Ice Pilots NWT, Season One

Ice Pilots NWT (Northwest Territory) is a documentary show look at one quite unique airlines. There is some seriously desolate areas up to the far North, and these hard working folks at Buffalo Airways put forth some serious effort to keep basic passenger air service and supplies moving back and forth to some of these areas.

The show is an import from the Canadian History Channel. While they are on their 2nd season up there, the first season just ended here on National Geographic TV. And I do mean just ended, but more on that in a little bit.

This airlines is a family affair, and Buffalo Joe has his two sons working at it, Mikey who runs the place, and another son that is a mechanic. To deal with the rugged conditions up there, they fly vintage WWII aircraft. Seriously, they actually have original aircraft that flew in the war, including DC-3, DC4 and C-46, and use them in frigid conditions with high winds, snow and ice. No matter they keep breaking!

Throughout the 13 episode season, there are some storylines. These include the sale of 2 waterbombers that they need to get to Turkey to get paid, and the hitch is that this type of plane is not supposed to go across the Atlantic in winter. Another is that in order to get to fly the plane, one must start as a "Rampie" with the company, and work on loading cargo for months before you get the big promotion to flight attendant. Oh, and these guys and gals all have their pilot licenses already to make this even more painful.

So anyway, I was enjoying the show, and then Nat Geo decides to finish off the season. So without any notice, they just air the last 2 episodes... at 3 AM! Oh, and you can't even get them on demand, on Amazon, not on iTunes. And they are available in Canada on demand, but it is blacked out here in the States. At this rate, guess we'll never see Season 2 down here, which is too bad.

Ice Pilots NWT Season One Overall Grade: A-
Nat Geo TV Scheduling Grade: F