YMX reminiscences

[Rollingthunder]

Glad to see Mirabel is being used for something, that great white elephant.

[BeechNut]

No longer an active control tower at YMX. Downgraded to Class E zone, 119.1 rdo mandatory frequency, RWY 11-29 closed.

Not only a white elephant, very nearly a dead elephant!

[ScudRunner08]

Anyone else throw up a little when they named YUL "Pierre Elliot Trudeau" International when he was the one responsible for YMX?

[CaptW5]

I found that very ironic as well! He wanted to shut down YUL.

[ScudRunner08]

lol had not heard he tried to do that! (im young) that just makes it all the better

The one that really got me pissed off was trying to rename Mt Logan (Canada's Highest Peak 19551 ft or 5959m) Mt Trudeau, There's thousands of unnamed mountains in this country pick one in a region he didn't screw over or give the finger to.
Not many know that Logan was the Surveyor General of Canada and is responsible for mapping most of western Canada, don't take an honour away from a guy who I believe deserves it. I use to do tours up there and people would ask "isn't it called Mt Trudeau now?" So the plane ride would turn into a spectacular tour of Kluane National Park and a lesson in sources and trends of Western Canadian Alienation.

Another one is the Saskatoon Airport being named after Diefenbaker, probably the one guy who caused the most harm to Canadian Aviation and he gets an Airport named after him only in Canada

[sec 3]

At least those guys had some character, unlike the dip!!!! that runs your country today

[punkalouver]

Not many uncontrolled airports with a Cat II ILS. Anybody know of another one?

[Otterman]

Flew into there a lot from latter part of the eighties until the switch to Dorval (on a Boeing 747-200/300). I always thought the greatest job in aviation was manning the apron frequency at Mirabel. Could phone that one in from home. Must have been quite a shock for those people to go to an airport with actual traffic.

[Pilot DAR]

I once (when YMX was "busy") had to fly a part up for one of our stranded DC-8's from YYZ, in my buddy's C182. It was the middle of the night when I arrived, in the dead of winter, and the wind was wailing. I asked "ground" where I could tie down. There was a long pause...... He eventually came back and said that there were no tiedowns, so I should just look around for a place I liked, to leave it for the rest of the night. I taxiied around... I took a long shot: Could I park it up tight to the terminal, under a gate? "Yup, that'd be fine!" So there it sat until the next morning, looking very out of place! That teminal was never actually "busy".

I havn't been there for decades, I bet there's parking anywhere you want now...

Pilot DAR

[BeechNut]

Back in '99, when the terminal was still open but only for charter traffic, a bunch of us, 16 in fact, in 8 aircraft (4 Cherokees, a 172, a 150 and a Lake Bucanneer), flew into Mirabel, had breakfast at the (still open) hotel, and flew home. As we all departed at the same time, security fired up a PTV to haul us out to our aircraft!!! One pilots felt guilty about using "taxpayer's money" to use a PTV but I said that heck, since we taxpayers sunk in a bunch of money for this white elephant, it was payback time and we may as well enjoy the PTV ride.

The funniest part of the trip though, was the poor ATC tower controller, trying to figure out how to handle 8 aircraft at the same time... probably more traffic than he'd seen in years. And all those Cherokees (I owned a Cherokee at the time), three of 'em blue and white, and having to use call letters instead of flight numbers. At one point he gave me hell for taxying without clearance (he was doing both ground and tower so little traffic there was), but I had just started my engine and hadn't moved yet.

It was a hoot. Since we were all used to flying at uncontrolled fields with way more "traffic" (movements) than Mirabel, we all managed to stay out of each other's way and the poor controller was relieved to get us out of his hair so he could go back to reading the sports pages until the next movement in 4 hours or so

Beech

[Jumbo744]

I'm going there to make a few touch and go's in the next days.
I am surprised that no flight school has ever thought of moving to YMX? it has great installations, and much less traffic than YHU where there is already 4-5 schools.

[BeechNut]

Cripes in most GA aircraft you could probably manage about 4 touch and goes off one approach

[Rockhound]

Scud,
William E Logan was not Canada's Surveyor General. He was the first director of the Geological Survey of Canada, which was founded in 1842 and is the country's oldest scientific institution.
Rockhound

Forgot to add that Logan never worked in western Canada but conducted much of the earliest geological surveying in eastern Canada.