Downtown at Sunset

Few days ago, going home on an early train, I looked out of the window towards downtown skyscrapers and gasped in amazement. The low setting sun put all the glass buildings on fire creating an unforgettable image. As I was watching the sunset from the ground, I noted the time (5:25pm) and decided that I’d try to get downtown at sunset again, but this time in the plane.

I had a booking for 4pm on Sunday, but knowing my Wx and airplane luck, I was not really counting on everything to fall into place, but, surprisingly, it did. The Wx was as perfect as early Feb can be, -5 and sunny. Wind was 10 gusting 15 at 40 degree to Rwy heading, but that was not an issue after my previous practice flight with twice that x-wind angle. The airplane was available, it had flown before, was de-iced and all the mandatory light were working – I was ready to go.

I wanted to get downtown at about 5pm, so I had lots of time, so I went and did three circuits. Rwy 33 was in use and the control zone was busy, so all three circuits, I was asked to extend downwind and ended up almost half way downtown anyways.

Back at the Rwy after my 3rd circuit and with circuit traffic not getting any lighter, I decided that I may as well go fly circles around downtown instead of Buttonville and requested departure for the “downtown tour”. As customary, I was assigned the special transponder code and cleared left turn off south. Crossing 401, I called City Tower, got clearance into the zone, was assigned 2,000 ft as my altitude (the lowest they usually give) and was told to remain north of the City Centre (or Toronto Island) airport.

As I was settling into my first circle around the downtown core, I realized that the zone was busy: there was one other plane circling (but they called after me and got assigned 2,500 ft), then there were a few planes practicing circuits at Toronto Island and a few more were arriving and departing.

I flew my circles wide – crossing the downtown core north of Bloor St heading west, then turning south heading towards Exhibition Place and then another turn to bring me along the shoreline, north of the airport, but south and right next to the CN Tower. For about half of each circle, the interference from all the transmitters and receivers on CN Tower made a deafening noise in my headphones that only disappeared when someone on the frequency was talking, so I was grateful for the fact that frequency was quite busy.

The sun was getting lower as I flew, with the skyscrapers and the CN Tower basking in the warm yellow to reddish glow making them really stand up against the bleak surroundings. On one pass, I took a picture of all the bank buildings, thinking it would look great on my office wall in one of those buildings!

As I flew around, another airplane in the area asked for permission to go south of the airport and was allowed. I figured I may as well ask too and was allowed, but had to climb to 2,500 ft. It was really strange to fly over water of Lake Ontario and the view of downtown was incredible.


Eventually, it was time to head home to Buttonville, so I informed the City Tower that I was heading North and was told to switch to Buttonville Tower. As I followed the DVP on the way to the airport, there was a sunset to my left and a moon to my right.

Tower routed me straight in for Rwy 33. As I was on a short final, the sun was disappearing below the horizon coloring the skies around me deep red. I landed uneventfully and tied down my airplane just as sun was putting the clouds above the airport on fire. What a flight!

And then there was x-wind

The weather forecast for the 6 hr period that had my two hour booking showed 25015G25, so I drove to the airport knowing it would be windy. The wind was also from that strange direction that had been persistent all winter, 240 to 260. I drove in thinking that while the prevailing winds usually favored Rwy 33 at Buttonville, my four previous flights were on Rwy's 21, 03, 15 and 21 again, and based on the forecast and METARs, it would appeared 21 would be in use again.

As I was getting closer to the airport, i saw planes take off from 33 for a circuit. The ATIS confirmed that Rwy 33 was indeed in use despite the winds coming from 240 to 270 and wind strength of 10 to 15 kts with gusts up to 25. The combination of Rwy in use and the actual winds made me very uncomfortable.

As I was standing in front of the counter, one of the guys at dispatch desk asked me if i was comfortable going out in that wind and on that Rwy. I had to admit to myself that if i was quesitoning my abilities, I was not comfortable, so I asked if there was an instructor available to fly couple circuits with me to make sure i got it. There was.

He actually made me do weights and balances, detailed documents check, etc. which was a good review to make sure i had not forgotten anything and then we went out to the airplane. The winds kept changing so much that Tower was adding wind speed and direction with every instruction including taxi! Even ATIS had note of turbulence on approach, but that was nothing compared to turbulence on take off. Felt like we hid a brick wall.

