Christmas Party

Friday December 7^th, 2007

The Christmas party is less than two weeks away and there are still some tickets available. If you have been waiting till closer to Christmas to order your tickets then this is it.

This year's Christmas dinner party will be on Friday Dec. 7th at Barkley Square Restaurant. The restaurant is located at Hwy #11 (5567 Yonge St) just north of Hwy #89.

This is always a fabulous and well attended event. Not only is it a chance to get together with all the members at a setting other than the club, it provides an opportunity to thank our spouses/partners for their support throughout the year.

As in previous year's you can order your tickets online or by contacting John Galloway - (905) 775-3384.

CMQ Annual Inspection

The annual inspection is done and CMQ is back in service.

A couple of snags have been deferred; however, they have minimal impact. We are waiting on parts for one of the Tannis heater elements (part of the block heater) and a new lock cylinder for the pilot side door.

For the first time this year we used General Aero Maintenance, the AMO at Edenvale. The owner, Glenn Marchant, and his team did a bang up job and we can offer our unqualified recommendation to anyone looking for an AME.

Our PRM, Dan Daigle, as always, was instrumental in ensuring that the Annual Inspection was completed in such a timely manner. Without his diligence throughout the year combined with the preparations made prior to starting the inspection CMQ could easily have been out of service for several weeks. As it was, the annual took just under a week.

Club Meeting

Saturday January 26^th

The Christmas party takes the place of a December club meeting. Our next regular meeting will be on Saturday January 26th, 10 a.m. at Edenvale.

The club will be hosting COPA director for Southern Ontario, Harold Fry. Harold will speak to the club on COPA initiatives both nationally and locally.

Tour of Toronto ACC

by Fred Simpson

As I made my way along the industrial backloads of Pearson International Airport I figured that I was early enough that I would be the first person to arrive. "Ignore all the signs that say Authorized Personnel Only" Cliff had told me. Even with that thought safely tucked away, it still felt strange driving past those runways. The plan was for everyone to arrive fifteen minutes early and park along the road in front of Toronto Area Control Centre to await Cliff who would then clear us through the security gate.

As I turned onto Midfield Road, a full thirty minutes early, I knew that Toronto ACC was the first building on the right. To my surprise there were already half a dozen cars parked out front. Apparently everyone was eager for the tour to start and nobody wanted to be late.

Our tour guide, Wayne Bell, works the High Level - East sector. Once he cleared us through the security gate we gathered in a conference room where he gave us an overview of how operations at the Centre are organized. There are over 300 people working at Toronto ACC which covers from just west of Ottawa, west to Thunder Bay. While geographically the smallest of Canada's seven ACCs it handles the greatest volume of traffic. Controllers and airspace are divided into High, Low and Airport responsibilities and these are further sub divided into Sectors. Each of these can then be further divided into flight data and radar controller responsibilities. Controllers are checked out for their particular duties/sectors and need a check ride in order to switch. One can easily see why there are so many people working the Toronto ACC.

Following our briefing it was out to the shop floor so to speak. Right out of Pushing Tin, the control room was large with a high ceiling. Each station consisted of a large primary display, a backup display and textual weather and other info such as approach plates. Throw in radio and landline communications and you have a pretty busy work environment. There are no glowing radars with that telltale green arc sweeping across the screen of old style radars though. All the information displayed on the 'radar' screen is computer generated. Most of the people who attended the tour also took in Cliff Durrwachter's briefing on Toronto ACC last month so the symbols that Wayne pointed out where somewhat familiar.

Being a Saturday afternoon things were relatively quiet with several sectors consolidated into one. Wayne gathered us in front of what later that day would be his work station, the High Level - East sector where he gave us a demonstration of the capabilities of the equipment. And you thought that colour moving map GPS was cool! It is easily the best video game in town.

We then broke into groups and watched over the shoulders of several controllers working their sectors. My group found ourselves watching in awe as the Airports controller worked all traffic, both VFR and IFR, in and around Terminal airspace. On a busy day this would be handled by 3 separate controllers but today he was handling the whole shebang. We watched as he vectored a Porter Airlines arrival into Toronto City Centre, a medivac flight headed towards Markham, someone conducting multiple IFR approaches into Hamilton and, as it was a nice day, a roost of VFR traffic. If you ever thought that it sounded busy in the cockpit wait till you hear it from this end. Several dozen flights all headed somewhere different doing their own thing and here was one guy handling it all with ease.

Two hours after we started Wayne came by to say that he had to start his shift but we were welcome to stay as long as we liked. In other words, will you guys please go home now! I have no idea where the time went. Was it worth the drive to the Big City? You bet it was. Rumour has it that at least one of our group is considering a career change. And you know what, I can see why. Being an IFR controller is a challenging but rewarding occupation.

As for me, I will have a lot more patience when ATC misses my initial call now that I know that the controller may be working several frequencies or be on a landline to another facility.

On behalf of the entire club I want to thank both Wayne Bell and Cliff Durrwachter. Between Cliff's presentation and Wayne's tour more than two thirds of the club got a peek into the workings of Toronto ACC.