Fall Colours

A friend and I headed up to Parry Sound this past Saturday. I would recommend to everyone (In southern Ontario) to take advantage of this 23°C weather and blue skies to get into the air and enjoy the autumn to it’s fullest.

For the first time ever, the airplane I wanted to use was “timed out”. That is, there was about only 1 hour left before the necessary 50 hour inspection. There was some discussion at dispatch about getting a 10 hour extension. I decided to err on the safe side and get another (and what ended up being a better) aircraft.

I flew the (new to the fleet) 172R C-GKRF. The cool thing about this aircraft is that it has a two axis auto pilot! Heading and Altitude. I took advantage of both throughout the flight. There were some things to note.

The Midland VOR isn’t your standard “witches hat” style VOR. The Simcoe VOR is a good example of that. Instead it’s a really tall antenna. I’m not sure why this is the case, but if anyone can shed light on why this is please let me know.

The airplane is equipped with a Garmin GNS430w gps/radio. The map was not displaying class C or D airspace. I couldn’t figure out how to display it. I found the manual on Garmins website and now I know for next time!

I was able to find Buttonville airport fine coming from the north as 15 was the active and the REILs were flashing away. I was cleared for the straight in approach.

Thanks to Marco for keeping me company during the flight and providing such excellent photos.