Night flying was limited to two nights a week and was highly dependent upon the weather. If there was night flying, the late day and split shift stayed till about 2230. Day two was a split shift 0800-1200 and then 1600 to sundown or shut-down. I would not have survived had Rene not taken me aside and taught me some French phrases (with a good Montreal accent) to use when a pilot would not or could not comply with my instructions - as usual, Rene was right.īy 1967, a controller's shift cycle was a 3 and 2 three days on, two days off. Many of the student pilots were Francophone and only knew ATC English. When you're new and young in any business there is a strong tendency to talk faster as the level of activity/stress increases. It must have been pretty harrowing in the airplanes as well. So he might say something like "SXM, follow the blue 172, Red 150 pull-up." Amazingly it would all happen as he ordered.
It got even more interesting with Rene on the air mike as he didn't always use call signs.
#Bristol qb vs aviation exam full
At that point they were told either: "? cleared touch and go, no delay on the runway", "Continue, you're number ? following ?", "Pull Up" or in some cases if you knew there was an instructor on board "Turn left, keep it tight over plant one, do a full stop". It was not uncommon to have betweenĨ and 20 airplanes in the circuit and 3 to 5 turning final. All circuit traffic called turning base and were given the same instruction "Call turning final". My instructors were Rene Proulx and Pete McGuarity and from them I learned to never look at the downwind leg - too confusing. Because of the proximity of Dorval International (the approach to 24R at Montreal was about 1/2 mile east of Cartierville, we always used the same runway configuration as Dorval as both airports had similar runways 10/28 and 06/24. Flights destined for the circuit departed 33 while circuits were flown on 06/24. Itinerant aircraft or those training flights wanting a full-stop (as opposed to endless touch-and-goes) used 28. Good thing as watching Cartierville with 3 runways in use was a scary experience. During my first week in early May '67, runway 15/33 was closed. It must have dated from the late '40s and because it was relatively low, we could not see the threshold of either I reported to Dorval in February 1967 and after checking out in May, I was transferred to Cartierville - three miles to the Northeast.Ĭartierville tower was a wooden structure atop the airport manager's office. There was also an excellent view of Mount Royal, the west part of Montreal and the Saint Lawrence River was less than a mile away to the south. 10/28, was right in front and the tower was (click on page links on the left to go directly to the subject)ĭorval tower, which sat atop the main terminal building, was relatively new, had a commanding view of the parallel 06/24 runways. In 1967, Canada's Centennial year, I was a new controller in Montreal, Canada's biggest city and Cartierville was Canada's busiest VFR airport, and Expo '67 was in full swing. You always form an attachment to your first ATC unit.
0 kommentar(er)
