I have the amazing fortune to live across the street from a couple, both pilots, who own a plane (PA-28 - see pictures) and invite me for flights occasionally. We have flown to Morrisburg and Pembroke, and this weekend Mike asked me if I was interested in going to the Canadian Aviation Expo being held in Hamilton. You’re reading this, so obviously I eagerly accepted. Although the weather was not supposed to be too good on Saturday, we decided to go then rather than Sunday just in case it took a turn for the worse and we got stuck in Ottawa. As it turned out, we had a 30 knot headwind on the way down, and clouds and precipitation on the way back, so we had some excitement after all :) Since I tend to ramble when I tell stories, I’ll restrain myself this time and just mention some highlights. I flew the trip down including communication and the landing (which I think I did pretty well). It was a very cool feeling flying past the downtown core; I took a couple pictures of the CN Tower - here is one.
The Expo itself was actually pretty big, and attendance was good. While I was waiting in Mike’s aircraft, two F-18 fighters taxied past, as you can see in this picture.
Speaking of going home, by the time we decided we were ready to leave, some weather had come down between us and Ottawa, so Mike chose to file an IFR (flying with reference only to the instruments in the plane) flight plan rather than a VFR (looking out the window) one. Shortly after takeoff, we saw it was a good decision, as we spent a few minutes in some relatively serious cloud, which came with some rain and wing icing. Having a GPS (3 to be exact lol) with weather updates helped see our situation in realtime and estimate how long the poor conditions would last. Here is a picture (man it’s amazing how much better it looks when you’re actually there) I took of the clouds when they opened up a bit.
I must say Mike flew blind very well in my opinion, something that is oddly difficult to do for more than a minute or so. He used nav aids to get us to within 2 miles of Carp Airport, then landed by sight. Now if I hear people talking about the notorious Toronto airspace system and radio frequencies, I can say I’ve been there done that :) Thanks, Mike!