Toronto Area Q for General Aviation folks

[Art Garfunkel]

Question for the Toronto Area, VFR General Aviation folks. I am looking at crossing Lake Ontario from OO-NDB to SN-NDB on A21 as I am not interested in flying around "the Horseshoe" Has anyone crossed over on that air route recently? Does YYZ ATC let you climb up to 6500' or 8500' to cross over? Life Jackets? Any comments, advice, or discussion appreciated. Thanks.

[Cessna 180]

Question for the Toronto Area, VFR General Aviation folks. I am looking at crossing Lake Ontario from OO-NDB to SN-NDB on A21 as I am not interested in flying around "the Horseshoe" Has anyone crossed over on that air route recently? Does YYZ ATC let you climb up to 6500' or 8500' to cross over? Life Jackets? Any comments, advice, or discussion appreciated. Thanks.

You're might be out of glide range of land for the majority of the flight, so you most likely would need life jackets.

You're not in Class C airspace for almost the entirety of the flight, so little that you could simply fly around it. So you can climb up to 12,499 if you desired (assuming you deviate out of Class C airspace). Toronto may not appreciate that, but it's out of their control.

You enter the USA for a little bit so you need a flight plan and a unique transponder code. You'll get that assuming flight following.

[photofly]

In August? Sure. But I wouldn’t bother with life jackets this late in the year, you won’t live long enough in the water for them to help.

[rookiepilot]

Question for the Toronto Area, VFR General Aviation folks. I am looking at crossing Lake Ontario from OO-NDB to SN-NDB on A21 as I am not interested in flying around "the Horseshoe" Has anyone crossed over on that air route recently? Does YYZ ATC let you climb up to 6500' or 8500' to cross over? Life Jackets? Any comments, advice, or discussion appreciated. Thanks.

No. (single engine, anyway)

EDIT — BTW —

Who cares what you’re interested in? What answer are you expecting to hear? Approval here to roll the dice and end up dead if your engine quits?

Think the OP needs to read a few accident reports. And grow up too.

The only lake I’ve flown over was Lake Michigan, in the height of summer, with jackets on, at 10,000, tons of boat traffic below.

And I was still very concerned for my 15 minutes of “risk”

[pdw]

In August? Sure. But I wouldn’t bother with life jackets this late in the year, you won’t live long enough in the water for them to help.

In case of a water emergency as a precaution you can wear a CO2-fillable (pull string type) so in the event during egress and a subsequent raft deployment transfer safely.

Where could you access a rental suitcase-raft for one trip across. Looks like some decent ones available new. On the SN side (here) I’ve considered investing in something like the aero compact. For 4 people weighs just 15.5lbs; re-cert every two years.

Q is Where/how to position a raft case ready on board ? (An Ornge pilot once said keeps one hand on the raft handle when crossing that lake)

[PilotDAR]

I am not interested in flying around "the Horseshoe"

How unfortunate, I've flown around the horseshoe hundreds of times over the decades, and it worked fine for me! Those times I flew direct across the lake would be when I was flying a twin, or. more recently, my amphibian, on really calm (lake condition) days only.

Having lifejackets is great, if you're wearing them, have received underwater egress training, and the water is warm. Otherwise, immersion suit, and it will still be really unpleasant. If you're not wearing the lifejacket when you ditch, you're probably drowning without it. If you splash midway across the lake, even having told ATC you're going to ditch, who is it who rescues you? How long does it take them to find and then rescue you? I've flown many lake searches, a person in the water is not an easy find.

I know it's temping to fly A to C when you can see A to C, but A, B, C may be a lot safer....

[photofly]

In case of a water emergency as a precaution you can wear a CO2-fillable (pull string type) so in the event during egress and a subsequent raft deployment transfer safely.

In cold water, unless you're in a dry suit (as PIlotDAR says) you'll not have the strength to haul yourself into a life raft. (Have you tried? I have, and that was in a warm pool.)

Where could you access a rental suitcase-raft for one trip across. Looks like some decent ones available new. On the SN side (here) I’ve considered investing in something like the aero compact. For 4 people weighs just 15.5lbs; re-cert every two years.

The only place I found to hire one was in BC, and the shipping alone was something like $600. LIfe rafts are hazardous goods, and very difficult to ship internationally.

EIther suck up the risk of death, or just fly around the lakeshore. It's a 30 minute detour.

[rookiepilot]

It’s bad enough what many airports make you do on an IFR departure (like YTZ for one).