I flew the first circuit (had to crab hugely on downwind) and had an OK landing. We then reviewed what i could do better and kept flying. The wind shifted from 270 to 260 and finally to 240, which made it almost 90 degree x-wind, and Tower offered us Rwy 21, but i said we'd stick with 33 since i wanted to practice as much as i could with the instructor on board. My 3rd landing, we did not notice when the wheel touched - it was amazing. By then, the instructor told me about 6 months review that Buttonville had implemented to allow their renters to fly with an instructor for an hour for free - so we turned this into a 6 months review and kept flying. When we were done, i was smiling ear to ear and i had my landing confidence fully back.

Winter Flying

I almost did not fly today because wind was 10 kts gusting 17 and at quite an angle (270 Vs 210 Rwy heading). As I was still not completely happy with my normal landings, I was not sure I was ready for x-wind and rwy 21 was a shorter Rwy, so there would be less room for error.

While I was waiting for a plane, I saw couple landings that could only be defined as “hair-raising”. And strangely enough, seeing those landings, gave me my confidence back as the only thought I had seeing those was “I can do better than that”. I also remembered that x-wind landings were always easier for me to do than the normal ones.

I got the plane that just flew and was warm, de-iced, so I did not have to bother with anything to start it. I took my time getting ready, got my clearance, flew a nice circuit and surprised myself with a really nice landing. Right down the centerline, no drift, touch down on one wheel first then the other, then the nose. Delighted, I did two more. Second circuit I was behind another Cessna that did a wider circuit and they were also doing a full stop, so I ended up flying long downwind and starting final from very far back and had to play with the power to get the approach right. I got it stable over the Rwy and touched down as 1-2-3 again.

With confidence fully back, it was time to go away from the circuit. I decided to go north and take a few pics of the Lake Simcoe, practice slips and steep turns. Alas, I did not get very far north. Just as I flew over the end of 404, the visibility dropped dramatically and so did the ceilings. Earlier, as I was driving to the airport, the radio was saying there were snow squalls in Barrie, Orillia area. I guessed that those snow squalls actually drifted south of where they were supposed to be and wanted no part of those, so I turned back and flew to Buttonville.

As I was getting my taxi instructions to the tie downs, I was told to hold short of Rwy 15/33. I repeated the hold short portion and, as I was getting closer to the hold short line, I heard the controller issuing landing clearance for 33 and she then reminded me to hold short. I figured it had to be something bigger and more important than single engine piston and it was – Falcon jet with 3 engines. Watching it land in x-wind was very neat.

They rolled to the end of Rwy and I was cleared to tie-downs. As I tied my airplane, I took a picture of it and the Falcon.

Keeping Current

Having finally regained my currency at the same time with completing my night rating, I managed one flight before I almost lost it again.

That previous flight was on Dec 17. I practiced some circuits which started somewhat less than square but got better as I started to get ahead of the plane and opposed to trying to catch up. After about 5 circuits, I had enough and decided to celebrate my night rating with the downtown Toronto tour, informed the Tower, got my transponder code and took off in the direction of the glinting lights in the distance.

Crossing the 401, I switched to City Tower frequency and they told me I had the space to myself and I was free to do whatever I wanted as long as I stayed north of the airport (I later heard Porter flights coming in to land). It was as exciting as it was the first time, all the changing lights and silhouettes of the darkened buildings. But there was also the new sight that I did not see there earlier in the fall - the brilliant white spots with the black specks on them. The outdoor hockey rinks. I did not realize there were a few in the downtown Toronto. I flew around looking at people playing hockey, looked down at the buildings big and small, brightly lit Christmas decorations, cars crawling on the streets. I tried to imagine what people inside the houses and cars were doing and was so happy to be above it all in the little airplane. That flight extended my currency to Jan 16 (it is on a 30 day basis for licensed pilots).

The week after that I went away for Xmas and New years coming back on Sunday Jan 4, which only left me one weekend to try to fly before my currency expired. I could also fly at night, but I really wanted to do a daytime flight.

Trying to beat the weather I booked flights on both Sat and Sunday mornings. On Saturday, I woke up to blue skies and no wind, checked the weather at the airport that showed pretty much the same thing with the air temp of -18C. I called the desk and asked about min temperature requirements and it was -20C, so I was good to go. Not quite believing my good luck (getting a winter booking on a first try), I drove to the airport an hour later. As I was driving south, the blue skies around my house changed into a very low thin overcast layer. Very low. My optimistic estimate was 500 above ground, definitely non-flyable. I kept driving hoping for a hole right around airport. Alas, no holes were in the vicinity and I was greeted at the Dispatch by a red “No Flying” sign with a lot of idle instructors sitting around and cursing that unexpected weather development. I was told that the thin layer was supposed to be blown away but not for a few hours. There was a time slot at 3pm for the same plane, so I decided to re-book it and come back instead of waiting till Sunday, for the weather was simply too unpredictable.

