Plane Spotting & New Glasses

I phone the optician this morning to see if my new glasses were ready. They were so I headed down to Rockland to pick them. I have to say I'm pretty pleases with them. They have a top rim and are more rectangular. They also have the Transition lenses that darken in the sun which so far I have to say I love!. I went outside to the car and immediately they turned into sunglasses... since I rarely wear sunglasses this is perfect for me. Anything will help. They go back to normal quite fast once you go inside. I can't see them being any good for Sheila though since she like really dark glasses. She's paranoid of everything so UV rays and Glocoma are just sitting there waiting to attack her... in the car the tinting wouldn't be enough for her. For me they are perfect :) I'm really pleased.

I then headed out to Fairview Pointe-Claire and mulled around the shopping mall. I bought nothing. I've decided to wait until later... get a list of what I really need and do it slowly over the next few months. I desperately need classic clothing... a leather jacket, good brown shoes, casual black shoes, a Polo shirt or two, a quality T-Shirt or two, more pants... things that don't go out of style next season.

From there I went over to the airport to do some more spotting. Mark suggested getting together but never said what time or where so I took a chance he might show up... but he didn't. He probably went this evening but I was pretty tired and had seen several new things so left pretty satisfied. Youri dropped by and so did Vince, two guys from the YULAviation board. Both are them were really nice to talk to.

Since I've posted a lot of pics of the same planes I'll try and post new ones or variants of ones I've posted before.

Air Labrador's Dash-8 came in. I rarely see this plane. Dash-8s are hardly anything to get excited about but the deep blue colour of their livery is quite stunning.


Now, I saw a United Express Embraer 170 approach the runway but he seemed kinda high. Suddenly he powered up and aborted the landing.... flew over the runway and off to the north..


He came back about 10-15 minutes later and made a successful landing. I don't know what happened or why it was aborted but it was unusual.


Another plane I rarely see landing... Air Transat's massive A330-300




Air France sent in it's 777-300, one of three daily flights from Paris for the French National Airline.











Mexicana flew in this tiny A318... a very rare plane in this corner of the world. Kinda cute actually and in new colours.



The Czech nation airline Czech Airlines's A310 landed from Prague;






My favorite, Swiss Air Lines' A330-200 came in from Zurich;


Air Canada's Star Alliance 767-300 arrived from Frankfurt. It's another rare spotting for me;








Another favorite, KLM's MD11 arrived from Amsterdam Schiphol;






Now the highlight of the afternoon... Corsair's 747-300 came in from Paris. Over 500 passengers on this plane, a charter flight. It would later fly back to Paris via Moncton New Brunswick of all places. Nice plane though, 747s are increasingly rare.













Several Air Transat A310s landed... this one as the Mexicana A318 was leaving for Mexico City. It had a very short turn around;













All in all pretty good. Sata also had an A310 that headed back to Portugal when I arrived and Miami Air flew in a 737, both planes left from 24L so my pics were not very clear. This summer has been quite active with lots of flights and very few lulls in arrivals or departures. The airport must be having an excellent year. It sure works well for us spotters