Departure
95%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Quesnel Airport (CYQZ) lies on the east side of the Fraser River about two nautical miles north of central Quesnel, British Columbia, and has served the Cariboo region since being developed as an RCAF staging field during the Second World War. Today it is a City of Quesnel-operated aerodrome with a single hard-surfaced runway, no instrument landing system, and an advisory radio service, making it a straightforward VFR destination for pilots exploring the BC Interior.
Quesnel Airport, identified as CYQZ (IATA: YQZ), serves the city of Quesnel in the British Columbia Interior and is owned and operated by the City of Quesnel. It has a single hard-surfaced runway, no ILS, and a long and varied aviation history stretching back to the earliest bush-flying days on the Fraser River, through wartime service as an RCAF staging unit, to its present role as a City-run general aviation and regional aerodrome. For a simulator pilot, it offers an uncomplicated Interior BC circuit with genuine historical depth.
The airport sits on the east side of the Fraser River, about 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) north of central Quesnel, British Columbia. Radio coverage is provided on an aerodrome advisory (A/G) basis rather than by a control tower, with a remote communications outlet relayed through Williams Lake Radio, consistent with the airport's status as an uncontrolled Interior BC aerodrome.
Quesnel has one physical runway, 13/31, oriented roughly northwest-southeast. It is 5,471 feet long, hard-surfaced, and lit, with no ILS approach available. Historical sources describe the runway at various points in its life as a 5,500 by 200 foot paved strip that was rehabilitated and resurfaced several times through the twentieth century.
Pilots should use the A/G advisory frequency of 122.2 MHz, which is also the remote communications outlet (RCO) frequency relayed through Williams Lake Radio. An automated weather observation system (AWOS) broadcasts on 124.4 MHz. There is no ILS at Quesnel.
The Fraser River runs immediately to the west of the airfield and is a prominent linear feature for orientation on approach. Dragon Lake, south of Quesnel, was historically the preferred venue for floatplane operations and remains a useful landmark south of the field, while the town of Quesnel itself lies about two nautical miles to the south.
Quesnel's aviation story predates the present airport by well over a decade. In October 1928 John M. Patterson landed a Yukon Airways and Exploration Company Alexander Eaglerock biplane at a local field, and in September 1929 Walter Gilbert arrived in a Western Canada Airways Boeing B-1E. That winter a Consolidated Mining and Smelting Fairchild 71 landed on the frozen Fraser River beside the bridge, and in the summer of 1930 Wilhelm A. Joerss set a Junkers F 13 down on the river. In March 1931 Tom S. Corless made a weather-diversion landing of a Stinson SM-8A about six miles north of town, and during the early 1930s R.L. (Ginger) Coote based himself at Quesnel, incorporating Bridge River and Cariboo Airways in October 1933. Wheel-equipped aircraft bound for Alaska favoured the inland Fraser River route, making Quesnel a popular stop, and by 1934 a further local field had come into use. From January 1938 the Ashcroft-Fort St. John airmail service used frozen Dragon Lake south of town, which became the favoured floatplane base. The present airport site was developed by the Department of National Defence in 1942 as RCAF Station Quesnel, an intermediate staging field between Williams Lake and Prince George, designated the No. 13 Staging Unit in May 1943; fighters could have operated from it as a defensive measure against a feared Japanese invasion, and the RCAF also established a radio range navigation aid nearby. Administration passed to the Department of Transport in 1946, and through the late 1940s and 1950s the airport saw drainage and paving works, a new refuelling area, approach lighting, and eventually a fully reconstructed and paved runway, taxiway and apron, formally opened in November 1958 with medium-intensity lighting installed the same year. The Quesnel Flying Club was founded in 1954, lapsed, and was revived in 1985. Scheduled airline service began in 1960 when Canadian Pacific Air Lines introduced DC-3 flights, reduced from daily to tri-weekly by 1963. A new terminal opened in 1967, and Thunderbird Airlines, under charter to Pacific Western Airlines, added Quesnel to a Prince George-Kelowna routing in 1971. During a 1974 firefighter strike at Prince George Airport, CP Air and Pacific Western Boeing 737s briefly used Quesnel before switching to Williams Lake within a week, Quesnel's firefighting equipment being judged inadequate for jet operations. By 1978 the airport's three part-time firefighters and dry chemical truck exceeded Class F fire suppression standards, with roughly 48 heavy aircraft movements a month. Further repaving, a new fire hall, water system upgrades and runway rehabilitation followed through the 1980s and early 1990s, alongside construction of a new timber terminal in 1993. Control and maintenance passed from Transport Canada to the City of Quesnel in 1997, accompanied by a 1.8 million dollar federal grant for runway, taxiway and apron resurfacing and lighting upgrades, ending regular federal subsidies of about 500,000 dollars a year. In 2003 a further federal grant funded security gate upgrades and a runway sweeper.
Quesnel Airport is owned and operated by the City of Quesnel, which has run the field since 1997 following the transfer of administration from Transport Canada. It continues to function as a general aviation and regional aerodrome for the Cariboo area, home to local flying club activity, with an A/G advisory radio service and AWOS weather reporting supporting VFR operations on the single lit runway.
