Brightline Flight Bag
After months of obsessing I finally purchased the pricey Brightline Flight Bag last month and said “goodbye” to my vastly inferior messenger-style bag. Why am I so excited about a bag of all things? NERD ALERT: Organization rocks!
On every flight, I am walking from the terminal to the aircraft with a briefcase-style bag containing the aircrafts documents, my flight bag, and a separate bag for my headset (not to mention passenger headsets). Annoying to say the least. To add to my inconvenience, my flight bag only had 3 pockets. One for pens and two giant ones for everything else. When you are carrying a fully loaded flight bag (including a fuel tester, screw driver, ruler, flight computer, log book, maps, CFS (thick book), airplane manuel, pens, calculator, batteries, Spot Connect, flight timer, CO2 detector, sunglasses, license, flashlight, GPS, etc…) it becomes a huge hassle to find anything you want, especially while flying the plane. Luckily, this bag has a separate colour-coded pocket for absolutely everything, including a spot for two headsets, all while being less bulky than my last flight bag. To top it off, it actually zips in half into two bags just in case you don’t need everything in the cockpit. Of course they recreated the essential pockets so you have it on both halves.
The folks who designed this were definitely frustrated pilots and simply wanted to solve their problems once and for all. Check out the interior below or a demonstration video here.
Buttonville Airport…more than just a small airport!
I realise that most people who are not regular visitors to the airport probably know very little about Buttonville and its importance to the Greater Toronto Area. The general consensus is that Buttonville is as a small airport that is used by rich people for recreation. There is some truth to that (although flying for fun usually makes you poor), but the majority of the traffic comes from a wide variety of other sources. Below I have summarized some interesting facts about Buttonville taken from an article posted here by COPA(Canadian Owners and Pilots Association) and from my own knowledge.
– Opened as a grass airstrip in 1953
– Owned privately by the Sifton Family
– Has two paved runways
– 11th busiest airport in Canada in front of Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City and Halifax. In 2008 there were approximately 164,000 aircraft take-offs or landings there. That amount of traffic can not be absorbed by the combined local airports. It is also the busiest General Aviation airport in Canada.
– 300+ aircraft are based there
– Used by some of the best flight schools in Canada(Toronto Airways, Seneca), Air ambulance(ORNGE), RCMP, Police, traffic planes/helicoptors, business, charter, movies productions, celebrities and recreational pilots
– Allows jet airplanes (city centre airport does not)
– creates approximately 550 full-time jobs (not to mention the benefit to surrounding business’ of the airport) and contributes $96 million to GDP
If you are interested in learning more click here or if you have a comment/question please comment below.
Spot Connect & Adventures
This has to be one of the coolest gadgets I have ever bought.
Spot Connect is a device that pairs with your smartphone and connects you to a global satellite network that lets you send text/email/facebook/twitter messages and GPS coordinates from virtually anywhere on the planet. And in the case of a critical emergency, send an SOS message requesting emergency assistance.
A really neat feature, especially for pilots or travellers, is GPS tracking. Your coordinates and the time are updated on a public or private password protected Google map every 10 minutes. Friends and Family can track you in real time and when you are done your adventure you can edit the map to add pictures/descriptions to each of your way points. This is an especially useful tool for pilots, but is obviously something that can be used by everyone.
If you are a pilot or an avid world traveller, the added safety and awesomeness of this gadget is hard to pass up. During the course of this year (mostly the spring/summer/fall) I am going to be posting adventure maps from trips I fly onto this blog.
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A new beginning for General Aviation…
The inevitable closure of Buttonville Municipal airport, Canada’s 7th busiest airport, has been looming over the heads of businesses, students and pilots alike since the announced sale. 170,000 aircraft movements per year need a new home and fast because the airport is set to close within 3 years. The combined, “close” proximity airports, Oshawa, Downsview, Toronto Billy Bishop and Lake Simcoe Regional are not able to expand enough to accommodate the massive amount of aircraft movements Buttonville entertains each and every year.
For decades there have been proposals to build an international airport on land in Pickering which has been met with continuous protests since 1972. The government expropriated the land with the intention to build an international airport 40 years ago and since then, the lands have remained empty and unused. All that may change in the very near future as the Pickering Airpark seems to be gaining some ground and that is only good news for General Aviation folk like me. According to their website, http://www.pickeringairpark.com/, they are hoping to break ground as early as August 2012 and have the airport in operation by the time Buttonville marks their runways with dreaded large white X’s.
Fly Dan Air 