Trip Report - Canada / USA Including Boeing Tour

[Grahame Hutchison]

AC34 Sydney-Vancouver: Wed, Sep 19 2012

Today was my birthday, so apart from celebrating this morning, I would celebrate it again when we arrived in Vancouver. Two Birthdays this year because we crossed the International Date Line.

Check-in, customs and security all quite reasonable time wise.
Coffee and Banana Bread in the cafe near the Gate 58.
Aircraft operating the service was Boeing 777-200LR C-FIUA

Boarding was just a few minutes late, seats 32DEG are quite good, third row in the centre section of the rear cabin. Just forward on the left and right are the emergency exits, so the first row is missing on each side gives a feeling of plenty of room. Three seats in the middle is quite good as there is easy entry and exit from the aisle seats. Leg room is quite reasonable, even for me at 6ft plus tall. The entertainment box under the DE seats in front does not really get in the way (each row is the same throughout)

1030 Pushback from Gate 58
Taxi via Alpha to the Alpha 1 holding point Runway 16R, and third in the queue for departure
1055 Rolling Runway 16R with a 50 second takeoff roll – plenty of fuel for the 14hr+ flight.
Slight right then left after takeoff, then left and heading out to sea
1120 Heading 027
Inflight entertainment system not working in many rows so they finally decided to reboot the entire system, about 15-20 minutes for the restart.
1150 31000ft Heading 014 at 608mph and -52.6F and the mood lighting changed from sunset to green for meal service.
1210 Dinner service was Beef with Mashed Potato, Brocolli and Carrots, Bread Roll, Friut and Cake.
1255 Movie - Safe
1442 Blue mood lighting 33000ft Heading 020 and -38.22F 1901miles down 5475 miles to go.
1705 Blue mood lighting 33500ft at 560mph and Heading 030. Outside -38.2F 3337 with miles down 4049 miles to run. Roughly half way between Fiji and Hawaii
2309 37000ft Heading 020 at 575mph and -50.8F with 6751miles down 674 miles to run. Estimated arrival time in Vancouver 0738L
2318 Breakfast service started.
Touchdown Runway 26R and Taxi to Gate 51

You clear immigration in Vancouver, collect your checked luggage, and take it to a drop off area for the next sector. Because of all the delays, we basically walked back around to Gate 51 and boarded the aircraft.

AC34 Vancouver –Toronto

0911 Pushback from Gate 51
0928 Rolling Runway 26L with a 35 second takeoff roll.
0941 33500ft Heading 070 at 539mph and -63.4F with 97 miles down and 2003 miles to run.
Estimated arrival time is 1641Toronto time.
There was cloud cover for almost all the flight, so no opportunity to view the Canadian Rockies and the Great Lakes
At the meal service, two flight attendants were having a disagreement about whether we should receive free food, or had to pay. Once you go from International to a domestic sector, all food must be paid for except for a soft drink, juice and pretzels.
Touchdown at Pearson International in Toronto on Runway 15L on time.

Activities In Toronto / Oshawa
We had a great week in Toronto / Oshawa with family, including a long weekend on Lake Crowe, about 2 hours north. Walking, canoeing, marshmallows over an open fire in the evening. Bass boats and the sound of duck hunters in the morning. Also visited the CN Tower in Toronto, and drove down to Niagara Falls and Niagara On The Lake.

The Toronto City Airport - Mainly Dash 8s operate from here.


The CN Tower, the tallest in the world until 8 years ago. The external lifts have glass panels in the floor, and there are
large glass floor panels on the floor of the observation deck.


Niagara Falls, an amazing volume of water goes over the Horseshoe Falls.


AC716 Toronto - New York La Guardia: Wed, Sep 26 2012

Pearson International Terminal 1 check-in was at a traditional counter, however you then took your bags with you down to the next level to a drop off point. US bound flights do the complete immigration process in Toronto, which included scans of four fingers on the right hand, then right thumb, followed by the same process for the left hand. A quick photograph and we were good to go.

Once through security it was a long walk around to Gate F53.
Boarding was at 1440 and departure scheduled for 1515 but just a little late.
Seat allocation on the E190 was 20CDF, and the aircraft was less than half full, quite surprising. Row 20 is at the rear side of the wing and the view of the ground is slightly backwards. Even at 186cm, the leg room in the Embraer 190 is quite good, and the overhead lockers were a reasonable size for the aircraft.
The inflight entertainment system looks exactly the same as the AC B777, and content much the same also.

An Air Canada E170 C-FEJD at the Gate.


Looking back at Pearson International Terminal 1 with Sunwing 737-8BK C-FTJH at the Gate.




Air Canada Jazz Dash 8 taxiing for departure.


Climbing out we were very quickly into cloud that persisted all the way down to New York. Only on the latter stages of our approach did we come out of cloud. We executed a very winding approach, initially out over Long Island. We touched down on the over water section of Runway 22 at La Guearid, and we're greeted by many fire tenders and airport security vehicles. We later found out there was another aircraft with problems.
Because all the US Immigration was done in Toronto, we walked straight out of the Terminal B Gate area and down to the Baggage Claim. The bags came through quickly, a quick call to Dial 7 and our Town Car was out in the drop off area ready to go. The trip into Manhattan only cost $35 plus $6.50 in tolls, quite reasonable I thought. We were dropped off right outside our hotel on 7th Avenue, directly across from the Penn Street Station.

Overall, quite impressed with my first ride on the Embraer 190

Activities In New York
In New York we visited Ground Zero, where the new memorials are now open, and Tower One is almost complete. There will be four towers on the site, with Tower One being around 1800ft high, compared to 1300ft for the old Twin Towers. Onto Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, Century 21 shopping and a show on Broadway. We had some rain on the second day, but still managed a walk around Central Park, a visit to the Apple Store in the Big Apple, and Time Square. Because we had a 8am flight out of Newark, we shifted hotels to the Newark Airport Hilton the evening before. We took the Newark train from Penn Street station, and then switched to the Airtrain for a short ride to Carpark P4, where we were picked up by the Hilton shuttle Bus.

The 9/11 South Tower Memorial - very moving to stand there and think about what happened.


All the names from Flight 77.


All the names from Flight 93.


All the names from the Pentagon


The new World Trade Centre Tower 1


The Lady herself.