big AC jet circling VFR near Barrie, ON Sat morning?

bodyflyer · Post by **bodyflyer** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 9:41 am

Saturday morning (June 30) I saw a large jet circling east of Barrie, down at maybe 3000'-4000' AGL or so, cranking it around (30 deg bank) in a blue hole between cumulus clouds.

It looked like an Air Canada A330 or maybe even B777.
I'm wondering what it was doing there!
Special sight seeing flight??
(Wonder if it is related to the one mentioned in someone's thread "Just saw AC 777-200LR at CYYZ" about the previous day.)

Normally one doesn't mix it up with maneuvering big jets down low in class E, so it gets one's attention.

I was almost level with it at 3000'+, in a skydiving C-182, about 5 miles SW of it. Our pilot was in contact with Toronto Centre and heard that the jet was indeed VFR, and the jet was made aware to stay clear of the drop zone.

My dad happened to be in a small homebuilt at the same time, flying towards the same area from the east, seeing it 5 miles infront of him.

There were quite a few Cu around, bases maybe 3500', but a blue hole existed over Lake Simcoe -- so it seems as if the pilot picked that area and altitude to avoid punching through cloud during its wide turns. After watching the jet circle it climbed rapidly between or through the Cu to the south before disappearing from view.

On Sunday morning, from the ground, I again saw what looked like the same jet out west of the Cookstown drop zone.

conehead · Post by **conehead** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:08 am

Air Canada spokesperson says it was a 767 on a "Maintenance Test Flight", and at no time was it below 5,000 feet.

bodyflyer · Post by **bodyflyer** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:53 am

Thanks. Still seems unusual to be tooling around down there. Maybe they wanted high air density.

Altitude estimation is tricky too, after all, 1000 ft difference at 5 miles is about 2 degrees for example. (And I don't know if the 5000' Air Canada quoted was ASL or AGL.)

Mitch Cronin · Post by **Mitch Cronin** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:07 pm

Anonymous man claiming to be an Air Canada employee, and speaking only if off the record and voided of all identifying data, says the captain wanted to see his cottage.

Justwannafly · Post by **Justwannafly** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:11 pm

Mitch Cronin wrote:Anonymous man claiming to be an Air Canada employee, and speaking only if off the record and voided of all identifying data, says the captain wanted to see his cottage.

lol I'll belive that

niwre · Post by **niwre** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:57 pm

Mitch Cronin wrote:Anonymous man claiming to be an Air Canada employee, and speaking only if off the record and voided of all identifying data, says the captain wanted to see his cottage.

Truth is stranger that fiction because fiction has to makes sense.

conehead · Post by **conehead** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 7:37 am

"There are only 10 people in this world. Those that understand binary and those that don't."

That's funny! I saw a kid in a mall wearing this on a t-shirt, and laughing, I wondered how many people who saw it actually "got it"...

Hedley · Post by **Hedley** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 7:42 am

A better t-shirt:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/388b/

conehead · Post by **conehead** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 7:57 am

That's a great site!

Hedley · Post by **Hedley** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 8:03 am

Here are some ideas for some baby t-shirts that you can buy for your friends who are proud new parents:

http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product ... ductid=499

http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product ... ductid=365

comspazz · Post by **comspazz** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 10:53 am

Here's a t-shirt for hazzatude...

http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product ... ductid=575

767 · Post by **767** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:17 pm

well the difference between a 777 and a330 is the winglets.. did you see any winglets? if you did, it must be a330 or 340..

http://www.airliners.net

IFRATC · Post by **IFRATC** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:42 pm

I was working that particular morning. It was the B777 on a crew training flight. YYZ-YUL-YYZ. Inbound to YYZ they asked for a routing over YEE decent to VFR to cancel and then pick up the IFR back to YYZ. It was down as low as 3000ASL.
On a side note the day after a B767 did relatively the same thing down to about 5000ASL.
Hopethat clears it up

IFRATC

bodyflyer · Post by **bodyflyer** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 7:41 pm

IFRATC wrote:was down as low as 3000ASL.

Alright! That matches my memory of the event, and my dad also swears it was level with him.