Around the World - Leg 1: Toronto to Halifax on the East Coast

So the first leg, was a mid-range hop from Toronto Pearson (CYYZ) to Halifax (CYHZ) which is around 734 nautical miles. Using a cruise speed of mach .74 and at FL350 the CRJ700 makes this trip in just over 2 hours, we carried 52 passengers on this leg and left at 23:30 zulu.

Toronto, Lester B. Pearson International Airport (CYYZ) is the busiest airport in Canada, serving ten's of millions of passengers during a normal year. The airport is named after the 14th Prime Minister of Canada, who notably won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his work on the Suez Canal Crisis. CYYZ has 5 runways, and our flight was leaving using runway 05 via the DEDKI departure. Toronto is serviced on VATSIM by the excellent Toronto FIR. I'd highly recommend a trip this way if you have a chance, you'll find both professional and courteous ATC.

Evening flight out of Toronto

Our flight was smooth and relatively uneventful, got to enjoy a wonderful sunset over some broken cloud cover as we flew east over Quebec to Nova Scotia. Halifax Stanfield International (CYHZ) is of course located in Halifax, which is the Capital of Nova Scotia. Named after the 17th Premier of Nova Scotia, Robert Stanfield, who was also leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. It is touted as being the 8th busiest airport in Canada, and on VATSIM is serviced by the Moncton/Gander FIR. It's a fantastic team of ATC, and you'll find they're super friendly, so don't be daunted if you're unfamiliar with the area, you're in good hands with these guys!

CYHZ sports 2 runways, our arrival was using ILS Runway 23. Heavy cloud cover coupled with a night landing made this a little challenging (little did I know this was setting the tone for the next couple of hops on Canada's east coast)!

We made it down safely however, and just like that, 2 hours and 10 minutes later leg 1 was complete! For leg 2, we had St John's (CYYT) planned. Stay tuned for the 2nd hop (of many)!