At 2pm, the airport weather was just about perfect for middle of January – unlimited vis, high ceilings, almost no wind and milder temperatures of -11C. I threw my flight bag in the car and started driving. The weather held almost right to the airport this time. Turning off the highway, I was greeted by some flurries that definitely reduced visibility. My heart sunk and the worst suspicions came true when I was greeted by the same dreaded red sign.

I did notice some activity on the apron though and asked if they were letting anyone fly circuits. The person in charge checked the weather and it did meet the circuit minima with a good margin of safety, so he agreed to let me fly. The rest of it was easy. The airplane just flown before me, so it was warm, started with no effort. Everything checked well and off I was to do circuits. I decided to do full stop landings as opposed to touch-and-goes as I believed it would have been a better practice for me.

There was only one other plane in the circuit and they were also doing full stops, so the spacing worked out great. I worked on things that needed improvement, which were mostly in the approach, flare and landing phase, so I had time to look around while on the downwind.

We were using Rwy 03, so my downwind was facing south, i.e. downtown Toronto. As I flew the downwind after downwind, I could not help but notice the ugly dark grey clouds covering a big chunk of the city with what appeared to be heavy snow pouring out of them. And just a few miles to the north, I was flying under relatively high ceilings, with good visibility and no snow. I thought to myself “better there than here” and kept flying. And with that flight, my currency was extended into February.

A Lucky Night.

“Hmm… there used to be a CN Tower there”. The weather on the morning of my scheduled night cross-country flight did not look promising as low ceilings and some kind of precipitation blanketed downtown Toronto. The aviation forecast however indicated that the low front would pass, skies would clear and the surface winds would die down by the evening. And, amazingly, they did.

Not quite believing my luck, I drove to the airport for my 6pm booking. My luck almost ran out then as the major highway between my house and the airport was closed till 9pm. Luckily, the closure was in the other direction, so by the time I pulled into the airport parking lot, I was hoping I would be flying as there was no way I would be getting home any time soon if flying was cancelled.

Walking to the dispatch desk, I noticed red “No Flying” sign on the information board and asked about it. Apparently, the few inches of snow up north and a few inches of rain downtown came as an inch or two of sheer ice on the field, covering everything, including the rental planes, which are all parked outside. My hopes sinking, I barely caught on to what the person was saying – there was ONE airplane in flyable condition, and my instructor reserved it for MY FLIGHT!

The instructor showed up and we started to look at the weather which was still somewhat unstable. I initially planned a run for Kingston, right along the shoreline of Lake Ontario. Seeing that the front was passing West to East, I also planned the route in the other direction – from Buttonville to London, via Newmarket and Orangeville to get me out of Toronto Pearson airspace and allow me to climb higher. Couple of destinations on a way to Kingston reported low ceilings, so that route was out and we shifted focus to London route, which appeared to be in the clear. I checked the upper winds at 6,000 ft (270 at 21 knots), recalculated headings based on wind corrections and the estimated times and filed the flight plan with 7:20pm departure time (giving me 30 mins to do pre-flight and walk around), went out to the field… and almost fell flat on my face.

The apron and field in front of the terminal building were a cross between a skating rink and an Ice Kingdom. I was walking on ice, the taxiways were all ice and ice covered everything in sight, including the airplanes. Walking very carefully, I made way to ‘my’ airplane, the only one on the field not covered in ice… and discovered it was covered by frost instead. Frost on critical surfaces is almost as bad as ice and is a definite no-go in my books. Luckily, the fuel truck stopped by to top up the tanks and I asked if they had a de-ice on a field. They did and he told me where to go. I was starting to worry how long my luck was going to hold.

I finished the pre-flight, we climbed into the airplane and taxied it to de-icing location. Amazingly, the taxiing was not too hard (I guess it would have been much trickier in a tail dragger). Deicing completed, we climbed back in… and then climbed back out and went searching for paper towels to clean the windows. It was 5 mins to 8pm when we finally took off.

Once in the air, following familiar route north to Newmarket, I finally realized that my luck held, relaxed, marked my times and started looking around. It was insanely beautiful night. There were some scattered clouds over Toronto and they were on fire, reflecting the bright lights of the downtown. The visibility along the route was unlimited and all the separate towns shone up brightly surrounded by relative darkness. Flying at 2500 ASL (under 2,000 AGL), I could see Christmas decorations in front of the houses I flew over.

Upon reaching Newmarket, I turned to the closest bright spot in the West – that would have been Orangeville. We also got Flight Following from Toronto Terminal and were allowed to climb to 6,000 – just underneath the arrival path for Pearson airport.

