Airport Camping, Yosemite and Catalina Island (Airport in the Sky)

Open-cockpit aerobatic planes

Next up for me was another overnight trip to the north this time. The first destination for a lunch stop was Camarillo - the Waypoint cafe here had been recommended by pretty one everyone I'd spoken to about flying in the region, so expectations were high, and I was glad not to be disappointed by the fresh BBQ cooked Tri-tip sandwich. There were a couple of aerobatic planes pulling some manoeuvres around the airport and some open-cockpit planes on the tarmac as well.

Home for the evening

Camarillo Cafe

500ft above the water after takeoff from Oceano

After lunch I continued north along the coast, past Santa Barbara, before descending into the uncontrolled Oceano Airport. The runway here is the shortest I've landed on in the US, at 2325' still well within the performance criteria of the C172. Even with an extended float due to needing to add power after a bit of wind shear on short final, I was still down and slow enough for the second turnoff the runway. After parking up and tying down the aircraft, I checked out the campsite (basically a field just next to the runway), set up my tent, and made my way down to the beach on the free bikes available there.

"Tunnel View" at Yosemite 

 After a very wet and uncomfortable night's "sleep", I was up at first light and after a quick breakfast and refuelling, I was in the air, just after 8, headed for Yosemite. I had planned to land at Mariposa-Yosemite, which is the closest airport to the parks entrance about an hour's bus ride from the valley floor. As I got closer though, the scattered clouds turned into broken clouds, and the bases dropped to around 3000ft. As the airport elevation is 2250 ft and is surrounded by higher peaks, I decided not to risk an approach there, potentially into cloud. I diverted towards Merced Regional, about 40 miles away, and once on the ground was able to organise a hire car for a day ($40) and drove the 90 minutes up to Yosemite National Park.

The views in the valley were great, and I was disappointed that the weather precluded flying over, as I imagine the views from above are spectacular. As they'd recently had snowfall a few of the higher passes were closed, so in the limited time I had I was only able to visit a few of the viewpoints and take a short walk, before driving back down out of the valley to my hotel in Mariposa.

 The following day, I returned to Merced airport and started the long flight back to Long Beach. With quite strong headwinds, it took two and a half hours to get back, with the last 45 minutes particularly bumpy - a Airbus A320 descended out of the clouds 1000ft above me at my nine o'clock to avoid the worst of it, before getting a traffic warning (RA), and having to climb again out of my way - remember that next time you are cursing the turbulence, it may be one guy in a little Cessna making you stay in it a bit longer.

Catalina Airport in the Sky

Avalon

The other airport that I was desperate to visit during my time here was Catalina Island. The airport is known as the Airport in the Sky as it is on a plateau, with a 1500ft cliff drop at each end of the runway. Added to that the surrounding mountains create downdrafts and eddies as the wind spills over the edge of the runway down the cliff, and the runway itself is half 2% uphill and half slightly downhill, so when you touch down it looks like you will run out of runway before you can stop, until you get to halfway and the rest of the runway comes into view.

Catalina Island

Avalon Casino

After a checkout flight to the island with an instructor, and a return to the mainland to drop her off, I jumped in for a solo run there, with such a strong headwind, that I was only doing less than 40kts groundspeed on touchdown, and stopped almost immediately. After a night in Avalon, enjoying the island life, I returned today, in similar conditions, getting a video of a Cessna Caravan landing just before I left. As there were fairly strong and blustery crosswinds back at Long Beach, I took the opportunity of practising some circuits, to improve my crosswind landings.

Looking over the breezy runway

Ready for Long Beach Grand Prix

Full motion simulator

On Tuesday I was due to fly down to Palomar to take up the offer of a tour of the simulator facility there. Unfortunately the weather was awful with low cloud all along the hills, but as it was too good an offer to pass up, I decided to drive instead. The simulator was amazing – the owner there gave me a full tour of the facility showing me the 4 simulators (2 fixed, 2 full motion), as well as all their classrooms and technical facilities, before letting me loose on the simulator itself. It is an FAA and Cessna certified Citation CJ3 simulator, and is so accurate, you can even feel the rumble of the nose wheel going over the runway centre-line lights! I took off from Memphis with a 600ft cloud base and climbed like a rocket to 5000 feet (it only took about 90 seconds compared with about 7-10 minutes in my C172, and the last 1000feet were done with the engines at idle). 

