YYZ Plane Spotting

Fun: Plan spotting

Learn: Aviation, Math

There are a lot of fun watching planes taking off and landing. Fortunately, Halton is not far from the Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ). Here are two popular plane spotting locations.

Danville Park in Mississauga. Address: 6525 Danville Rd, Mississauga, ON L5T 2H7
Tim Hortons at Airport Road. Address: 6767 Airport Rd, Mississauga, ON L4V 1E6

Danville Park's lookout is 25 meters above the surrounding area. It is just 6 km far from the YYZ Runway 33R. A great place to see the landing.

Airport Road is at the end of Runway 05. Grab some drinks and see planes just taking off from a very close distance. Hope you can see some large aircraft.

What does the runway number mean?

Airport runways are numbered according to compass bearings of the plane heading direction, rounded to their closest 10 degrees, and drop their last digit 0. This means runway numbers are based on the compass with 360 representing north, 90 representing east, 180 representing south, and 270 representing west. Runways are numbered between 01 (010 degrees, 10 degrees East of North) and 36 (360 degrees, North).

Do you know most runways have 2 numbers representing the bidirectional? Even some one-way runways are also numbered for directions.

(Source of the YYZ runway map: GTAA)

A little more details about the runway name

Toronto Pearson Airport has 5 runways. There are two parallel runways both heading 330 degrees (Runway 33, in green). They are called 33L (left) and 33R (Right). The runway name is printed at the landing end indicating the approach direction. The marking is 60 to 63 feet tall, so the pilot can clearly see the runway the aircraft will be landing.

If an aircraft is heading in the opposite direction (in purple), It is 150 degrees from north, so the runway is called Runway 15.

See the 33L/33R and 15L/215R in the runway map and identify the approaching direction.

Question

Can you find Runway 05 in the above YYZ runway map?
How do you differentiate a plane is a Boeing or an Airbus aircraft? Do your research and welcome to send me your answer.

Photo: Xin Yi Zhang

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