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| G1000 Avionics Suite |
I was expecting a day off on Friday as the aircrafts were fully booked, but I got a call at 9am from the flight school owner, who asked me if I wanted to fly with him to a nearby airfield to pick up some parts. When I got to the airfield, even better news awaited as I found out it was equipped with the Garmin G1000 avionics system. This is probably the most advanced general aviation equipment on the market, where everything is displayed on 2 large iPad-sized screens in the cockpit. It takes a bit of getting used to, so an introductory flight with an instructor was hugely helpful and as he was going anyway, he didn't charge me.
The flight itself was short and uneventful over to Corona Municipal airport. After a quick trip to the parts shop, we were back in the air 45 minutes later and heading back to Long Beach.
Today was probably the best day in my flying "career". I was at the airport for a 12 noon departure as I had planned an hours flight up to Mojave Air and Space Port. This is the base from where Virgin Galactic are flying, as well as being a base for British Aerospace Engineering, and the USAF. It's also home to an airplane boneyard, so I got some fantastic pictures on the approach and departure.
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| 4000m Runway 12 as I departed |
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| Edwards AFB |
The airport is just 10 miles or so from Edwards Air Force Base, which is a highly restricted area, so accurate navigation is critical to avoid getting intercepted for busting their airspace, which runs all the way from the surface to unlimited. Before leaving I got a telephone briefing for the route, which indicated relatively smooth conditions all the way, light winds at the destination and only two enroute warnings for unmanned aircraft at low-levels and unmanned rockets in the vicinity of Mojave......seriously! I pointed out to the guy on the phone that whilst I would be on the lookout for unmanned rockets, if one was headed my way, there wasn't going to be much I could do about it. My assigned altitude on the way was 7500 ft which is the highest I've been as well.
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| Airplane Boneyard |
After a downwind circuit over the boneyard and a gentle landing on the huge, 4000m, space ship rated runway 12, I taxied to the apron, where they were just packing up from the fly-in they'd hosted. Fortunately there were still some of the aircraft on display, which I got to see up close. I also saw some experimental aircraft on the adjacent (restricted) apron.
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| Lining up on Runway 08 for departure |
After a quick (huge) sandwich, and a trip to the gift shop, I was straight back in my plane, and taxying to the shorter 08 runway for departure.
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| Skypark |
The wide flat expanse of desert has dozens of airfields of different sizes, including what they call skyparks where you have a runway and the taxy ways go straight to your front door.
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| Dodger Stadium with downtown LA |
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| Boneyard |
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| Runway traffic at Long Beach |
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| Selfie in the C172 cockpit |
As I got overhead Burbank, I started my descent from 6500 ft down to 2300ft to skirt under the LAX airspace, and got great views of downtown LA, the Hollywood Sign and the Dodgers Stadium. I was on the main LAX approach frequency for the last 10 minutes of the flight and it was amazing to hear the commercial jets on the radio coming in to land, whilst seeing them just a thousand or so feet above me, especially when I was given traffic warnings, such as "November 139 (me), traffic, 12 o'clock, crossing left to right, Airbus, 1000 feet above you", and then hearing the Virgin 07 pilot (the same flight I came in on last week), commencing his descent. Due to A320 traffic landing on the crossing runway, I was vectored onto 25R at Long Beach, which meant a long taxi back to the stand, but it's all good practice for navigating a large, busy airport. A great day, only dampened by Ireland's victory over France in the 6 Nations!
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| Experimental Nose on a DC10 |
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