SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Northern aviation company Buffalo Airways has completed its first training sessions in Turkey, where the airline trained pilots and technicians to operate and maintain CL-215 aircraft – commonly used for water bombing forest fires.

Company owner Joe McBryan said his employees came back in the latter part of September and the early part of October.

"We're done there for the season, and then we're starting our winter maintenance to ready our planes for next year, and we'll have technicians over there guiding them next year but they're ready to start doing things on their own," said McBryan.

Three CL-215s were used in Turkey, two of which are still there, and seven to nine Buffalo employees at a time were working there, said McBryan. Trainees were employees of the Turkish Aeronautical Association in Ankara. Turkish pilots were primarily trained by Arnie Schreder.

"It could be difficult sometimes because they didn't speak English, but they're pilots so it wasn't that hard and they could follow checklists," said Schreder.

"One of the Turkish guys worked in Texas for nine years and was pretty good at speaking English so he worked as our translator," he added.

Schreder, who was there for a total of two months, said despite not having had the chance to explore the country, Turkey left a good impression on him.

"It's a very interesting country, there's a lot of culture there. It's one of the oldest countries in the world," said Schreder.

Rod McBryan, who was working with the mechanics and technicians in Turkey, said he was surprised by the country's beauty, and the lack of visible poverty.

Rod said he went there knowing nothing about Turkey, as it's not a very high-profile country, but left with such a good impression that he went back with his wife afterwards just to take a vacation.

Joe McBryan said Buffalo will be heading back there next year, but maybe on a smaller scale since a lot was accomplished over the last season. Because of the very quiet forest fire season in the NWT this summer, Buffalo didn't do much fire fighting work here.

"There was no fire season in the Northwest Territories, but there was a fire season we attended in Alaska for 30 days and then we attended a bit of a fire season in Quebec for two weeks," said McBryan.

A reality TV show about Buffalo Airways, Ice Pilots, shot over the course of the year, will include scenes from the trip to Turkey. The show's first episode airs Nov. 18 at 8 p.m. on the History Channel.