Snowbirds - Up Close and Personal

[Guest mstram]

Mon September 4 - 2006On the holiday Monday weekend I decided to go for a little bike ride over to CYYZ (Toronto International Airport), as the Toronto AirShow was going on and I wanted to see the mil jets "up close and personal". I live adjacent (about 1 mile from CYZD (Downsview) and about 7nm from CYYZ. It was a nice sunny/cool day, and with most of the ride being downhill to the airport, it wasn't that difficult a ride. .. Except I had a headwind of ~10-15 kts the whole way !Well about an hour or so later, I finally arrived at the Dixon Road / Highway 27 bridge, which is situated about 1 nm right in line with rwy 06L. I stopped for a breather, and flipped on my scanner to hear what was going on. A couple of minutes later I heard Tower talking to the Snowbirds leader. The gist of the conversation was that the 'Birds would do an immediate turn after takeoff to a heading of 200 deg,and Tower requested that they keep the "turn tight". The Snowbird leader asked if a turn at 300' AGL would be ok and Tower said it was fine with him.Tower cleared the 'Birds into takeoff position, then cleared them for takeoff.From my vantage point on the bridge I could see their landing lights on the end of the rwy, and could see them begin to roll. Their takeoff / rotation was blocked by some intervening buildings however.I was peering intently at the region of sky where I anticipated them to appear for the "tight turn", which I thought would be probably within about a 1/4 mile of the end of the rwy. 15 or 20 seconds passed and I still didn't see anything until suddenly I heard the unmistakable sound of the approaching jets. To my astonishment, all 9 of them were only about 200-250 AGL and headed right towards me !I fumbled with my camera and fired off as many pictures as I could while alternately trying to keep track of them. Just after passing the bridge, they broke hard right and banked at ~70-80 degrees all flying off in a curving trail to the south.AWESOME !!!!!MikeThe pictures are here:http://putfile.com/mstram/images/14444The quality is not that great. In the first few pictures you can see the 'birds just "under" the hydro lines from my perspective, as they get closer, they appear to climb above the wires.Dixon Road / Highway 27 Bridge 43

[dfish 1]

Mike, thats quite a bike ride from North York to Dixon/Hwy 27. I'm out at Mavis/403 and heard the rumble all weekend.Dave FisherCYYZP4 Prescott 3.2e 478p 800mhz 1mg CPUP4P800SE Asus Motherboard2.5 gig PC3200 DDR RAM 400MHZGeforce Ti 4200/128Maxtor 80 Gig ATA 133 HD x2WDC WD800 80 Gig HDhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpghttp://fs2crew.com/linepilot.jpghttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannersupporter.jpg

[Guest Kingair315]

Brings back memories of when I was 15-17 riding a bicycle in MA. No distance or weather ever stopped me from going where I really wanted to go. Once rode from Dorchester to Westover AFB to go to an Airshow in 1946. Used to even ride the bike in the winter. Cut up a piece of dog chain, and wired the pieces around the tire to the spokes to get traction in snow and ice... Worked all winter long for Western Union delivering telegrams. Got great tips from customers when ringing their doorbell, covered with snow in Bostons blizzards. :-)