Climbing to 6,000, I marveled how easy it was to navigate by maps at night in the winter. All the towns and settlements were bright spots, all the roads and rail roads were clearly visible against the snow-covered fields. This was my first time ever flying that route and I felt very comfortable, knowing where I was at all times. From Orangeville, I headed straight for London, navigating by Kitchener as my route marker. My instructor had his iPhone on board and he checked conditions at London and reported that it was under an overcast layer. But it was high enough to allow us to come in underneath.

Getting closer to London, we descended underneath the cloud layer and I started looking for the airport. I would have had difficulties finding it, but the ILS approach lighting system and the running blinking lights that it produces, cued me to where the airport was. I got in my clearance from the Tower and landed uneventfully. We parked right in front of the Katana café to stamp my logbook. I expected another $100 hamburger place, but this was different. I was very impressed by the settings and the menu – I will definitely want to come back there for lunch or dinner.

Climbing into the airplane for a return trip, I experienced another first – an intersection departure. The Rwy in London was over 8,000 ft long and intersection departure meant 4,000 ft Rwy left – still longer then the Rwy in Buttonville.

Getting out of London zone, we got Flight Following again and asked for a route direct to Buttonville. This would have take us right over Pearson, so we were denied that, but they routed us pretty closely just around Pearson. I did not plant that route, so had to navigate by maps and it worked well. As I was navigating I kept stealing glances towards downtown Toronto and all the towers thinking I’d like to get back there…

Closer to Buttonville, we switched to Tower frequency and got cleared to land almost right away as we were the only plane in that airspace. I came in too close and too high, so had to slip aggressively and discovered that Cessna does not slip as well as Citabria, but got back on a good glide path and had a very nice landing. Back to the Ice Kingdom we went searching for a place to tie the plane down.

And with that flight over, I finally had met all the requirements for the night rating. It was almost exactly two year after I started the night rating with the flight that started this blog…

Night Rating Continued.

Few days following my amazing late season glider flight, Mother Nature took pity, scheduling gods smiled at me and I finally got to fly a Cessna again. At night. After a six months break. It was, to sum it up in one word “interesting”.

In preparation for the flight, I read the POH (pilot operating handbook), reviewed the speeds I was supposed to know by memory and emergency procedures. I then spent some time reading the takeoff, circuit and landing sequences that I wrote down long time ago when I was still learning. From past experiences, I knew that going through the circuit sequence while sitting in the armchair improved my actual “in plane” performance materially, so I do this routine every time I am learning something new. Or remembering something I have not done in a while.

Still, no amount of preparation or armchair flying can compensate for a six-month break, and I expected to be rusty. The length of my absence was further highlighted when my new instructor asked if I had current charts. I was pretty sure mine were not current, but the fact that I was 3 editions behind was a bit of a shock. In fairness, it’s been a long time since I flew cross country as ever since I started flying Citabria, all my flight were local. Luckily, the pilot shop was still opened, so I quickly fixed that issue by acquiring current charts and a CFS, both of which would be required for my night cross country.

I then got the keys to the plane and went out into the elements. I took my time doing the walk-around and pre-flight and then got to my seat and went over every instrument to memorize the location so that I would not be searching for them when I need them. By that time, my instructor climbed in and we were ready to go.

Once I’ve completed the run up and got my ATIS information, I tuned up to the Ground frequency and was surprised to hear how busy it was at that time. It appeared that the Seneca students were doing a training night and there were more planes doing circuits than I have ever seen. Finally there was a break in the rapid-fire clearances and I managed to squeeze in and get our ground clearance. We taxied to the Runway threshold and tuned in to the Tower frequency which was equally busy. Looking at the traffic around us and hearing approaching traffic, it seemed to me that there was a good chance for us to be able to take off and as soon as I reported being at the threshold, we were cleared to line up and almost immediately to take off. Take off was uneventful and soon were we climbing away.

I struggled a bit with the sight picture to get me the 78 knots that I wanted and very rough air did not help. It was a bit frustrating but at the same time, I was pleasantly surprised that I had not forgotten any of the radio work. One advantage of training in the controlled environment from the start – radio work becomes one of the primary skills.

As we turned towards the north and were cleared on route, away from crazy busy circuit, out came the hood and I was on instruments. I was a bit concerned about the bumpiness while on instruments but the GFA indicated that turbulence would stop at 3,000 ft, so as soon as we were clear from Pearson Airport’s inverted wedding cake control zone, we climbed to 3,000 and into the smooth air.

