“an aeroplane. I am an aeroplane. right up in the sky. ever so high.” – Frances Ng As Samuel Tong, Triumph in the Skies, TVB HK.

Ever since I first saw the Hong Kong television drama Triumph in the Skies, I started to take an interest in the aviation industry. I never was really fascinated by airplanes prior to this show because my special skills have always been computers, whether it is programming them or resolving issues with them. When the main characters of the Triumph in the Skies shown me what the best of aviation industry standards should be, I became a fan. Nowadays, when I fly, I always observe the routine tasks the everyone in the industry perform to ensure the passenger’s safety. This conference at Fanshawe actually gave me a chance to walk into the hangar and see some of the parts that were normally off limits to passengers. I was so excited when I found out about this event!

From what I can gather, Fanshawe College have purchased the old Air Canada Jazz Hangar at the London Airport. This directly benefits the students in the aviation maintenance program at Fanshawe, especially with the landing strip just outside of their classroom and real life situations which mimics their future job locations.

As a person who immigrated to Canada, flying is not new to me. However, I have never ever spend so much time in the hangar as I did this time. Our gala for that evening was actually hosted in the hangar! Surrounded by partially assembled planes while in-service planes are taking off and landing just outside the door!

I couldn’t resist stepping outside to take a nice panoramic shot of the entire runway. A friend of mine landed and took off here not too longer ago, she had to fly to London for emergency family reasons.

Inside the Hangar, there were planes on display.

 

 

There were also fully assembled plane used for photoshoot for the event.

I was more interested in the turbines, as normally I would stick my hands or head near an active jet turbine at the airport to examine it.

 

There were also planes parked outside the sheltered area. These seems to be displays and everything is locked in place.

 

This is feeling like a chance of a life time for someone like me, who will hardly ever go near the airplane hangar.