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| 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.
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| Home for the evening |
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| Camarillo Cafe |
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| 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.
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| "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.
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| Catalina Airport in the Sky |
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| 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.
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| Catalina Island |
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| 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.
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| Looking over the breezy runway |
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| Ready for Long Beach Grand Prix |
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