I flew under the hood for a while, doing mostly OK on keeping the wings level and speed and altitude unchanged. We then tried some timed turns which I managed to do fine. Since we still needed to use some time (I was short 0.9 hrs of my instruments requirements), on came the VOR instruments and soon we were navigating towards and away from Simcoe VOR. With the added VOR workload, I dropped a wing a few times, but picked it up before it turned into anything serious. Eventually, we reached the required time and could get rid of the hood and fly us back to the airport with the renewed resolution that I would not want to be in the weather that could turn into Instrument Metrological Conditions under any circumstances.

The winds afloat were fierce and our ground speed was very slow. Which suited me just fine as I was once again looking fully lit downtown Toronto and enjoying every moment of it.

As I tuned into the Tower frequency, I discovered that it got even busier. I inserted my call sign in the small pause and got my clearance into the zone and reporting point. Concentrating on finding the reporting point and then the airport, I did not count the number of the planes on the frequency, but my instructor later said it was 7!

We were coming from the North and landing on Rwy 21, so I expected the right base clearance and got exactly that, in second position behind traffic on left base. I still was not seeing the Rwy, but I saw the traffic and followed his path in the air and finally saw the Rwy lights. I was on a right glide path and speed, but flared too high and too much and landing was ugly. My instructor then suggested that we’d call it a night as trying to do full stop circuits with 6 other airplanes would have been counterproductive and a waste of money. I agreed and we taxied back.

So, at this time, I have all requirements for night rating except x-country. But, because we did not do circuits, I am still non-current. Hopefully, it’ll all come together when the stars align again and the x-country does happen…

Late Season Surprise.

Through November it looked like the gliding was finished and my sunset flight was the last one of the season. So, I dusted off my power license and decided to re-start the night rating. Three weather related cancellations later, I still had not flown, so when the message popped out on my gliding club’s board that there could be flying on the weekend, I cancelled all plans and decided to drive there.

I spent the morning flying dual circuits in a Citabria. The field was covered in melting snow and there was stiff cross wind, so landings were challenging, but I was finally flying, so nothing else really mattered.

Except, there was something that did matter. Flying the last few circuits in the Citabria, I felt some bumps. Could there be thermals on November 29? Skies soon provided the answer in the form of nicely looking Cumulus. By 1pm, the clouds started forming into the streets and a few gliders that did take off, stayed up for a while.

A friend that I flew the sunset flight with told me he’d be on a field around that time. He showed just as the two seat fiberglass glider landed, so we claimed the glider and were soon up in the air flying trough some definite bumps. I released at 3,000 ft and it did not take us long to find a thermal. And another one, and one more. They were not very well defined or strong, but they were definitely working.

Having gotten closer to the cloud base, we decided to fly under the cloud street. It was working, so we flew straight for a while and were holding altitude. The wind afloat was very strong slowing our progress and breaking up the streets and the thermals, so at some point, the cloud street ended and we turned back towards the field. As I tried to locate the field, I was looking for white runways, but then realized that in the matter of hours the color changed to green as the snow melted. At least I knew where the thermals were coming from.

We got a little low around that time and started looking for more thermals to get back up. Luckily, just as I was getting afraid that we would not find anything good and would have to land, the flock of seagulls decided to show us where the thermal was, so, having done some abrupt course changes, we joined in the thermal underneath them and were soon climbing back to 4,000+ ft. Having gotten under the cloud base, we then decided to follow another street in a different direction.

The other street was working as well and we were making progress flying east, but that also meant that we were flying downwind. My friend eventually decided that we have flown far enough away from club and we turned back and tried to make our way back under the same cloud street. As we flew towards the club, I looked out to the side and for a second felt like I was in a helicopter – our altitude remained unchanged, but so did our position relative to the ground – we were just hovering in space. That was a very neat experience.

Alas, we had to make headway towards the club, so down came the nose to pick up speed and altimeter started unwinding. We were making progress, but it did not seem to be enough and the street became weaker. Just as I started to think I may do my first ever out landing, we flew through the thermal and turned to pick up some height. It took a while, but we eventually got high enough to glide to the field. It was perfect timing as just as we turned towards the field, the clouds started to dissipate.

We arrived at the field with the height to spare and the landing was uneventful. As we rolled to a stop, I stayed in a glider for a while, trying to savor the experience. Eventually, I remembered that my feet were quite cold and we stacked the glider and made our way to clubhouse where I parked myself in front of the fireplace for much needed de-frosting accompanied by couple of beverages and some nice company.

Our flight lasted 2 hours 3 mins…