"Jose Vivanco" writes:

I'm in the process of moving from Montreal to Ottawa and I'm looking for a
tie-down for my Cherokee 140. I will also need access to a good mechanic. So
far I've only heard about the Ottawa Flying Club. Any words of wisdon on
both subjects would be much appreciated.

I tie my Warrior II (C-FBJO) down on the grass at the Ottawa Flying
Club. It costs around CAD 65/month, plus another CAD 30/month to the
airport authority for the landing-fee charge at CYOW, so it's not
cheap compared to a country airport (you'll probably also want to buy
a CAD 150/year OFC membership as well, since it gives you free tows
and a discount on fuel and maintenance). On the other hand, CYOW and
the OFC give you lots of advantages:

1. You're parked only a few meters from the maintenance hangar, about
100 meters from the avionics shop (Canadian Airmotive), and across
the field from a good instrument shop (Woodlawn). All of them have
reasonable rates and good service.

2. You can call before a flight and have your plane fueled, or towed
over to the apron and plugged in overnight, or even thawed out in
the heated maintenance hangar.

3. When you need maintenance, they can just pull your plane in when
they need to -- you don't have to leave it at another airport for a
week or two.

4. If you come in late and want to fill the tanks, you can always fuel
up at the FBOs on the south field and then taxi back to the north
field to tie down.

5. You have a 24-hour, G.A.-friendly tower, customs, two ILS
approaches (and lots of non-precision approaches), a separate 3300 ft
GA runway, two long jet runways (when you want them), emergency
equipment on the field (just in case), and excellent snow removal for
year-round flying.

6. It's fun sharing the airport with the big jets.

I'll be happy to give you a tour the next time you're in Ottawa. My
address is dmeggin, followed by "at", followed by attglobal, followed
by "dot", followed by net.

I'll let others tell the benefits of the smaller local airports (like
CYRO, CYRP, CNP3, CYSH, and CYND), since I know them only from short
visits.


All the best,


David