On the first day of 2010, I went to Pearson Airport (CYYZ) to catch some arrivals. Before leaving, I checked the winds and saw that they were favouring runways 24L/R and 23. I thought that would be great because we could film them from the Wendy’s parking lot, a famous spotting location at Pearson. We also were expecting the Emirates A380 at 2:50pm. When we were passing the airport at about 2:00pm, we saw the A380 sitting at the gate. That meant it would have arrived about an hour early! We set up in front of runway 23, but noticed that any aircraft moving around on the ground were arrivals, and they certainly hadn’t landed on 23 or the 24’s. We noticed the windsock had changed direction, facing almost Southerly. That meant runways 33L/R. Because my dad was a pilot, he had admission to the roads within the airport, so we drove around behind 33L/R and set up next to 33L. The lights were not on at the time, but there were vehicles driving up the runway, and it looked as if they were preparing to open the runway for arrivals. If that was the case, almost all arrivals, if not all, would be using 33L. That was a bonus. I remembered the spotting location from the take your kids to work day back in grade 9. It was a perfect location. right next to the runway, with just a chain fence that wasnt really in the way all too much. We had driven back around to try and catch arrivals on 33R for the meantime. The first of those arrivals was an Air Canada Airbus A330. I caught it on film …
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Northwest was parking their plane as the air space was to be cleared 15 minutes prior to Air Force One arriving in December 2008. The three vehicles seen sprinting down the taxiway are an HIA vehicle (yellow) and two Secret Service vehicles (black & tan). They are visually making sure all possible obstructions are cleared from the runway, taxiway, etc.
