Nice shot!

I am always trying to get good airport shots. It is a pilot thing, I guess. Naaaa it is probably just me. For some reason I need to share them all with you too. This eastbound approach takes us over Lac St. Louis ( widening of the St. Lawrence ) to land on runway 06R.



The city of Montreal under a broken cloud layer. Good night pictures are very hard to capture on the camera because the shutter stays open longer and the aircraft vibration distorts the shot. This one turned out pretty good.



Montreal airport looking west. We are climbing over Mount Royal southbound to Boston on this trip.

I have had many trips to Ottawa over the past 6 months. The parliament buildings are very interesting buildings. For those that have never been to our nations capital, I suggest a trip here for a few day visit. There are lots of things to see and do.



This picture is great if you click on it. This is dowtown Ottawa on the south side of the Ottawa river and the city of Gatineau in the province of Quebec. See if you can find the parliament buildings. My friends that grew up in Ottawa have many stories of crossing the river over to Hull ( now known as Gatineau ) to take advantage of Quebecs younger drinking age.



This too is a great picture/view if you click to enlarge it. Yet another picture of the St. Lawrence as it narrows toward Quebec City.



Approaching Fredericton


Cranking a turn onto final over the Saint John River or should I say the Fleuve Sainte Jean as New Brunswick is one of Canada's officially billingual provinces. There is a live military firing range called Gagetown just south of Fredericton that is restricted airspace 24/7 so some of the approaches have to be kept in pretty tight. Fun stuff for us pilots.

Land HO!!!! Captain

A post for Jennilyn's "Uncle David". D.A.B Walker is a retired ship captain who has travelled the world. Having now travelled the St. Lawrence myself as did David back in the day, I am hoping to give him a different view.



This port is located on the north shore of the St. Lawrence jsut east of Sept-Iles, Quebec. The name of it is Port Cartier. I see a few ships are waiting offshore to pick up their load.



These two ports are located near Sept-Iles. There is one more deep water port right on the edge of the town. For a history lesson copy and paste this site.

http://www.portsi.com/eg/historique.htm

Apparently 23 million tonnes of cargo are handled out of Sept-Iles every year. Alumina, Aluminum, Coke Breeze and Limestone are moved but mainly Iron Ore.



Back to Montreal...........this is a set of locks on the western end of Lac St. Louis. If you click on the photo you can get a better view. There is a ship just going through.

And at the end of the day...........

The St. Lawrence









Who is that? Do I look tired? I think I am just bored.

Things to see from FL230

As we fly over the city of Guelph, a look to the Southeast shows the west end of Lake Ontario. For you Westerners, the cities of Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton, St. Catherines and Niagara Falls are all at this end of the lake. To me, all of these cities really just look like an extended Toronto, because the urban area really doesn't stop all the way down the lake. This is not a great photo to show this, so you are just going to have to take my word for it.



The beautiful city of Toronto from 23 000 feet. I don't often do the trip from London, Ontario to Ottawa but it was very nice to do it on a day like today, enabling us to see a lot of Toronto as we flew overhead. It is hard to take pictures of Toronto because I am usually landing there and I have to play pilot not Captain Blog.



A quick zoom in at the local landmarks. The CN Tower and the Skydome. Great place to go watch the Jays play. For you Cheeker!



This is one of Toronto's many airports, City Centre Airport. We were supposed to start flying in there, but the company cancelled that route. Anyways........



From right over top of Toronto, a look East along Lake Ontario. The scattered line of clouds in the middle is the north shore of the lake.



Waves??????? As we flew under these waves we figured out what had caused them. The image would not capture on film. They are actually vapour trails from a jet that have curled around from the wingtip vortices. Blah, blah pilot jargon. As air slides off an aircraft wing it curls, forming a tornado of sort. This tornado got a hold of the vapour trail and spiralled it around and around. Winglets reduce these wingtip vortices. I thought they were kind of neat to see as I have never seen a vapour trail do this before.

A few airplane pics...........

This Russian Antonov is often in Montreal. I had not seen it for quite some time and was wondering what the deal was. Well it arrived later that afternoon and I was able to snap a few pictures as it maneuvered on the ramp.



A nice side angle shot..........



The Antonov requires a 6 minute slot for takeoff. Most aircraft will be given their takeoff clearance and will depart right away. This Russian beast has to gradually increase it's power to 5 different power settings and let stabilze for a minute each time before it powers up all the way for take-off.

Landing in Quebec City, an Air Transat, Airbus A310 arriving from Paris.

Gravel Kits

There is a rather large mining and exploration company called Falconbridge that operates here in Quebec. A very nice "falcon "on the tail, isn't it. This bright and beautiful morning in Rouyn Noranda, we had the pleasure of watching their corporate 737-200combi (fancy talk for - combination of people and cargo) getting ready for a trip up to a mine.



All the passenger seats are in the back.



Airplanes can have modifications done to prevent damage from operating into unprepared airstrips (gravel). Often, it is a system that prevents rocks being kicked up by the tires, from damaging the fuselage and engines.......... Although it's hard to see in this picture, a large metal plate can be fitted to the aft of the nose landing gear for this purpose.



What I learned on this fine sunny morning, is what the job of this little tube below the engine intake is. I had seen it before on some other 737-200, but could never figure it out. It is part of the gravel kit modification, as I've described above. Apparently, upon touchdown, it shoots out high pressure bleed air (excess compressed combustion air) to create an invisible wall to repel any rocks from entering the engineor damaging the fuselage. A handful of rocks in the engine could mean a bill of a couple-of-million-dollars, for a new engine.



I guess you learn something new everyday...............

Where am I?

Anybody guess where this is? I actually put this picture on for D.A.B Walker. I am sure he has been here but I think the view he had would have been quite different.



Next time.........gravel kits....??????

A few more boston pics....

Every time I have been to Boston it has been the same approach. It is a great view of the city but I have been told by pilots that sometimes we are asked to do an approach right through downtown. Today was the day.














Looks like a nice city. Can't wait to go visit.

Need a brake?

We all know how much I need a break during the day. Well, today we needed a different kind of brake. One of the brake lines between the tires on the right main wheel assembly seemed to be leaking a bit. With 50 pax on board we had to deplane and call for a quick brake job.



Here is our new brake assembly. There is one of these for each wheel. I don't want to know what it's worth.



All we need now is a quick torque to spec.....



Lock wire the lugnut and we are done. Actually WE didn't do anything except watch the maintenance guys work hard. Every brake job I have ever had done has always taken well over 2 hours. These guys were done in 25 minutes.




kick the tires........light the fires we're outta here.