N951CC flies to Flabob (Riverside)

I've got so many videos to catch up on; we've been too busy doing things and not catching up on posting them. Here is a flight that we took to Flabob (KRIR) near Riverside CA. The weather was excellent, visibility forever and smooth winds out of the north.

I've heard many people talk about the turbulence in Cajon Pass, but I was naive thinking it would be fine since the air was so smooth. Since Flabob is just south of the pass, I started my descent early and flew down into the pass so I wouldn't have to circle to lose altitude over the airport. That is when it hit. I immediately slowed the airplane down since I like my wings intact and we were climbing 1500 - 2000 ft/min at the min cruise power setting and 10 degrees of flap. Michelle says this was about the worse turbulence she has ever flown in, but wasn't as bad since it was real short (only 5-10 minutes until we cleared the pass) and it was plenty cool. The heat is what really makes the turbulence bad.

We flew well over the Ontario class C airspace and I circled to descend just east of the airport. After I finally made it down to pattern altitude, I entered flying an upwind entry to westbound runway. It became interesting when we turned downwind to notice that there was a mountain right in the way for my base turn. It decided we'd cut inside the mountain for a short base/final instead of flying all the long way around. Surprisingly, I made the approach just fine, there were plenty of opportunities to instigate a go-around; I would have gone around the mountain the second time.

The airport is really small and seems like a throw back in time. There are airplanes tied down that look like they are waiting to disintegrate in place. Michelle thought it looked like a "honke airport you'd see in the Midwest." The restaurant had a great atmosphere with historic photos of the airport all over the walls and models hanging from the ceiling. The food was good and it seemed like most people's service was really good, but it seemed like the waitress kept forgetting about our table in the corner.

On the way back, we had a stiff crosswind for takeoff and I climbed above the pass before crossing the mountains and the turbulence wasn't nearly as bad.