Days 4 & 5- gusty Banning, Million Air and aborted landings

Two new airports to add to my collection today....almost. After a normal departure out of Long Beach, I turned East for the 50 minute flight to Banning (2200ft asl). After clearing controlled airspace, I was able to climb out ofthe bumpy air at 4000 feet, up to 5700 feet where things were much smoother. Just before descending towards Banning, I got a great view of March Air Reserves Base.

Banning is a fairly high airport (2200ft asl) in a valley that runs between the LA basin and Palm Springs. Unfortunately as a pass, the hot air from the desert whips down between the mountains on either side, creating quite windy conditions in the valley. The runway runs 08/26 and the reported wind was from the east at a strong 30 kts, but as it was straight down the runway, there should have been no problem. On my final approach though things were a hit gusty and  I was finding it hard to stabilise the approach so as it's a fairly narrow relatively short runway, I decided to abort and find somewhere friendlier. Being America, there were probably a dozen airfields within 15 minutes flight, and looking on my chart I singled out San Bernadino international airport which had the least variation of wind to runway heading. This airport couldn't have been more different to Banning, with a 2 mile long 300ft wide runway (I probably could've landed across the runway and been ok). To put it into perspective it's about 3/4 the length of Heathrow's longer runway and 30% wider and is rated for the A380. I was given clearance to join the circuit, and after landing taxied to the Executive Jet Center - named Million Air! For such a large international airport it was eerily quiet with just a couple of big planes on the runway and no one else at the jet centre. While they refuelled my aircraft for me, I relaxed in the 5* terminal with free beverages and wifi and planned my return flight.

With full tanks and an elevation of 1300ft (= lower density and longer take off run), I was glad of the long runway but I was still off the ground about a third of the way down and over 500ft before I reached the end of the runway and made my turn out. As I had to be back for another person to take the plane out, I took a direct route back to Long Beach and with the wind having backed to the east, landed the opposite way on runway 07R.

Lonely C172 at the Jet Centre

Snow-capped mountains across the apron

Thursday, I had plans to go to Santa Barbara, up the coast beyond Malibu. My hosts tell me this is their favourite city in California so it came highly recommended. Unfortunately the weather was not ideal in the morning with cloud at 2500ft. As I needed 4500ft to cross LAX I spent an hour and a half circuit bashing. The hardest thing about flying is getting the landings right and it's one of those things that no matter how many times you read different techniques and different places to look etc it really is a question of practice makes (almost) perfect. The other advantage here is that very few airports charge landing fees. If I wanted to do touch and go landings at a comparable airfield in the UK eg. Southend, I'd be paying £22 a time!!!

The circuit was incredibly busy with people doing the same as me plus others who were just on approach, plus the regional jets and low cost carriers that operate on the dissecting runway. This meant very busy radio traffic - which was great practice, as well as late clearances - one so late I had to go around as I was only 200ft off the ground with no clearance due to the preceding aircraft not having vacated the runway. It wasn't just the me having this trouble though - as I was on the downwind leg (0.5miles abeam the runway and parallel) of my last circuit, I saw and heard a biz jet have to go around from a similar position as the previous aircraft hadn't vacated the runway. What then followed was frantic radio traffic as the controller tried to move all of us out of the way at 1000ft, so the jet could go round the circuit for his runway at 1500ft and land before we did, and before the next A320 on a 7mile final got to the airfield. I was just given a heading and sent about 5 miles away from the airfield with the jet passing directly overhead me 500ft above (I couldn't reach my phone in time to get a picture)- I actually thought they may have forgotten about me for a while - before getting vectored back for my approach and landing, deciding that was enough for today. It probably cost the jet more than $150 for the extra 5 minutes in the air - a costly delay.

Getting ready for the Long Beach Grand Prix

Running along the beach