I had occasion to travel from Connecticut to Toronto on business with my boss and another engineer this week, BDL-LGA-YYZ, first time I've flown commercial in some time, and first time I can remember flying in such a small airliner (CRJ900). I was following along with Avare on my phone to the extent the GPS signal allowed, and several aspects of the flight surprised me, bearing in mind that my flying these days is mostly open cockpits and grass runways and IFR to me is the time honored "I follow roads".
The flight from BDL to LGA mid day on a Tuesday was quite enjoyable, it was a beautiful CAVU day. We swung rather far north of BDL before heading south toward LGA, presumably due to ATC and traffic flow? It was interesting to see that most of the flight followed victor airways, or presumably the high altitude/IFR equivalent. I would have thought with RNAV and GPS there would be less need for that nowadays?
Closer to LGA, there was a lot of turning, swinging southwest almost to EWR (incidentally providing a beautiful tour of the NYC skyline for those of us on the left side of the aircraft) before turning back east to what I assumed would be a landing on 04... but instead of lining up for 04 we went slightly farther east, and turned final for 31 only about a mile from the threshold, barely rolling out of the turn before flaring to land. I thought big planes like that always flew much longer stabilized approaches and didn't maneuver so much at low altitude (and they always have, in my experience). Or is it the fact that a CRJ900 is a relatively small airliner that makes them able to fly like that? It almost felt like a GA pattern.
The second leg, and the return flight, were unremarkable, other than the tight connection and long walk between gates at LGA on the way out (we made it by 4 minutes) and the miserable cattle pen security line experience at YYZ, which has to be the worst airport I've ever passed through.
I doubtless could've rented a C-172 or something and gotten us there faster, and would have suggested it to my boss except if Basicmed was valid in Canada.
The flight from BDL to LGA mid day on a Tuesday was quite enjoyable, it was a beautiful CAVU day. We swung rather far north of BDL before heading south toward LGA, presumably due to ATC and traffic flow? It was interesting to see that most of the flight followed victor airways, or presumably the high altitude/IFR equivalent. I would have thought with RNAV and GPS there would be less need for that nowadays?
Closer to LGA, there was a lot of turning, swinging southwest almost to EWR (incidentally providing a beautiful tour of the NYC skyline for those of us on the left side of the aircraft) before turning back east to what I assumed would be a landing on 04... but instead of lining up for 04 we went slightly farther east, and turned final for 31 only about a mile from the threshold, barely rolling out of the turn before flaring to land. I thought big planes like that always flew much longer stabilized approaches and didn't maneuver so much at low altitude (and they always have, in my experience). Or is it the fact that a CRJ900 is a relatively small airliner that makes them able to fly like that? It almost felt like a GA pattern.
The second leg, and the return flight, were unremarkable, other than the tight connection and long walk between gates at LGA on the way out (we made it by 4 minutes) and the miserable cattle pen security line experience at YYZ, which has to be the worst airport I've ever passed through.
I doubtless could've rented a C-172 or something and gotten us there faster, and would have suggested it to my boss except if Basicmed was valid in Canada.
