Montreal City Weblog

Kate 08:27 on 2022-05-29 Permalink Reply  

• Daniel D 20:37 on 2022-05-29 Permalink

  If only they could build an airport further away from the city instead. Say, at a distance as far away as somewhere like, I dunno, Mirabel

• Richard 20:03 on 2022-05-30 Permalink

  I used to do residential window cleaning between “real” jobs. Emission standards have improved since I’m sure, but doing those little detached post-war houses between the 20 and the runways was the absolute worst. Incompletely burned jet fuel would form a greasy film on the glass so thick you’d have to change out your water halfway through each job.

  To this day YUL is a base of operations for a handful of companies that service mines and communities in the north. They use 40+ year-old 737-200 combi jets because of the gravel airstrips up there. Their museum-piece engines spew pollution like mad and they can’t be upgraded because the newer, bigger, high-bypass engines would suck gravel in. If you notice an unusually loud 737 flying overhead, look for the narrow low-bypass engines and the gravel-deflector hanging off the nose wheel. Air Inuit flies most of them.

  And don’t get me started about the air pollution coming off highway 20. We had a couple of customers in one highway-side condo building that we would service four times per year. It was pure hopelessness trying to keep their windows clean.

  More about the weird antiques flying in and out of Trudeau here:

  http://www.b737.org.uk/unpavedstripkit.htm