4th of July 2008 trip to Oceano and Santa Paula in N951CC

Since this last year when we knew that Michelle would not be teaching during summer school, we had planned on taking a bunch of trips this summer. Once I bought our airplane in December, those trips became a bunch of flying trips. Unfortunately, we've been so busy that it's been hard for us to get out and have some fun. With the 4th of July holiday and the extra day off from work, Michelle and I decided to try to fly to Oceano for the weekend, again.

We've tried to get there before, but the fog has prevented us from ever getting there. This time there was fog in the morning, but it was forcasted to burn off so we waited for that and checked the visibilities due to the 2 fires burning near us. The flight briefing came back with Oceano fog lifting and visibilities poor, but plenty good to make the trip.

The air was nice and smooth out of Inyokern and we flew south to California City before turning west over Tehachapi, to avoid the temporary flight restriction (TFR) area due to the Piute fire. The smoke was blowing north-east and was the main source for the smoke in our valley. Once we were south of that fire, the air cleared up and the visibility was great. The flight was incredibly smooth and right on time with 1.5 hours enroute to Oceano(L52). With no fog in sight, I flew an upwind leg over the airport and entered into the landing pattern after flying over the beach. The runway looks short since I've been spoiled with very long runways, but we had no problem getting in.

It was a nice sight to see $5.08 for avgas so we filled the tanks before tying down the airplane for the weekend. The airport provides a nice little camping area for pilots and we pitched our tent. We had to be sure to close the windows when we left though because they watered the campground daily from noon-2pm. With cheap gas come expensive tie-downs. The price was $10/day for tie-down and $10/day for camping with no mention of the tie-down being waived for campers as is the norm.

Once we were settled in, we walked to a nearby diner for lunch. The Rock-and-Roll Diner is two train cars attached together for the dining area. They had excellent food and their BBQ was over a Oak (or Hickory I forgot) wood fire. After lunch we walked down to the beach and watched some kite surfers, it's amazing to watch how high they can jump into the air with those kites. I'd definitely buy one of those if I lived in the area. This is the only beach in California where they allow cars on the beach. There are cars, trucks, and RVs as far as you can see on the beach and you can get a permit to camp on the beach with your RV as well. Off road vehicles are also allowed on the sand dunes just south of oceano. They are pretty hard core sand dunes so SUVs won't make it, but 4 wheelers and dune buggies are everywhere.

After wandering around for awhile, we headed back to the airport and ate dinner (beef stew back packing meal). Trying to start a fire was a terrific effort since the wood was incredibly green. Even using the grill to start logs proved useless. Eventually we found some cut branches that were pretty thick near the bathroom and I chopped them up with our little hatchet and soon we had a fire.

On Friday we wandered around for awhile and ate lunch at a little BBQ stand, we eventually decided to take the bus to Pismo Beach. After realizing we missed the bus at the stop right outside the airport, we decided to walk to the next bus stop. The next stop is where we needed to connect to a different bus to get to Pismo so maybe it was on a different schedule. After over a mile of walking, we finally got to the bus stop. The sign didn't label the 4th as a day the bus wasn't running, but after calling the hotline for a schedule, they said it was not running. So we walked another mile plus to Pismo Beach.

It was another very nice beach, but without the cars on the this one. We walked around for awhile and decided we were still hungry so Michelle got a brownie strawberry shortcake and we walked back to the Lion's club so I could try their tri-tip. Very good again and this time they had a sax quartet playing. We listened to them for awhile, then headed back to Oceano taking the beach instead of the roads this time. We found a little salt water taffy shop next to the beach so we decided to stop in and get some taffy for Kevin and Sarah. I know they love taffy and they're back in Inyokern watching our dogs so they definitely deserve some taffy.

After resting for awhile at the campground, we walked to a fine Italian restaurant and ate some pizza, which was very good; the thinnest pizza I ever ate. We took our folding chairs to the sand dunes and set up a spot to watch the fireworks. Once it got dark people started shooting fireworks. Pismo Beach was firing their fireworks off the pier, but unfortunately, we were far away and even though we could see them fine, they were as spectacular from that far away. There were plenty of other fireworks to watch though since there were 40 billion people on the beach and half of them were launching pretty cool fireworks. At about 10, most of the fireworks died down and we headed for bed.

