My brother left for Bangkok (via Hong Kong) on a Cathay Pacific flight the other day. Before he left, we had a discussion as to which way the aircraft would fly from Toronto to get to Hong Kong.

We were both arguing either west bound or east bound. We were both wrong!

I was tracking the flight on Flight Aware and saw their planned routing. Right over the North Pole!

V34 YEE J557 YSB 5000N 07952W YGL 5500N 07656W 6000N 07400W 6500N 07200W 7000N 06900W MEDPA 8000N 06000W 8500N 04000W ABERI B934 BINTA …

There have been rumors going around that YKZ is going to close because of the $1.5M from the GTAA each year will stop.

This is the first mainstream media mention about this problem that has surfaced so far. The Toronto Start is reporting that YKZ will have to reduce its operating hours and/or close if the funding is not reinstated.

The airport employs over 300 people. It would be a shame for it to have to close. Personally, I don’t think that will happen.

One of my colleagues at work found a family photo of what is believed to be the first ever production Beaver.

An article about “the bush plane” has been written by him (He does work for CBC News) and is a great read if you are interested in the history of one of Canada’s iconic airplanes.

There are some never before seen photographs included in the article that date back to the mid 50′s.

Check out the CBC Article!

Transport Canada is presenting its changes to the Windsor-Toronto-Montreal corridor at a number of locations in Feb and March.

It is the topic of tonight’s Monthly Aviation Seminar at the Transport Canada HQ in Toronto.

The presentation will also be made available at Buttonville, March 11 @ 19:00. Hanger 12 in the Leggat Aviation facilities.

The following word document outlines the schedule for other locations.

I saw this article yesterday and the first thing I thought about was “what about all the GA pilots out there?!?”

XM Weather is a product provided by XM that allows you to stream weather data to various avionics as well as computers used on marine ships.

The scope of the bankrupcy is only for the American arm of the company. However XM Weather is not “officially” supported in Canada. So this means that if the American company goes belly-up, XM Weather may never be available.

Garmin may have to find another WX …

I just got details of the changes to Torontos Airspace, which are Effective March 12, 2009.

The PDFs contain all the details you know.

Some highlights:

The Buttonville and Toronto City Centre control zones will be expanded to meet along Lawrence Ave, between Yonge Street and Victoria Park Ave. Both control zones will now extend from 2,500′ ASL down to the surface.

One thing you will notice is that the YKZ Control zone Ends at Lawrence Ave. instead of the 401 now. As well, there is no “dead area” between the YTZ zone and …

I’m still alive and well. I’ve been busy with some life events lately that have taken priority over flying and posting to this blog. I normally try to keep my personal life out of this blog, but I have made an exception here.

Things have changed quite a bit over the past three years since I started flying. I got engaged, bought a house, became a little older and wiser, the economy took a turn for the worst, I broke up with my fiance, and my house is now for sale.

The …