Once at altitude I kept the nose up to slow and induce a stall, ignoring the stick shaker (a pre-warning of approaching stall) and fighting the downforce until the nose dropped, at which point I put in full power and pushed the stick forward – which felt my stomach in my mouth, like the drop of a rollercoaster! We did a circuit of the airfield before joining for an ILS (instrument landing system) approach where the cloud base was just 200ft with heavy snow. After letting the autopilot fly the approach to minimum descent altitude, I disengaged it to land myself, with only a gentle bump – an amazing experience.

In the evening, I headed over to the Staples Center to watch the Lakers take on (and beat) the New York Knicks.

Overnight Trip - Grand Canyon and Vegas - unbelievable views!

Finally on Wednesday I had a chance to take the aircraft overnight for a couple of days, which gave me the option of getting a bit further afield. First choice, naturally was Las Vegas – about a 2 ½ hour flight from Long Beach. The weather forecast was fair, with strong (30kt) tail winds which would have got me there about 20 minutes quicker, There was a broken layer of cloud in the basin, but I got above it through the gaps, only having to change course once, to fly around one big cloud, and before long I was at 11,500 feet – although only for a short while, as oxygen is required when flying at that altitude for more than 30 minutes. 

Once out of the basin, the cloud disappeared and I dropped down to 9500 feet (aircraft travel in different directions at different altitudes so 001-179 at odd+500ft, and 180-359 at even+500ft). As I passed Palm Springs, the air got very turbulent, in the up and down draughts of the air over the mountains. For a while I was thrown around a fair bit, and climbed back over 10000 feet to avoid the worst of it. I could hear pilots of all size aircrafts, trying and failing to land at Palm Springs and having to divert with 35kt crosswinds at the airport there. Once out of the mountain and over the high desert, things calmed down a bit, and with such a strong tailwind, I was averaging 150kt ground speed. The latest weather at my destination airport (Henderson – KHND) was showing a 25 gusting 35 knot crosswind on their only runway, so I planned to divert to North Las Vegas (KVGT) or McCarran (KLAS) both of which had a second into wind runway. Unfortunately, the weather was not on my side as the visibility dropped down with the combination of hazy cloud and a dust storm caused by the strong winds over the sandy desert, so about 50 miles from my destination, I had to divert away from the Las Vegas area.

I headed towards Lake Havasu where I'd heard there were some decent hotels and interesting things to do (nothing to do with Spring Break of course!), but talking to another aircraft who had just landed there, he said it was incredibly tricky and gusty with strong crosswinds. At this stage my priority was to get down on the ground safely and wait out the worst of the wind, so I looked on my app for the nearest airfield that had a reasonable length into wind runway – as the wind was unusual, this proved difficult but I found an airfield called Needles with two good length runways each one around 30degrees from the reported wind. I made my first approach on runway 29 (reported wind 250/25G35), but got blown around during the flare, so went around and tried again for runway 20. Whether the wind had just dropped by this time, or had backed to be more in line with the runway I'm not sure, but it was a remarkably smooth landing with just 2 stages of flaps and a faster approach speed. The flight had taken me over 3 hours and I was exhausted from fighting the aircraft for such a long time. I went into the flight school/cafe there, grabbed some food and rested whilst waiting for the wind to die down. A couple of hours later, things seemed to have eased a little bit, and with no options of accommodation in Needles, full tanks of fuel and the option of returning to Long Beach if needs be, I took off again to aim for Vegas a second time. Still no luck, with the visibility much worse than forecast, I diverted again, this time to Laughlin/Bullhead, which had been recommended as a smaller version of Vegas by my instructor in Long Beach. The winds were still strong here, probably 16kts crosswind, so I was very happy with another smooth (if long) landing, and relieved to be tied down on the apron a few minutes later.

While I was waiting for the hotel transfer to pick me up, another aircraft landed, with the (much more experienced) pilot also unable to get past the weather front to head north. I got a couple of other suggestions from him of places to visit - although they may have to wait for my next trip.

Runway at Sedona

Sedona airport on plateau, centre (before mountains)

After an evening at the blackjack tables and a steak dinner, I was ready for another long day of flying on Thursday. First destination was Sedona (KSEZ), so I climbed to 10500 feet to get over the mountains and turned on course. The scenery in this part of the country is spectacular and I took hundreds of pictures, eventually spotting Sedona airport in the distance. The airport is on a plateau, at 5000 feet, with surrounding mountains at 7000ft, so it is a fantastically scenic approach and a tricky, windy landing. I only had a short amount of time to grab a bit of lunch here as I wanted to get to the Grand Canyon and Vegas before dark.