Making it back from the vectors given, after an EFATO, is very questionable. I won’t take off IFR from there again, I’ll add more work to terminal and pick it up airborne. (Please no lectures about separation requirements)

It’s like ATC doesn’t distinguish between single and multi engine realities over cold water. I can’t understand why anyone would want to fly over a freezing lake one second more than necessary.

[PilotDAR]

It's a 30 minute detour.

So many times while flying, I've considered a choice I could make. Usually one choice could save me 30 minutes (enroute/fuel stop/pee break etc.), the other choice would make the rest of my flight very much less risky and stressful. Experience has taught me to spend the 30 minutes, rather than risk wishing I had.

As for using a lifejacket, a dry suit, solo boarding a raft (or worse, worrying about your passenger, who may could help - if you can find them in the water - I've done it all in training and practice. These are trained and practiced skills, not something you'll succeed at because you bought yellow equipment, and put it in the back seat. If I can't land safely on water, I will fly so an engine failure won't result in a ditching.

[lownslow]

It's a 30 minute detour.

So many times while flying, I've considered a choice I could make. Usually one choice could save me 30 minutes (enroute/fuel stop/pee break etc.), the other choice would make the rest of my flight very much less risky and stressful. Experience has taught me to spend the 30 minutes, rather than risk wishing I had.

Same. I did some flight planning a little while back and decided I was sticking my neck out a little too far at one point so I crunched the numbers on a safer route and found the difference was twelve minutes. Twelve minutes well spent.

Of course, later in the flight I had a water crossing that I was okay with as long as I could get nice and high. Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I was half way across the damn thing quit.

[pdw]

Question for the Toronto Area, VFR General Aviation folks. I am looking at crossing Lake Ontario from OO-NDB to SN-NDB on A21 as I am not interested in flying around "the Horseshoe" Has anyone crossed over on that air route recently? Does YYZ ATC let you climb up to 6500' or 8500' to cross over? Life Jackets? Any comments, advice, or discussion appreciated. Thanks.

What most might not realize is that circumventing the horseshoe means also travelling out farther over land to keep choices handy for landing on an ongoing basis. That can make it an hour to plan OO off 06 (Virgil) in some days in the small single. I thought this question to be quite reasonable, since the op wasn’t coming in from Guelph or Barrie where it’s sometimes possible only twelve extra minutes. Picton, 100 miles NE of CYSN/Niagara would range 30 min direct on some days if looking at it as the straight-across VFR possibility (A to B) but can be also 2 hours (Hobbs) off 06 flying around the horseshoe (A B C D etc) the safest land-based way.

[tsgarp]

It all comes down to the level of risk that you are willing to accept. An over water transit in a single carries with it a higher risk of death in the event of engine failure. If the engine keeps running, it’s no different than a transit over land.

Potentially unpopular opinion here, but given the probability of engine failure (empirically demonstrated to be quite low) vs the number of T/O and landing accidents with seaplanes (still very small, but I suspect higher than the risk of sudden engine failure), I think the risk of transiting over open water in a single engine land plane is probably less than the risk of landing a seaplane in a remote lake.

[photofly]

Not a lot of people land sea planes on remote lakes, either.

[digits_]

Question for the Toronto Area, VFR General Aviation folks. I am looking at crossing Lake Ontario from OO-NDB to SN-NDB on A21 as I am not interested in flying around "the Horseshoe" Has anyone crossed over on that air route recently? Does YYZ ATC let you climb up to 6500' or 8500' to cross over? Life Jackets? Any comments, advice, or discussion appreciated. Thanks.

What most might not realize is that circumventing the horseshoe means also travelling out farther over land to keep choices handy for landing on an ongoing basis. That can make it an hour to plan OO off 06 (Virgil) in some days in the small single. I thought this question to be quite reasonable, since the op wasn’t coming in from Guelph or Barrie where it’s sometimes possible only twelve extra minutes. Picton, 100 miles NE of CYSN/Niagara would range 30 min direct on some days if looking at it as the straight-across VFR possibility (A to B) but can be also 2 hours (Hobbs) off 06 flying around the horseshoe (A B C D etc) the safest land-based way.

*upvote*

The proposed route is 45 NM long. That's about half an hour of flying in a typical single. Of those 45 NM, at 8500 feet you'll be out of gliding range of the shore for about 20 miles. That's less than 15 minutes of flying. Accept that if your engine fails in those 15 minutes, you'll likely die. Decide if you want to take that risk and do or do not go.

What are your chances of surviving an engine failure inbound into Toronto? I'm sure everybody thinks they'll be able to land on a road, but the more you observe roads, the less likely it is a succesful landing there will be made.

If this flight is too dangerous, a typical training flight out of CYTZ would be too dangerous as well.

