Buttonville Airport Closing

This week there was an official announcement that Armadale Co. collaborated with Cadillac Fairview for future developments for Buttonville Municipal Airport (CYKZ).
They are supposedly building a shopping centre here in several years.

The full press release can be found here

Now there are a lot of private aircraft owners that call Buttonville home, as well as Toronto Airways Limited and my alma mater, Seneca College School of Aviation and Flight Technology. Small charter and medevac operators use Buttonville as well.
I don't know if these people have started to make plans for the future as this airport comes down to a close, but they're gonna have to whether they want to or not.

This is due to the wake of the fund from the Greater Toronto Airports Authority being taken away yearly. It is a privately owned but publicly used airport and it simply cannot remain aloft without this funding. There were a few petitions from Aviation Enthusiasts and Pilots alike for the government to take charge and give Buttonville funding as it is a vital part of the economy in the GTA.

Since this is a blog, I am open to pitch my opinions and I believe this is just one of the few ways our government lacked in its motive to serve the people. Do we really need another shopping mall? People who have complaints of noise and safety knew there was an airport when they bought that house 5 minutes away. The recent incidents/accidents within the second half of this year didn't help the cause of trying to keep this airport an airport. I just feel sad because it has become my home airport where I've done many firsts. Many years from now, I will tell my kids, right by this store is where I conducted my first takeoff, by this entrance door is where I've been splashed with cold water after completing my first solo flight...and so on.

This isn't just about Buttonville, there are many airports in the world that are closing and not enough being built to replace them. Aviation is an ever growing industry and people need to understand the need for Aviation. If you don't let them know, they will never find out.

Which view is better

There’s something about love stories that we cling to. We all go through stories in movies and other media about how one person finds another and they both fall in love and live happily ever after.

But what’s more are the real stories. The one that go through sorrows and sadness and despair, the ones that we are accustomed to because we have gone through them and we feel a sort of relief learning that other people, mostly everyone, go through them as well. The stories that end in sad endings, and the ones that just make our imaginative selves want to go crazy because of dramatic irony. We all enjoy the stories even though it probably kills us inside.

It makes us think of our own little or big stories. It makes us see if we are the same or what if we are completely different. No matter the case, we feel a sort of relation with other people’s stories that we become sort of part of their story.

It’s amazing how we can dream about ourselves in third person and use some of those dreams as a deciding factor to some of our choices in life.  Sort of like the way we watch tv shows, movies, or read stories and find ourselves being played by another character in the same third person view.

Maybe that’s the problem, in life we only see things in first person but in the dream world or in fantasy or in other peoples stories, we see ourselves in other people as third person and it allows us to have a completely different perspective on almost everything. It allows us to step back and realize things we cannot comprehend in first person.

So maybe what I’m trying to say is that, when the going gets tough, we need to step back and look at ourselves from up above or down below, somewhere other than the first person view. Because in the first person view, we have lots of blind spots that we cannot take away and those blind spots can mean a complete change in direction in some things.

So step back, and when you find yourself contemplating whether you are doing the right or wrong thing, look at yourself from someone else’s perspective and maybe, just maybe you can find a fuller view of the situation rather than being obscured or skewed by the first person view.

Seneca...my school!

Check out two videos made by Seneca College about my program :)

Seneca's Simulators
Seneca's Fleet

January 1, 2010, A new decade

an excerpt from a journal I keep...

A new decade begins, a new year begins. Who knows what the past 10 years have given us, it's too much to think about and, well it's unchangeable anyways so what's the use? More importantly is to start on a good note, start fresh because a new beginning has been granted to all of us to make better of ourselves.

Today I went to St. Michaels Cathedral for the feast of Virgin Mary as well as for New Years. It was very refreshing and a great reminder for the new opportunities that are ahead of us. All we can really do is make the most of each one or at least try to. 

There's no greater loss than a missed opportunity. An opportunity to make things better, to accept things the way they truly are, to change and, most importantly, to grow.

I then proceeded to Nathan Phillips Square to go skating with friends except we miscommunicated as it was actually at Harbourfront. So Eddy and I walked down there with Tim Hortons coffee in our hands to keep us warm in the very cold winter night.

We skated for a bit and as I was skating alone, at times I'd feel a sudden rush of sadness as a sad/slow song comes on, and the many couples skating together didn't help at all. But I was with friends, some true but definitely enough to overcome the feeling that brought me down. After, we went to Shoeless Joes, and I had just a beer while others had full meals because I had already eaten at Frans near Eaton Centre. I had a char-broiled sirloin beef burger with tomatoes, lettuce, onions, pickle, cheese with fries and coke. It was definitely a filling meal to my stomach as it was to the soul as I had it with my parents and my brother as a start to the New Year.

After Shoeless Joe's, we parted and we, the Markham boys, made our way to Scarborough Town Centre where Martin had parked. We had a lot of moments to be by ourselves on the TTC and in the mall. I did a cartwheel in the empty mall, a kind of (hopefully) foreshadowing of the year ahead where I would feel like doing cartwheels as contentment enters my life again.

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Now I sit here, 2:58am of the second day of 2010, not really feeling alone nor sad even though I haven't talked to her the whole day. Maybe I could get used to it and finally move on. I think I need it more than I want and I believe that it will be something that allows me to grow.

My one goal in the years ahead is to continue to grow to become the best version of myself for me and hopefully for someone else. No one knows what turns we choose to make will define us and shape us, and we may not even be able to see what's around the corner but the beauty of it all is that we all eventually get to the finish line, and that's guaranteed. So live a little more than yesterday, the year before, the decade before, because you never know how much a little step can be a giant leap for your life.

Flying Cheap: the race to the bottom

The public has to be aware.
Next time you exit that airplane at your winter vacation, think about the pilot that greets you at the end just outside the flight deck...

Flying Cheap: This is a documentary regarding the airline industry that we have today
Watch and Share

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/flyingcheap/view/

AUTUMN

So today I went outside and took some pictures. Tomorrow I have a flight test. It looks amazing and feels amazing outside, slightly chilled but it's great! Its October and well, the days are getting shorter but my days feel longer every day. I am constantly bombarded with assignments and projects, along with the painful homework here and there. I just want to fast forward to 8 months from now and graduate!

Anyways, I am currently reading Air Transportation: A Management Perspective by John Wensveen partly for a class but it seems quite informative.

I have not much to say, take a look at a couple of my photos from today. http://www.flickr.com/photos/realitics/ for more