Leaving Sedona, I turned north towards the Grand Canyon, overflying the town of Williams, where we stayed when we visited last year. Thankfully the weather was better this time than it was then, and after a quick refuelling stop at the Grand Canyon airport, I was back up and heading for the most spectacular view I've ever had out of an airplane window. There are some restricted corridors that you must fly at certain altitudes there to prevent any clashes with the commercial tour operators. This means climbing to 11500 feet out of the airport (6500ft) which takes a while with full fuel tanks! Once I got to the assigned altitude I headed north over the Canyon – words can't describe adequately so I'll include a load of pictures at the end, but here is a taster. I did feel a bit breathless at the altitude, so descended back towards the airfield, before turning to head towards Vegas. All the way there, the views were awesome (I'm running out of superlatives!), and just before starting my descent for Henderson, I also got a great view of the Hoover Dam and the Las Vegas Strip (from a distance).

Grand Canyon West airport

Hoover Dam

Colorado River running through the GC

Las Vegas Strip - on departure from KHND

Strange giant mirrors outside LV

LV Strip at sunset in the distance

LV Strip (not from plane!!)

G1000 time!

I had a brief morning slot with one of the aircraft today so decided to go early and grab breakfast at a nearby airfield. With a ceiling of just 1800ft, my options were limited and I took off into light haze for the short 20 minute flight to El Monte airport. There was a display day on, so I parked up on the apron next to some old warbirds, before tucking into a huge American breakfast.






During the afternoon I had a chance to get more acquainted with the G1000 system, plugging the aircraft into a GPU (Ground Power Unit), and playing around with the thousands of options, menus and submenus, and even reading the manual (I'm ashamed to admit!!). After a couple of hours playing, and having already had a checkout on the VFR flight aspects of the system with an instructor, I took a flight up over the hills and away from the hazy weather in the basin, to the high desert.

My destination was Apple Valley airport. It was one that had been recommended to me before I came out to the US, and an interesting name to add to the logbook. I tracked over the hills, following the route on the G1000 (and simultaneously on my iPad until I'm more comfortable with it), and with smooth air, had a chance to get the camera out and take a couple of shots of the scenery.

The airfield was easy to spot away from the low cloud of the valley, and although there was no tower, the "SuperAwos" system, gave me the surface wind, and I made my approach accordingly. There was no one on site, which was a bit eerie, so after a quick "check of the facilities", and 15 minutes sitting in the sun, I got ready to depart.

On the way back, the sun was just starting to set over the ocean giving me some fantastic views, and by the time I arrived at Long Beach, I was again guided in by the runway lighting.

Boneyard

British Airways Aircraft ready for return to service

After what felt like an eternity today waiting for the cloud to clear, I finally got airborne at 16:30, having planned to depart at midday. My options were still limited by surrounding cloud cover and hills, so I retraced my route of yesterday evening, up into the desert, this time heading for the Southern California Logistics Airport at Victorville. This is another airplane boneyard but rather than the planes being sent here for scrap, they are kept here for reuse when required, so most of the aircraft were in good condition, with just the engine cowlings and windscreens covered up to protect against the dust and strong sun.

 The FBO (fixed-base operator) here, also had one of the best gimmicks I've seen so far - a putting green on the apron! I did try and sink a few balls, but failed miserably, and decided to head back to base, flying over the local prison on the departure.

Victorville Prison

My tiny Cessna next to a Boeing 747

Despite the good weather when I left, and a forecast of a 2900ft ceiling at my destination, as I approached Long Beach I could see the scattered cloud thickening into a solid base. As I had the benefit of the G1000 showing traffic and terrain, as well as my iPad, and plenty of fuel should I need to divert out of the basin and back up to the clear skies of the desert, I descended through the thickening cloud, and after a few minutes of concentrating on my instruments, got below the ceiling at around 1700ft - still 300ft above the minimum safe altitude for this part of the route. Once below, the cloud it was incredible how much darker it was, and it felt like a night landing as I touched down on my usual runway.

Primary flight display of the G1000

Moving Map Display - showing traffic, terrain and airspace