Wednesday’s club meeting featured members Mark Brooks, David Cox, and Phil Lightstone, discussing recommended procedures for flying into and out of the Buttonville mandatory frequency area.

Please review the excellent slides from the meeting presentation:

Buttonville-MF-Area-Safety-Ver-4.pdf

Please also review this document discussing recommented VFR procedures at Buttonville. An equivalent IFR document is in progress.

Buttonville-MF-Procedures-Ver-6.pdf

Now that the tower has closed, Buttonville is a Mandatory Frequency area.  Our president has collected a series of useful links, which are summarized here and will be maintained in the future on the Useful Links page.

NAV CANADA announcement of Buttonville tower closure and map of new MF area (pdf)

Weather:

Call London FIS on 123.15 for weather information from the air or on ground. Their phone number is + 1 866 992 7433 ext 3 for Ontario briefing or flight plans

NAV CANADA Aviation Weather Web Site flight planning page with links to METAR information, NOTAMs, GFAs, and other useful information

METAR and LWIS

Ontario GFA

CYKZ wind and altimeter settings — this page updates the LWIS on the METAR page, and updates many times an hour

General MF area information

The Smart Pilot Video series is also useful for some reminder information on process in Mandatory Frequency areas:

Uncontrolled Aerodrome Intro — Radio and flight procedures for landing and departing Non-Tower Aerodromes using ATF and MF

Departing a Mandatory Frequency Aerodrome

Landing at a Mandatory Frequency Aerodrome

Departing an ATF Aerodrome

Landing at an ATF Aerodrome

Apps

AeroWeather Pro (IPhone/pad app) has the LWIS for Buttonville now. You may have to pay a bit extra ($5/year subscription) plus upgrade to PRO but it is useful. You access it through the settings page in AW Pro and additional features (plus subscription).

The Executive of the Buttonville Flying Club has prepared the following documents in response to the planned closure of the Buttonville Control Tower in January 2019.

Letter to Minister of Transport Marc Garneau [pdf]

Appendix A -- Buttonville AS Report -- final Received from Nav Can May 3 2018 [pdf]

Appendicies B C D and sign off v1 [pdf]

On Wednesday November 14 it will be time once again for our Annual General Meeting and elections. We hope you can make it to the meeting, but if you cannot, we are making our proxy form available online, until the meeting begins at 7pm. You will need to be logged in to fill out the proxy form — please contact the webmaster if you have trouble logging in and we will be happy to help.

Voting has ended — thank you!!

The new Exec is as follows:

• President and Chair of the Board: David Sprague
• Treasurer and Board Director: Gordon Roberts
• Secretary and Board Director: Michael Templeton
• Membership Director and Board Director: Simon Lam
• Directors of Operations: Joe DeCaria and Massood Ghahremani
• Director of Flyouts and Activities: Charles Barnes
• Webmaster: Erica Peterson
• Online Content Manager: Claude Pio

The Commanding Officer of the Markham Cadet Flying Site asks that we make our members aware of the following information, to reduce potential conflicts in the vicinity of Buttonville, Markham, and the Claremont practice area:

Operating near Claremont, Markham or Buttonville?

The Air Cadet League of Canada operates 8 Gliding Centres from various small airports across Ontario each Spring and Fall.  The Markham Cadet Flying Site (Markham CFS) operates from Markham Airport (6.5NM NE of Buttonville) and would like to make you aware of our presence.  A recent review has identified traffic conflicts occurring at an increasing rate. The most alarming were aircraft that blundered through the circuit area, unannounced, at circuit altitude operating to/from Buttonville or the Claremont Training Area.

Quick Facts

• Markham CFS operates from April through mid-June and late August through mid-November
• Operations occur only on:
  • Weekends and holidays during Day VFR between 0800 and sunset, and
  • Occasional Friday afternoons during Day VFR until sunset
• All active operations are advertised by NOTAM and are included in the Buttonville ATIS
• The tow aircraft and up to 2 gliders will only be found in the red box bounded by:
  • Markham airport runway 09/27 centre line and the town of Stouffville
  • McCowan Road and 10th Line
• All operations are conducted from the surface to 3,500’ ASL
• Glider and tow aircraft continuously monitor and transmit on VHF 122.8
• The tow aircraft uses TCAS technology and will detect aircraft operating a transponder
• Markham Unicom or “Glider Ground” will provide GTGC operational status on VHF 122.8
• During active operations, the tow aircraft and gliders remain in the north circuit–all other powered traffic remains in the southern circuit.  Circuit joining via overhead is not authorized.
• Markham is a PPR (Prior Permission Required) airport. Permission must be obtained from the airport operator by phone as per the CFS.

As of Thursday July 19, the Buttonville control tower is operating between 0800 and 2000 local time (EDT/EST).  This is a reduction from the previous hours (0800 – 2300).  While the tower is closed, the airspace is MF uncontrolled.

The ARCAL system is now operational on 124.8 — 5 clicks to engage, 3 clicks to disengage.  The timer is 30 minutes, and at this time only the maximum lighting intensity is available.

Update:

The ARCAL at the airport has been adjusted to give you 2 different intensities. 

Now 3 clicks on the microphone will activate the medium lighting for both runways. 

Now 7 clicks will activate the high intensity lighting for both Runways.

The original 5 clicks will no longer work.

The lights will then time out after 30 minutes.

As a refresher, please review the Transport Canada one-page pdfs on uncontrolled airspace operations:

VFR Circuit Procedures at Uncontrolled Aerodromes

IFR Procedures at Uncontrolled Aerodromes

VFR Communications Procedures at Uncontrolled Aerodromes With MF and ATF Areas