Saturday morning the fog had rolled in so our flight to Santa Paula was delayed be a few hours, but we eventually got out just fine. We flew down to Santa Barbara and south over the coast and around to Ojai to avoid another fire TFR just north of Santa Barbara. The Santa Paula airport is right next to a mountain ridge so you have to fly a tight pattern. This ended up being one of my worst landings, which I won't bore you with more than to say something is screwy with that airport on final and over the runway itself and it wasn't just me. It seemed that almost everybody that came in had a hard time as well. Of course this wonderful landing was made in front of Michelle's sister Lisa who is already not to fond of flying in smaller airplanes.

We had a great visit with Lisa and Matt and were able to even get out and see the June Brides in concert. Concert is used pretty liberally here since it was in a carport in the back of someone's house. It was still entertaining and worth seeing. I love Lisa's new place since it has so many extra hidden spaces and rooms. There is a soon to be pottery room in the garage, lots of storage, a room for her therapy business and a loft over the garage for the perfect office / guest bedroom. The front yard was huge with all sorts of flowers and birds.

Like all vacations, we had to leave Sunday morning. We were planning to rush out bright and early to beat the desert heat, thermals, and winds, but the fog at Santa Paula forced us to take our leisurely time before heading to the airport. After eating a muffin at the terminal, we took off for Inyokern. I'm convinced there is something out of whack with the airport since the takeoff was a lot of fun as well. Air traffic control was definitely out numbered today since it took me almost 15 minutes before Hawthorne radio got back to me and I was able to activate my flight plan. I was never able to get flight following on our hour flight back to Inyokern over 4 different approach and center sectors since they were swamped.

The flight was incredibly smooth until Lancaster where there was only a few very light bumps to about the California City area. From there we started our descent and had just a little bit more chop. In general, it was very nice flight considering we were coming in just after noon in July in the desert. By 1:30 we were home and the dogs could stop whining with excitement to see us. Another thanks to Kevin and Sarah for watching them.

See the complete album of pictures here.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jayson.brouchoud/4thOfJuly2008/photo#s5220064572343079874

Flight to Mojave KMHV for lunch

Yesterday we planned on going to Big Bear Lake (L35) for lunch, we've never been there before, but it's a short flight to a mountain strip with an on airport restaurant. It's a resort area and supposed to be a very scenic flight. After checking the weather, getting a flight briefing, and filing a flight plan, we got out to Inyokern (KIYK) and it was strong and gusty winds that were not reported or forecasted. Knowing how screwed up the weather gets around here, we cancelled figuring it would just get worse and the forecast was already null and void. It turned out that it was only windy for 2 hours and then it calmed down, but we were already back home for the day; our plan was to go today instead.

Today I did the same thing, got the weather, did the briefing, and filed the flight plan. We got out to the airport and taxied over to the fuel pump since I needed more fuel for the trip. My luck again, the fuel pump was out of service. Determined not to give up, I called a few airports enroute and got a hold of a person at the Mojave airport. They said they did have fuel and their pump was up and working. Mojave is only a 30 minute flight from Inyokern and I had plenty of fuel to get there with reserve. Once we got there, we realized how late it was getting and that we wouldn't be able to eat until 1 or 2 at Big Bear, so we decided to just eat at Mojave and go to Big Bear another day.

The fuel was only $4.99 at Mojave so I made sure to top the tanks off. Last time I fueled at Inyokern, it was $5.19 and I was told this next batch coming in would be in the $5.60 range. I put in 63 gallons so the savings was almost $40! Well, it will be a few weeks before we get to Big Bear since we'll be in the Midwest for the next two weekends.

Here is our track for this flight.

And here is N951CC and Michelle in front of the Mojave air and space port tower and restaurant.

N951CC Flying to North Las Vegas KVGT

Michelle and I flew to North Las Vegas today for breakfast. It was a good flight and I wanted a quick flight there to get acquainted with the airspace. With the mountains immediately to the west and the McCarren class B airspace, I wasn't sure how much room there was for my descent to land. I flew through a saddle in the mountains that was further north than the last time I flew since this was in line with North Las Vegs, last time we flew into Henderson.

It turns out that the class B extends closer to the mountains than it seemed on the map so I had to descend close to the mountains just on the east side. This was incredibly scenic since we were flying right over their Red Rock hiking area. We were kind of pinched between the mountains, Nellis restricted airspace, and Vegas class B airspace that I was not cleared into. After a few passes north and south I lost enough altitude to fly under the class B shelf into KVGT. There are a lot of taxiways under maintenance and closed down so I asked ground control for taxi instructions, instead a "follow me" van was already right in front of me waiting. I followed him just a short ways to the transient parking.

