By Alex Strachan, Postmedia News

The land of the midnight sun can be a funky place to fly, especially when, as one veteran mechanic grouses in the new season of the high-flying docu-reality series Ice Pilots NWT, "We're dealing with (colourful adjective) worn out junk."

Read full article at the Vancouver Sun

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By Ralph Lucas, Northernstars.ca

You know you're getting old when too many of your stories begin with the phrase When I was a little boy. But when I was a little boy, twelve, thirteen, perhaps a bit younger, there was a small airline with a large name located in a isolated spot of the airport at Dorval, Québec, now known as Pierre Elliot Trudeau International. World Wide Airways' tiny fleet of ancient C-46 airplanes, a couple of PBY-5A Cansos and a defunct Lancaster tucked away next to its huge, mostly empty hanger became an exploration target for me and an equally adventuresome friend.

Read full article at Northernstars.ca

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By Adam Benzine, Playback

Omni Film Productions, Cineflix Productions and Clearwater Documentary were among the multiple award winners at the first night of the 26th annual Gemini Awards, which recognized talent in the news and sports, documentary, lifestyle and reality categories.

Read full article at PlaybackOnline.ca

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By Greg David, TV Guide

When Omni Films, which produces History Television's hit series, Ice Pilots NWT, offered me the chance at a three-day adventure in Yellowknife, I jumped at the chance. A huge fan of the series, I always wondered what it would be like to live and work in the unforgiving climate that is winter in the Northwest Territories.

Read full article at TV Guide

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By Greg David, TV Guide

Are you getting tired of my past Nuts & Bolts column devoted to Ice Pilots NWT, or did you skip my feature on the show, which returned for Season 2 this past Wednesday night? Well, tough — I write about stuff that interests me and Ice Pilots is one show I can't get enough of.

Read full article at TV Guide

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By Bill Brioux, Toronto Star

There's no sound quite like a Curtiss C-46 Commando taking off on a winter morning.

Bangbangbang it sparks, like slow-motion machinegun fire. It takes a while for all 36 plugs to fire the 18 "pots" or cylinders. Flames leap from the cowling as the fuel flows through the system.

Read full article at The Toronto Star

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By Greg David, TV Guide

"I want to get away... I want to fly away." Those words, uttered by Lenny Kravitz in his song "Fly Away," kick off every episode of Ice Pilots NWT. They couldn't be more perfect. Not only do they convey the literal sense of flying, which is precisely what the hit History Television series is all about, but they refer to getting away from it all, which to a Toronto boy like me, means the Northwest Territories themselves.

Read full article at TV Guide

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By Jesse Kinos-Goodin, The National Post

The 60-plus-year-old airplane propellers start up with a bang and a puff of smoke as I make my way across the frozen tarmac at Buffalo Airways in Yellowknife, N.W.T. Boarding the plane, there are no terse instructions about buckling seat belts or turning off cellphones, perhaps because the technology on the plane is older than cellphones. While this DC-3 once flew paratroopers into Normandy on D-Day, it now makes daily round-trip stops between Yellowknife and Hay River, approximately 45 minutes across Great Slave Lake. It's safe to say there is nothing quite like flying with Buffalo Airways.

Read full article at The National Post

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By Eric Volmers, The Calgary Herald

It's nearing the end of a dinner party on a frosty December night in Hay River, N.W.T., when Buffalo Joe McBryan addresses a small group of journalists sitting at his family's table.

After an evening of storytelling, bad jokes, reminiscing and general pontificating about the nature of the north, the former bush pilot turned millionaire airline owner turned reluctant reality-TV star is looking for some straight answers.

Read full article at The Calgary Herald

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By Michelle da Silva, The Georgia Straight

Adrenaline junkies and fans of shows like Deadliest Catch will get a rush out of Ice Pilots NWT , premiering its second season on History Television on Wednesday, January 12 at 8 p.m. The 13-episode docu-series follows Buffalo Airways, a group of daredevil pilots, engineers, and crew who tackle the difficult task of traversing the Arctic in vintage warplanes.

Read full article at The Georgia Straight

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By Greg David , TV Guide

I never thought I'd meet any other camera guys that put their lives on the line, until I visited those who film Ice Pilots NWT.

Read full article at TV Guide

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By Bill Brioux, TV Feeds My Family

It was odd, as I tell Hamilton's CHML radio dude Scott Thompson, to be sitting in Yellowknife earlier this week and watching Southern Ontario get hammered with snow. The TV at the Explorer Hotel was hooked up to satellite, and a CHCH channel was among the options. Things looked a hell of a lot more wintry in the GTA than they did in the NWT.

Read full article at TV Feeds My Family

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By Bill Brioux, TV Feeds My Family

Hats off to History Television. After a nudge or two from this corner, they announced today they are moving the Season Two premiere of their top domestic series, Ice Pilots NWT -- along with the premiere of their new Ice Road Truckers spinoff -- back a week from Jan. 5 to Jan. 12.

Read full article at TV Feeds My Family

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By Bill Brioux, TV Feeds My Family

Where to go to escape the snow and ice of Brampton, Ont.? Yellowknife, of course.

Read full article at TV Feeds My Family

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By Laura Smith, Fox 11 online

Joe and Mikey McBryan have flown their DC-3 1500 miles from Yellowknife to Oshkosh, Wisconsin to take part in the largest gathering of Douglas DC-3 and C-47 aircraft in 60 years. Marking the 75th anniversary of this 'workhorse aircraft,' the weeklong festivities are likely the last time that more than 25 of these planes will be seen together – along with the pilots, mechanics, crew, passengers, and aeronautic fans who have deep admiration for this legendary flying machine. In addition to its life as a civilian , military, and cargo carrier, the McBryan's DC-3 boasts the added distinction of 'reality TV star'. Not bad for a plane invented before television itself.

