument approach aids, making careful visual planning essential for any pilot heading in or out.
Bella Coola Airport is a small regional aerodrome serving the community of Bella Coola on British Columbia's central coast. It is owned and operated by the Central Coast Regional District (CCRD) and receives scheduled service from Pacific Coastal Airlines to Vancouver. For a simulator pilot the field is notable chiefly for its dramatic setting, hemmed in by mountainous terrain that rules out electronic approach aids and confines operations to daylight visual flight, giving it a genuine bush-flying character.
The airport lies about 6 nautical miles northeast of the town of Bella Coola, in the Central Coast Regional District of British Columbia. It sits within uncontrolled airspace, with no air traffic control tower and no Flight Service Station on the field. The surrounding terrain is mountainous, which limits both the navigation aids that can be used and the approach and departure options available to pilots.
The airport has a single hard-surfaced, lit runway aligned 05/23. Runway 05 has a landing length of 4,173 feet and runway 23 a landing length of 3,975 feet, the difference reflecting displaced thresholds on the physical strip. There is no ILS or other instrument approach equipment installed.
Pilots use the Aerodrome Traffic Frequency (ATF) of 122.8 MHz for self-announced radio calls in the absence of any air traffic control service. A Remote Control Outlet (RCO) on 126.7 MHz relays communications to Kamloops Flight Service (Pacific Radio) rather than providing on-site flight service. There is no instrument landing system, and the surrounding mountainous terrain precludes the use of electronic instrument navigation and landing aids.
There is no published circuit procedure beyond the standard use of the ATF for self-announcing intentions, since there is no control tower or on-field flight service station. Pilots should expect to coordinate their own traffic sequencing on 122.8 MHz.
The airport traces its administrative origins to 1972, when Supplementary Letters Patent No. 2 was issued by the Province of British Columbia to the Ocean Falls Regional District, the predecessor of today's Central Coast Regional District, for the purpose of establishing an airport and associated facilities in electoral areas C and D. A volunteer Bella Coola Airport Commission was active in the general operations of the field in that period.
The airport is operated by the Central Coast Regional District and remains limited to Day/VFR operations, since the surrounding mountainous terrain does not permit electronic instrument navigation or landing aids and precludes lighting for night operations. There is no Flight Service Station on site; a NAV Canada-owned Remote Control Outlet relays radio traffic on 126.7 MHz to Kamloops Flight Service. Weather reports are generally available until 3 PM local time via that service. Pacific Coastal Airlines operates scheduled flights from the field to Vancouver.
