Flying: A Day Trip To TO

Friday I flew to Toronto for the day with fellow flying club member Scott.

He had never done an international flight and wanted someone along to show him the ropes and the red tape.

I showed Scott how to properly file a departure notice in EAPIS, and did the CANPASS call with him.

We then filed IFR along the T781 route to Toronto Island Airport. Scott was flying and I was doing the radios to cut down on workload.

We got our IFR clearance and headed onto Runway 27R for takeoff.

Scott did very much get my attention on takeoff.

As were in the takeoff climb 500 feet above the ground, he started leaning the mixture to the point the engine started sputtering.

I expressed very directly in some very choice language my unhappiness with this turn of events. You should not be leaning during takeoff. Once you hit 3,000-4,000 feet leaning makes sense, but not while you're at 500 feet, angled up climbing 1,000 feet per minute with the engine going flat-out and a lack of decent options if you go engine-out at that altitude.

Once that impending doom was prevented, we continued on our way.

Beautiful day to fly at 5,000 feet.

We crossed the border around Port Huron / Sarnia with a hand-off from Selfridge ANGB Control to Toronto Center with no issues.

Soon we were over London, Ontario:

Again a fair bit of haze but we soon had Toronto in sight:

We did the RNAV 8 approach but instead of the closest initial fix, they sent us to the fix that was farther out south over the lake and then had us come in presumably for spacing from other aircraft.

We then did a good approach and Scott did a good landing.

 Damn nice view on final.

We then parked the plane, walked across the tunnel to the mainland from the island and me up with my Dad and Carol.

Since both Carol and Scott had never been up the CN tower that's where we went first. The CN Tower is still the tallest free standing building in the Western hemisphere.

A fast elevator ride up and we were on the observation deck, 1,122 ft up.

We got a nice shot of the airport from the observation deck of the CN Tower:

You also get some great views of the city.

We then headed onto the glass floor and walked on that looking straight down to the ground 1,000 feet below.

 If you have a fear of heights, that's probably not for you unless you want some exposure therapy.

We then headed on down and went to Jack Astor's on Front Street for lunch which was very good.  I pulle dout my computer and field the EAPIS arrival notice, then called CBPO at Pontiac airport to inform them of our arrival.  I then filed the flight plan, requesting the Perl04 departure to Derlo, then T781 to Pontiac, which was happily approved without the massive changes I had incurred during my first visit to the island. 

The problem then was Toronto Island Tower had one person running both Tower and Ground frequencies at the same time and it was a super busy mess and it took forever for us to get a taxi clearance, the a  clearance to get out of the run-up area and then get to the runway where we held for awhile. 

Finally we got airborne and were on our way. It was then that I found out that Scott, sitting in the right hand seat, had not properly latched the top of the aircraft door.  Lower latch was properly done, but we got some extra air and noise for the flight. I was beginning to think Scott was a jinx.

We again got pushed over the water for a bit for traffic and then routed on our way. Scott was handling he radios but not quite keeping up with the controllers so I had to step in a bit.  He wasn't quite used to the faster environment and it seemed like he wasn't fully hearing them and I asked him and he said he was hearing it ok.  In reality, not so much.

We flew out into more haze but missed the rain clouds.

Soon we made it to the Border and saw a large lineup at the bridge there as we overflew it.

Then Selfridge gave us a direct to GUVZY, the initial approach for Pontiac's RNAV 27L, basically cutting the corner of our route and saving us some time which was appreciated. Scott muffed that radio call and i had to jump in as he thought they said cleared to Adrie, as he was expecting that as that was the end waypoint of our route before Pontiac.  When flying you can't let what you expect substitute for what you actually get.

So we then came in and i did a very fine landing on 27L riding the RNAV down quite nicely.

We then went to customs where Scott, being next to the door was asked by the Customs fellow if we had been in Toronto for business or pleasure and Scott said "yes".    I was again not happy and quickly said we were then for pleasure and to visit my dad there.  Satisfied, the CBP agent checked our passports and saw they matched exactly what I had filed as the airplane manifest, and sent us on our way.

It turns out that Scott was, unbeknownst to me, wearing a hearing aid that was malfunctioning without him knowing, which explained why he wasn't fully getting the radio calls, nor the CBP agent's questions.  I expect he will be more in tune when he can actually hear again. 

He's also promised to never lean out an engine on climb-out again. That's one bad habit he's now hopefully done with that can lead to some very bad outcomes. 

He was rushing a lot and after I told him to slow down and stop over-anticipating he did settle and the flight became a fair bit smoother.

Well, that's 2.2 for me flying from CYTZ to KPTK, a great landing, and another international flight under my belt, as well as a great day in Toronto.