Aviation in Ontario

[PL1]

Juan Browne (current B777 pilot, ex military) has a good explanation of the NTSB preliminary report on his Blancolirio YouTube channel. He has excellent content generally.

 

[Tim MacDonald]

Well this is interesting. Where are these judges when it comes to the guns, auto thefts, and other serious crimes?

 

[Tim MacDonald]

Well, this is far from its usual home. Whatcha testing?

 

[TwinHuey]

Could be ice testing Tim.

Back in 2008 I visited Agusta’s icing trials for the A139 in Muskegon, Michigan — their engineers even travelled from Italy for the program.

They used a Chinook spraying water up front, though I'm pretty sure a Chinook would be too slow for an A321 to follow.

The leeward side of Lake Huron can offer similar icing conditions, and the shoreline loops fit repeated test-run profiles.

Or maybe it’s related to the recent software update that grounded parts of the fleet — hard to say, but something is clearly being evaluated.

 

[Tim MacDonald]

That could be. I remember during the American Eagle ATR icing induced crash in Roselawn, Indiana (October 31, 1994) investigation a KC-135 tanker was used to simulate icing conditions and how the deice boots handled it. There are some manufacturers in southwestern Ontario (Diamond Aircraft has their assembly plant at YXU) so maybe something is being outfitted or they need a specific type of weather in order to complete testing.

 

[Tim MacDonald]

Good luck to anyone flying out of YYZ today. Lots of deicing delays and gate holds. Emirates has been waiting for over an hour for their gate. So close, yet so far!

 

[TwinHuey]

Delivery by drone.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/29/business/video/drone-delivery-zipline-muntean-pkg-digvid

 

[Tim MacDonald]

Porter's 51st E295 is two hours away from YYZ on the delivery flight. The madness continues. Pay no attention to the photo as FR24 pulls the photo by reg rather than SN.

 

[Tim MacDonald]

This has been fun to listen to.

This guy here landed from Daytona beach with six pax and was on the way to skyservice when they couldn't see the edge and dropped a main gear and nose gear off the pavement. It's a real mess out there!

 

[Tim MacDonald]

And that's the end of the trijet era at UPS. It was announced today the MD11 fleet will retire with immediate effect.

Can a FedEx announcement be far behind?

 

[PL1]

And that's the end of the trijet era at UPS. It was announced today the MD11 fleet will retire with immediate effect.

Can a FedEx announcement be far behind?

Probably not... Unless the repair (which afaik they have not yet announced) is easy, which I rather expect it's not

 

[Tim MacDonald]

Perhaps we will see the airframe at vista cargo recycled at YYZ.

 

[JJTheJetPln]

I grew very fond of the KLM MD11's that used to fly here in 2013/2014. The spacious cockpit was absolutely incredible to me.

It's a shame that all good things must come to an end, but it's also understandable given how long theyve been flying for.

I'd love to see them use some of the frames for firefighter training. I know they have a section in the airport where they actually light things on fire to simulate a lot of their exercises.

 

[PL1]

And that's the end of the trijet era at UPS. It was announced today the MD11 fleet will retire with immediate effect.

Can a FedEx announcement be far behind?

FedEx has announced that they intend to return the MD-11s to service by May 31. They are apparently working with Boeing and the FAA on this ..

 

[Tim MacDonald]

FedEx has announced that they intend to return the MD-11s to service by May 31. They are apparently working with Boeing and the FAA on this ..

Interesting. For a fleet of only 21 active frames prior to the crash, I find it unlikely those wings will ever bite air again. Watch the next quarterly results carefully for indications this will quietly go away.