Wednesday, 14 August 2013

My stomping grounds part 4

Once you’ve gotten to Claremont without busting Pearson’s airspace or Buttonville’s control zone, the next trick is not hitting anyone else who is also heading to Claremont for exactly the same reason you are. There are a lot of airports and therefore a lot of flying schools around, lots of traffic all heading for the same space.

We tend to work in the area outlined in blue. Unofficially we divide the area up into quadrants, working NE,NW, SE or SW of Claremont. I usually end up SW because it is the closest area. None of the areas are ideal. To the SE you have to watch out for Oshawa, to the SW Buttonville. To the north the land starts to rise a little giving you less room to work with if you are doing upper airwork.

Still we make do with what we’ve got and do our best not to get in each other’s way. Just out of the scope of my VTA there’s a VOR navigation beacon, so a reasonable bit of traffic uses that to practice radio nav work.
The red box is something I’ve marked on my chart, the highway crosses railroad tracks. Go much further west than this and you’re back in Buttonville’s space. The yellow box is a transformer station. Lots of power lines going in and coming out. I marked it on for various reasons.

If I’m taking the short route then you check your position relative to it. It is also a good point to make position calls, most people know where it is. The power lines also lead you straight back to City, especially useful in the winter when they cut a path straight through the snow covered ground.
Just south of Claremont is a village called Brougham. You need to be careful round here as there are winch launched gliders kicking around. The cable could happily slice off your wing. That’s why we climb to above 2500ft when overhead.

So you can see that is a LOT of information to process just to get out to do some maneuvers, let alone actually doing any stalls or whatever. Seeing it split up into 4 posts like this has made me realise just how much I’ve actually managed to take in. 
So much to consider, so many dimensions to deal with, but Bob trusts me to do this all on my own and that, is freakin awesome!!!!!

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