[photofly]

If this flight is too dangerous, a typical training flight out of CYTZ would be too dangerous as well.

How do you figure that?

When are you ever 15 minutes from the shore on a training flight, and how would the FTU be in compliance with 406.54 if you were?

[digits_]

If this flight is too dangerous, a typical training flight out of CYTZ would be too dangerous as well.

How do you figure that?

When are you ever 15 minutes from the shore on a training flight, and how would the FTU be in compliance with 406.54 if you were?

If you do circuits for an hour, you're very likely to be outside of land to land on for 15 minutes of that hour. Sure, you'll be closer to land, but you still run the risk of drowning.
The advantage of having an engine failure at 8500 ft over the lake would be that you'd be able to glide towards a boat or something, whereas in CYTZ you'd have to wait for a boat to get to you as your manoeuvrability would be severly limited. It could go either way on both locations, but to me they carry a similar amount of risk.

[photofly]

If this flight is too dangerous, a typical training flight out of CYTZ would be too dangerous as well.

How do you figure that?

When are you ever 15 minutes from the shore on a training flight, and how would the FTU be in compliance with 406.54 if you were?

If you do circuits for an hour, you're very likely to be outside of land to land on for 15 minutes of that hour.

I don't agree. perhaps for 10 or 15 seconds of each circuit, which would add up to two or three minutes total, in an hour's work. Even then you can always glide to a hundred feet from shore or closer. For the whole circuit you're in RT and visual contact with the tower, and within quick reach of ARFF's rescue-equpped quick launch inflatable, which is in the water within 90 seconds, very probably before you are.

There's no comparison between that risk, as unattractive as it may be in cold weather, and the risk of ditching twenty miles out over the lake with neither radar nor visual contact as you ditch, and waiting for a scramble from Trenton or hoping to be extracted by a civilian vessel already under way with no ability to stop short and neither equipment for nor experience of finding someone in the water, nor extracting them. No comparison at all.

[digits_]

Maybe.

It depends on the plane and circumstances of course, but in a typical 172, you would probably end up in the water if the engine failure happens sometime between 200 and 700 ft after take-off mark, or at the edge of the circuit towards the base/final corner, right? That's about 1.5 minutes on takeoff, and about 30 seconds during descent that you are in the splash zone. About 2 minutes per circuit. With 7 circuits an hour, that gets you about 14 minutes of splash zone in a circuit session.

The boat will only save you if you make it out of the plane. I would find it highly unlikely there would be enough time to launch a boat and divers to extract you from the wreckage if you are stuck or unconscious.

Note that the pilot crossing the water at 8500 ft is likely wearing a life jacket, a pilot doing circuit training may not be. Depending on the season, that might affect the final stats as well.

[pdw]

90 seconds is impressive. That’s around the island.

I suspect response time varies a lot along the shore of the horseshoe from Oshawa to Fort Niagara, so it is questionable to get fetched on time in cold season. The only thing is staying well enough over land to optimize eyeing available beach on one side of the track while having more inland options on the other.

In some stretches around the lakeshore the built up areas would leave just the shoreline forced-approach option. If no beach handy any nearshore ditching might be close to shore but is still ‘yet so far away’. From around the lake head at Burlington skyway there are noticeably less and less options following the lakeshore Toronto bound and beyond.

[photofly]

Maybe.

It depends on the plane and circumstances of course, but in a typical 172, you would probably end up in the water if the engine failure happens sometime between 200 and 700 ft after take-off mark, or at the edge of the circuit towards the base/final corner, right? That's about 1.5 minutes on takeoff, and about 30 seconds during descent that you are in the splash zone. About 2 minutes per circuit. With 7 circuits an hour, that gets you about 14 minutes of splash zone in a circuit session.

The boat will only save you if you make it out of the plane. I would find it highly unlikely there would be enough time to launch a boat and divers to extract you from the wreckage if you are stuck or unconscious.

Note that the pilot crossing the water at 8500 ft is likely wearing a life jacket, a pilot doing circuit training may not be. Depending on the season, that might affect the final stats as well.

On a normal circuit you would be out of gliding distance to dry land for some seconds after clearing the departure end of the runway until your crosswind turn, and while on mid- or short final, especially for runway 26.

If you are outside gliding distance to shore at any other time (shore, not the airport) then your circuit is too big. You may still prefer the edge of the water over the trees, but you have the choice.

In most ditchings the occupants are able to egress the plane; it’s what happens next that determines the survivability. I will ditch close to the shore line in the harbour ten times to your once in the open water in the middle of Lake Ontario and I will still have a higher probability of survival.