Read full article at Fox 11 online

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By Adu Raudkivi, Eesti Elu (Estonian Life)

Ice Pilots NWT documents flying in the North West Territories in the winter (-40 below zero) with aircraft built before the Second World War on shuttle (cargo) runs from Whitehorse. The stars of the series are the aircraft.

Read full article at Eesti Elu

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By John Doyle, Globe and Mail

Once upon a time, History Television was devoted to stuff about, you know, history! Look at Wednesday's listings and you'll see Ice Road Truckers (History, 9 p.m.), followed by Ice Pilots NWT (History, 10 p.m.). Hours of drama about guys and their trucks or planes battling the elements. A good deal of Discovery's programming follows the same pattern.

Read full article at the Globe and Mail

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By Elizabeth MacMillan, Northern News Service

A violent wind shear has come up on the approach to Tulita, threatening to wreak havoc as a plane approaches the short airstrip. In a split-second decision, two pilots turn the plane around, unable to land.

That's the television show based on Buffalo Airways, but on a recent trip to Deline, Norman Wells and Tulita, there was no near-death experiences, no mechanical failures, no relationship-ending blow outs. Shocking, perhaps, to the thousands of viewers of the History Television series Ice Pilots NWT, which debuted in November as the highest-rated Canadian show ever on the cable channel.

Read full article at the Northern News Service

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By Paul Bickford and Daron Letts, Northern News Service

Although he admits he previously didn't know anything about reality TV, Joe McBryan is now part of it.

McBryan, the president of Buffalo Airways, joined many Hay River residents on Nov. 18 for the premiere showings of Ice Pilots NWT at the movie theatre.

Read full article at the Northern News Service

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By Greg David, TVGuide.ca

Scott Blue, a rookie co-pilot at Buffalo Airways, always thought that life at the airline – based in Yellowknife – would make a good TV show. So when History Television came calling, he wasn't surprised.

Hence Ice Pilots NWT, a 13-part doc that follows the six-foot-seven Toronto native and a motley crew of fellow pilots, mechanics and office staff who are a part of Buffalo Joe McBryan's business of flying Second World War airplanes around the frozen north.

Read full article at TVGuide.ca

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Malcolm Parry, Vancouver Sun

Intercontinental flights aren't in the cards for the antique aircraft that are Omni Film Productions' vice-president Gabriela Schonbach's daily concern. But two of them still provide scheduled service between base-station Yellowknife and Hay River, N.W.T.

Read full article at the Vancouver Sun

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Niagara Advance

A local man with an unusual job will be part of a documentary to begin airing next week on the History Channel.

Ian Bottomley is an "ice pilot" flying with Buffalo Airways in the North West Territories.

The Niagara District Secondary School graduate started his flying career with lessons at the local airport, and graduated five years ago from Moncton Flight College and the New Brunswick Community College with a Diploma of Aviation Technology.

Read full article at the Niagara Advance

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By Greg David, TV Guide.ca

Debuts: Wednesday, November 18

Who's in it: The pilots, crew and passengers of Buffalo Airways.

What's it about: This documentary series follows the pilots of the Yellowknife-based Buffalo Airways, which still flies Second World War airplanes to transport people around the north.

Reminds us of: Ice Road Truckers in the air.

The buzz: Since History Television is using words like "ice pilots," blizzards" and "frozen lakes," I'm going to go out on a limb and say this will be like Ice Road Truckers, but with airplanes. Does that mean I won't watch? Are you kidding?? I'll be glued to the set. The chance to see pilots dealing with crappy weather, loopy passengers and potentially dangerous cargo – all being shipped around in planes made in the 1940s – is a recipe for disaster. And great TV.

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From Wings Magazine

Production is well underway on a new 13 x 1 hr documentary series to air on History Television in Fall 2009. Ice Pilots NWT follows the adventures of pilots and would-be pilots at Yellowknife-based Buffalo Airways, an extraordinary little northern airline with the most unusual fleet in the world. Buffalo still flies big, piston-powered propeller planes that were first flown in World War II, classics such as the DC-3, the DC-4 and the Curtis Commando C-46. The series tells the stories of rookie pilots who come to Buffalo to earn their wings flying these vintage war birds through some of the harshest conditions on the planet.

Shooting commenced in Yellowknife in November 2008 and will wrap in August 2009. Specially-mounted cameras will allow viewers to ride along with rookie pilots as they fly old warbirds through blinding winter blizzards and smoke-filled summer skies in fire-fighting season.

"Ice Pilots NWT is an exciting addition to the popular new genre of observational/vérité documentary series that includes Ice Road Truckers, Deadliest Catch and Ax Men," says Canwest's VP of Factual Content, Michael Kot. "We want to make this a really big series."

Ice Pilots NWT is produced by Omni Film Productions Ltd. in association with Canwest and with the participation of the Canadian Television Fund, the Rogers Cable Network Fund, the Province of British Columbia Film Incentive BC and the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit Program. The series is created and produced by David Gullason, and executive produced by Gabriela Schonbach, David Gullason and Michael Chechik.

About Omni Film Productions Ltd.
Vancouver-based Omni Film Productions Ltd. is one of Canada's most respected television production companies, producing top-quality programming in a wide variety of genres. Since 1979, Omni has produced hundreds of hours of television dramas, documentaries, factual and lifestyle series and children's programming, garnering over 100 national and international awards. (www.omnifilm.com)

Read full article at Wings Magazine.

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