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After four years at the Brampton Flying Club, where I took my instruction and got my licence (PPL), it's time to move my home base.

Starting in the new year, I'll be flying out of Toronto City Centre Airport. It'll be quite a change. Especially the change from flying out of an uncontrolled airport to one that's controlled. One of the nicest changes for me will be the ability to go flying after work on weekdays! Working in downtown Toronto, the rush hour traffic slog out to BFC on weekday evenings was impossible. Two hours in nerve-frazzling stop-and-go traffic over a distance that, on weekends, takes just 45 minutes in relatively easy traffic. I'm looking forward to summer days of leaving work and going for some nice evening flights.

Goodluck! Im sure it will be quite the change, but a good one!

Happy Flying

the exodus from Brampton is accelerating?

JonathanRV wrote:
the exodus from Brampton is accelerating?

Oh?

What have you heard? I have many other reasons for departing from BFC, but decided to keep them to myself.

Hi,

you'll see, YTZ is pretty stunning when you take off or land due to the landscape.
I'm always excited each time I'm flying from there.

If you don't mind, share your reason why your leaving BFC as I just made the move in the other way. I was flying on YTZ but I'm going to fly now to BFC... You scared me a little bit

Enjoy !
Alex

Had I not become an aircraft owner, I would have probably stayed at YTZ after I completed my training there. Hangarage at YTZ is just too expensive, though.

I am sticking with BFC, especially now that HWY 410 has been extended to HWY 10. I tried the new route the other day, and it cut 10 min off my drive. Plus, there is no long term free parking near YTZ. A bummer for anyone who wants to go on a multi-day trip.

Still, it sounds ideal for your mission, Sydney. Enjoy, and be careful to stay out of the wake turbulence from Porter a/c as they pass you on final for 26. Nearly happened to me, once! Also, be prepared to run up the hobbs a little while waiting for other departing aircraft. On some days, it will cancel the financial advantage you gain by not travelling out to BFC.

JoHo

JoHo wrote:
Had I not become an aircraft owner, I would have probably stayed at YTZ after I completed my training there. Hangarage at YTZ is just too expensive, though.

I am sticking with BFC, especially now that HWY 410 has been extended to HWY 10. I tried the new route the other day, and it cut 10 min off my drive. Plus, there is no long term free parking near YTZ. A bummer for anyone who wants to go on a multi-day trip.

Still, it sounds ideal for your mission, Sydney. Enjoy, and be careful to stay out of the wake turbulence from Porter a/c as they pass you on final for 26. Nearly happened to me, once! Also, be prepared to run up the hobbs a little while waiting for other departing aircraft. On some days, it will cancel the financial advantage you gain by not travelling out to BFC.

JoHo

Thanks. Not worried about a little extra Hobbs time on the ground. I'll be flying weekends and/or evenings when Porter's traffic's a bit lower. And yeah, I'd already thought of the wake turbulence. Assume ATC will be keeping an eye on that sort of thing, re spacing. But it's my responsibility, of course, in the end.

As for cost, it's pretty much a wash. Yes, it's $10 a day for parking on the mainland, but I live midtown Toronto and spend probably that back and forth each trip to BFC. Not to mention that I try to fly every second weekend and the $200 I won't be paying as a BFC membership fee will cover almost all my downtown parking costs just fine. The plane rental cost is only $8/hr. more at the Island, so barely noticeable. Not to mention the school I'll be renting from doesn't have BFC's rules that can make being away over 5 hours more expensive.

Playmobil31 wrote:
Hi,

you'll see, YTZ is pretty stunning when you take off or land due to the landscape.
I'm always excited each time I'm flying from there.

If you don't mind, share your reason why your leaving BFC as I just made the move in the other way. I was flying on YTZ but I'm going to fly now to BFC... You scared me a little bit

Enjoy !
Alex

Hi Alex,
I won't run through all my reasons, some of which are in the control of BFC management and some of which are not. But a few are:

1) I find the dispatch desk experience has deteriorated. Their attempts to organize it have only made the confusion worse. If I'm trying to keep my head wrapped around my flight prep, I don't need hassles distracting my thinking or putting me in a sour mood. I also find many of the disaptch desk girls they've hired in the last year or so wouldn't crack a smile for you if you paid them. Oh, wait! I am paying them! Well, they're a pretty grim bunch. I fly for fun. The front desk experience isn't anymore.

2) The pilots lounge is now overrun by foreign students spreading themselves all over the couches and chairs, yakking on their cell phones or playing games on their phones or laptops for hours. Some use flight prep (weather) computers checking their Facebook or whatever. Nothing to do with flying. While pilots have no, or little, room anymore for flight prep.

I told management about both these and got a "hiring is always a challenge" to #1 and no reply to #2.

Also, because BFC has so many students these days, for the last year or more, I've had to book a weekend recreational flight 3 or 4 weeks in advance to get the time I want. The school I'll be renting from and the Island can get me a plane on one to two weeks' notice.

Things BFC can't control: a) It seems to me the winter flying weather that far north of the city had changed for the worse over the last few years. Maybe I just had a good year in 2006 when I started my training in January, but we never had to cancel flights so many times as I've had to in the last couple of years because of low cloud and/or snow streamers off Lake Huron and Georgian Bay as far south as Orangeville. I can't tell you the number of winter mornings I've left home where it's gorgeously sunny in the city and got to BFC only to find a ceiling too low to fly, or an airspace locked in by bad weather to all three of north, west and east. b)Traffic on the 401 getting back into the city in the afternoons has got worse in just the 4 years I've been at BFC. Flying from the Island completely eliminates that hassle.

and, as I said in my first post, I've never been able to fly at BFC on summer evenings. The rushhour traffic drive out there's just too much.

Oh, and I'll add one more thing that's always bothered me about BFC, and the Board of Directors knows it (I've told them!). For your $200/yr membership, you aren't invited to the annual general meeting even as a spectator. And certainly you do not have a vote in how the place is run, unless, a) you've been a member for 3 years, AND THEN, b) after 3 years, you pay an extra amount of money to become a "sustaining member". ONLY "sustaining members" are permitted a vote and official voice in how the place is run.

Once you've flown out of BFC for a while, you'll notice that an awful lot of the long term "sustaining members" are grey-headed old men who don't make it past the restaurant. And I mean OLD men. Doddering guys who can just make it as far as the restaurant. They don't fly. I daresay they're not fit to fly. But their votes carry weight at Board meetings.

It's always bothered me that in the 21st century, BFC is governed under an elitist structure.

In response to my comments, the Board has said to me, "We're happy with our traditional Royal Flying Club (read: early 20th century) governance structure and see no reason to change."

Oh, BTW, the Board is all white men. Not a woman or non-white individual in the group.

That's always bothered me, too, and to which the Board has responded as above, "We believe our structure is just fine".

Sydney youll love flying out of the island. The scenery, especially at night! Taxiing and flying alongside Porter, and landing over the water.

To me BFC only makes sense if you live in the west end. There are also no 'membership' fees to blow your money on, and getting a plane is much much easier, although you do have to book over the phone, no flightschedule pro. And I do agree with everything you said about BFC, I started there November 2006. Things have changed A LOT since I was there, I guess everyone is just on edge because of all the accidents, but having spent so much time at BFC uncontrolled, I learned a lot flying out of the island controlled.