Walking on the Moon

Last weekend, on the 5th, I picked up and flew out to Flabob Airport in Riverside. Flabob’s my favorite kind of airport – small and full of activity. There’s a good inexpensive cafe there, and flying in is a good way to sharpen up my uncontrolled field skills. It was very hazy in the basin, partially due to all the wildfires, and not a perfect day for sightseeing from the air. Still it’s always nice to get up and see the world.  I popped in for lunch and a couple turns around the pattern.

On the way home it sounded as if someone had wandered into an airspace they should not have been in. I heard an airliner get a landing clearance canceled. I heard a similar problem last time, which I hope is just bad luck, not an indication of a rise in pilot deviations.

I took a few pictures at Flabob:

I spent some time with my CFI, Andy, today under the hood.  Usually when I work with Andy I’m trying to log a couple approaches or holds to stay current, but today was just down and dirty IFR proficiency work.  Most of the day was not only under the hood, but partial panel under the hood.  That is flying the plane not only without being able to look out the window, but with a subset of the instruments as well.  We did some holding, some unusual attitudes and an approach.  We even got to bump through some turbulence as we did it, which was even better training.

There’s always stuff to work on, but basically things went well. I can still fly partial panel, even if it’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with all the weird things a compass does when you’re turning.  Overall a fun day, and it’s always fun to fly with Andy.

The FAA has apparently upped the ante in its fight against Santa Monica.  They’re threatening to withhold DOT funds to the city unless the city council stops restricting airport access unreasonably.  In case it slipped by you, that was a threat to withhold all DOT funding to the city, not airport funding.  Stay tuned.

After some really crappy landings the last two times I was up, I decided to spend some quality time in the pattern tonight and polish back up.  I could have picked a better day for it.  It was 10 knots, gusting 15, about 50 degrees off the runway, making for some wind work.  Santa Monica’s up on a little plateau that makes for some funny up and down drafts on either end of the runway.

All things considered, I had a pretty good day.  The first landing or so was  a little bumpier than I would have likes, but after 2 or so, I got back in the saddle.  Much nicer touchdowns, and even pretty stable approaches, despite the bumps in the road.  I was much happier by the end.

I spent some time with my head in the clouds today, flying IFR from Santa Monica (SMO) to French Valley (F70) and back. There was a cloud layer at 5-6 thousand feed above the whole basin, but unlike the last couple days no reported or forecast ice in it. I could have gotten to F70 below it, but it was a good day to pick up some time in actual instrument conditions.

Flying out to French Valley was one reroute after another. I got the impression that the controllers were deciding what to do with me as they went along. That’s not too surprising. LA airspace is busy and French Valley is off the beaten path a bit. Eventually they wound up vectoring me south of Santiago Peak (and the old El Toro Marine Core Air Station). This was good practice in situational awareness – Santiago peak is plenty high, and I couldn’t see a thing. I was very careful to make sure that the assigned altitudes all made sense. After crossing the mountains, I was cleared for the approach, then had that cancelled, then was re-vectored for it, all in IMC. You can’t buy training like that.

On arrival at F70, I decided to break off my straight-in approach to join the traffic via the 45 on the downwind to simplify matters. F70’s pattern always seems to have people in it, and today was no exception, so this kept the flow predictable. Cool beans.

At the airport I had a good lunch at the cafe, filed back to SMO and climbed VFR to get the clearance. SoCal picked me up and it was back to the clouds. This leg was completely as advertised, straight down the filed route to SMO. I canceled as soon as I was back out of the clouds near SMO.

Fun day. Both my landings stunk up the joint, though, so I’m setting aside some time this week to work on them. And avgas is 5.21/gal self-serve.

For those of you keeping score at home: a  Federal Judge has restrained SMO from enforcing its category C & D jet ban, and Avweb has a short article on the ongoing flap.

BoingBoing calls my attention to this self-contained airport generator.  This would be a fine thing to have at one’s beck and call.

I had breakfast at the Buckhorn today. For me this requires a flight to New Cuyama airport (L88), and that’s really why I go. New Cuyama isn’t near anything. It’s a small oil and ranching town that’s a place to gather if you’re working in the area or passing through. There’s a gas station, a motel (the Buckhorn) and a recently re-opened café. It’s a tiny, friendly town – the smallest nearby that’s easily airplane accessible.

Of course, a town of 800 people doesn’t have a big airport. I suspect that I have friends who wouldn’t consider L88 an airport at all. It looks like this:

That picture on the right is from my “lonely windsock” series. All these images link to larger versions.

To me this is a perfectly wonderful airport. Look – amenities:

Inside is a visitors log in which some wag had given his reason for visiting/destination as “hopelessly lost.” I always sign.

Boy did I make a crappy landing here today. I went around once and then landed fast in some turbulence (and a nice hot layer of ground effect). It wasn’t very pretty at all. I could tell you a story about how the narrow runway created an optical illusion and all that, but I should probably spend my time hitting a few more small fields.

Anyway, I tied down, watched an enormous rabbit saunter across the runway before I could get my camera working, and signed in. (Seriously, it wasn’t so much a rabbit as a jackalope.)

The Buckhorn was pretty busy. It’s a motel as well as a restaurant, and a couple families were checking in as well as a pretty full house of eating customers. I had a tri-tip sandwich at the counter and soaked up the considerable ambiance. Sadly the advertised “karaoke cook” didn’t seem to be in.

I finished up, had another short look around and saddled up to leave. Another pilot was inbound and I gave him a wind report and he let me leave first. The trip home was gorgeous, but uneventful.

Last weekend Brenda and I packed up and flew out to see the poppy bloom in Lancaster (WJF). There’s lots of other things to do there, so we rented a car and hit some of our favorite spots in the area. The flight was through clear skies, but with some turbulence coming over the ridges. Brenda got to hit her head on the ceiling for the first time and I made a pilot report of the turbulence.

First stop was Crazy Otto’s diner, a joint that makes great breakfasts and sandwiches.

After that, up to the Exotic Feline Breeding Center’s Feline Conservation Center – the cat house in Rosamond, CA. This is a fine set of large cats on display and we enjoy seeing them.

After that it was off to the to see the fireworks, but first Brenda spotted a flock of sheep we needed to check out.

The poppies were fantastic, and I’m sure Brenda will show off more of her photography of them. Here’s a quick shot to give you a feel for the range of colors.

And here I am looking at them, surrounded by some vibrant orange.

After we’d seen and photographed a bunch of poppy vistas, we sort of wandered about deciding when to go home. That was put off when Brenda spotted baseball! Lancaster has a minor league team (a Class A Red Sox farm club), the Jethawks, who had a game starting essentially right as we passed the stadium. We stopped by and watched a few innings and ate some ballpark food.

We left before the game was quite over in order to get up in the air and try to make it to back to SMO before the tower closed at nine. The turbulance had mostly passed, and we did just that. We landed with the controller who issued us taxi instructions and literally closed down the Class D behind us.

This was an awesome day.

Kevin Lahey points out that Don Brown – my favorite former air traffic controller – is blogging.  Enjoy.