A Flight Simulator Odyssey

by Charles Gulick

The CN Tower, Toronto

Chart: Detroit
Title: CN TOWER TORONTO
En Route Coordinates:
   Aircraft: N18150, E19193
   Tower: N18112.815, E19204.128
Altitude:
   Aircraft: 1700
   Tower: 250
Heading: 173
Time: Daylight

Like many features in the simulator, that tower far ahead of you is sometimes fragmented as you approach it. It seems to construct and unconstruct itself regularly. But when you get closer, you'll see it's indeed substantial, as well as unusual.

This is the CN Tower in Toronto, the world's tallest free-standing structure, soaring 1815 feet high. Obviously, it's the place to be for views of Toronto. It also features a revolving restaurant, and your altitude puts you exactly at dining level, so you'll have excellent views of the bubble out the left side as you fly by.

The graphic at the outset, or at any stage of this pass, also underscores a fact worth remembering: If you're flying straight and level, you are at the altitude of any nearby vertical structure that is at the same eye-level as the horizon. Note that the bubble splits the horizon. Throughout your flight, it will be at your eye-level for ideal out-the-window viewing. Your knowledge of this horizon-sighting technique will be useful when you're flying in mountainous areas, wondering whether or not you can clear the next ridge. In other words, if a mountaintop or a building or whatever is below your visual horizon, you'll clear it. But you must be flying level (not climbing or descending) for this sighting technique to work.

Continue on to Toronto Island Airport, just ahead, and put the airplane down on Runway 15. Field elevation is 253 feet.

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