There was supposed to be a 24 hour Bar and Grill across the street, but we didn't see it so we walked down the street to the Fiesta Casino and ate at their restaurant. Incredible breakfast specials and the food was good, but it was breakfast at a casino.

The flight back was pretty much the same but in reverse. I wanted to climb to be able to get over the mountains, but I had to stay low until I cleared the class B shelf. This put me right at the mountains so I had to circle to climb to get over them. I was hoping this trip would have been faster than it was since I figured I've got more performance in this 182 than I did in the 172 and I should be able to climb straight over the mountains. I didn't realize that I was going to be still limited, but by the airspace. Total round trip time was 2.6 hours, which is 2 hours and 36 minutes, so it still wasn't too bad.

The trip to Vegas was very smooth and was a great flight. The flight back was hot and bumpy, but we the bumps eventually went away as we cleared the mountains near Vegas. The air was cool at 10,500 feet so I never turned on the air conditioning. I did turn it on as we descended into Inyokern. The AC is nice because I waited until my downwind landing check to turn it off and from there, its only a few minutes until we were on the ground. I put the AC back on as soon as we were rolling out and it was way cooler than opening the windows. Too expensive of a toy to buy, but a heck of a nice one to come with the airplane!

North Las Vegas airport provides a free courtesy shuttle bus to the strip so it's a great airport to use when coming in to gamble on the strip. You do have to get your own taxi back, but that is the only service that isn't provided by the airport. Michelle has plans for next weekend so I'm smelling a poker trip with the guys...

Sorry no pictures, but we did find the camera now for next time. Here is a Google Earth look at the moutains flying into KVGT.

N951CC to CA Day 4 ** UPDATE **

Well like I said, sometimes they just put out AIRMETs for turbulence for an entire area. This was the case today. I checked the weather again about noon and there were 2 pilot reports of no turbulence along my route of flight. Also, the forcast for China Lake was updated and it was supposed to be calm winds. With this news I quickly asked the motel staff for a ride to the airport. The person who would give me a ride to the airport was a town meeting so I had to wait awhile for him, but I was airborne by 1:45.

The ride was pretty rough during the climb out and I leveled off at 8,500 ft since the were stronger head winds higher. There was continuous light chop at this altitude so I decided I would rather have a longer flight if it was smoother so I climbed up to 10,500 ft and it was smooth. I did lose about 12 knots of groundspeed, but it was a nice ride for the most part all the way into Inyokern.

Through the Palmdale - Mojave area, I was flying through smooth up and down drafts. I was getting + / - 1500 ft / min rates of climb / descent. It was pretty hard to keep a constant altitude. I called approach control to verify there was no conflicting traffic and to verify he was seeing the same altitude variations (so it wouldn't just be my pitot-static system). He confirmed and shortly after a Gulfstream jet flying into Palmdale reported updrafts as well. Anyways, they were smooth so it wasn't so bad. I had a tough time descending down into Inyokern because of the updrafts, but I circled for a while and eventually got down to pattern altitude.

The airplane is now tied down in it's shade hanger at Inyokern safe and sound. I'll have my mechanic take a look at the vacuum pump and door lock soon. Oh, the pilot door lock broke too. I think it might just be the retaining clip. I heard something fall inside the door and then the tumbler pulled out of the hole still on the key leaving a hole in the door. "Due to national security..." I have to have my door locked so I need to get this fixed ASAP.

I didn't take too many pictures of the trip. I guess I should have taken pictures of the airports I landed at, but I only got one of it tied down at IYK. Anyways, here is a slideshow of the pictures I did take.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jayson.brouchoud/N951CCToCA/photo#s5187462314526446306

UPDATE: Here is the GPS track of day 4 to CA

N951CC to CA Day 4

Well today is going to be a short post. I woke up bright and early and took a look out the window of my motel room. I could see the trees bending over in the wind. I called and got a briefing anyways and that confirmed the same story as yesterday afternoon. I'm not going anywhere today. After breakfast I walked over to the laundromat since I was out of clean clothes. Of course they are out of business. I talked to the motel staff and they said there was not other place in town to do laundry. So here I sit in yesterdays clothes typing about my trip to CA on my blog since I've got nothing else to do.