The Mad Dog “Growl” –April / May 2006 Page 1 - Delta Virtual Airlines

Flight Spotlight – CVG to YYZ
by: Larry Foltran
This time around, our spotlight flight is the Cincinnati
to Toronto route. This route is currently offered by
Comair using a CRJ, but used to be flown using the
MD-88. This flight represents one of the few
international flights that Delta uses or has used the
MD-88 on.
The flight we are focusing on this month is Comair’s
flight #5136. The scheduled departure from CVG is
8:10 am and has us arriving at 9:45 am. Total flight
time is 1 hour and 35 minutes. Our flight will take us
north-east out of the Cincinnati area, over Lake Erie,
and straight into Toronto. Depending on what the
wind will be doing, we may be vectored out over
Lake Ontario for the approach or it could be an easy
shot in.
Toronto/Pearson
International
Airport is situated
about 27 km from
downtown
Toronto. It has 5
main runways and
a total of 30
taxiways. Over 65
different airlines
operate out of
Toronto/Pearson
serving over 29
million
passengers in 2005. Needless to say, CYYZ is a
vital hub for air traffic into the Toronto area and
much of south-eastern Ontario.
Preflight planning provides us with the following:
Passengers: 6 first class, 66 economy – 72 total
ZFW: 97,506 lbs
Fuel load: 16,339 lbs (5,249 wings, 5,901 center)(5,015
reserve – 45 minute)
Total payload: 19,530 lbs
Gross weight: 113,905
Planned route:
KCVG RIKLE YXU YWT V98 CYYZ
Route distance: 412 nm
Cruise Altitude: FL290 (FL370 Optimum)
obtaining the charts necessary for this flight. US
charts are normally pretty easy to find, but Canadian
charts seem to be more difficult. Thanks to the hard
work Luke has put into our DVA site, we don’t have
to stray too far to get the Toronto related charts.
The route and
planned altitude is
based on the
actual CVG to YYZ
flight route.
www.flightaware
.com has been
one of my favorite
stops when
planning a flight. It
allows you to find a specific flight and provides the
flight plan and altitude. Why not use the real data if
it’s available?
Now that our preflight planning is complete, we are
ready to get moving. Our flight will be departing from
Gate C42 this morning. Once on the flight deck, we
find out that our departure will be made without the
aide of ATC. A weather check informs us that the
winds are out of the west at 8 knots. It’s also a cold,
overcast morning, so we’ll definitely be utilizing our
icing prevention equipment.
Loading and preflight is completed on schedule and
we push from the gate right on time. We opt to take
of on runway 27, so our taxi is a short one. With our
checklists complete, I give everything a final look
and move onto the runway. The landing lights are
clicked on and our transponder is switched to mode
‘C’. As we begin our roll, I once again confirm that
our de-ice equipment has been switched on. Our
MD-88 lifts off the runway with plenty of pavement to
spare and we begin our climb out. I begin the turn on
course prior to reaching the ceiling drawing closer.
Our visibility drops to zero as we enter the cloud
layer at about 4,000 feet.
We finally punch out of the clouds and our ride
smoothes out…for now. Our climb continues up to
FL290 where we settle for our cruise. Occasional
light chop continues until we near the Columbus,
Ohio area. The overcast clouds below us disappear
a few minutes later and we look ahead to clear skies.
We’ve got a pretty empty flight this morning, so
weight won’t be an issue. The part we do need to
consider is that this is an international flight and with
that comes a specific set of procedures. Thankfully,
we don’t have to worry about many of those issues
when flying on FS. What we do need to consider is
The Mad Dog “Growl” –April / May 2006 Page 15