If you followed the planning and preparation for our Monterey trip, thank you! It’s always instructive to see how a flight goes relative to what you expected, so here’s our trip report.
Summary: the trip went about as planned, requiring a mixture of VFR and IFR to keep to a schedule, but could probably have been accomplished VFR if we were more flexible on time.
This may have been the smoothest flight I’ve ever had through the Owens Valley and over the Sierra Nevada. I accompanied two pilots on our FLIT Sunday to Mammoth Lakes, California.
Approximate route flown
You can investigate the route in more detail on RunwayFinder
As has become more common, we took off on runway 1 at El Monte in the morning with calm winds. LM had us soon climbing direct towards Clear Creek. That route keeps us in the shadow of the Verdugos, relative to Burbank’s radar, so radar identification took a while with SoCal Approach. We turned more directly towards Mojave, as we were able to see over the San Gabriels toward Edwards AFB; Continue reading
I’ll be going with two pilots to Mammoth on Sunday. The weather is looking great and there should be a good dusting of snow on the Sierra. You should be able to track us via our SPOT tracker. Our rough planned route is shown below.
You should be able to look at the route in RunwayFinder
On Sunday, September 25, 2011, we loaded up the 182RG for a FLIT to San Jose (2 pilots, 1 passenger, and me). The morning dawned cool and overcast, so ALO logged his first 0.1 hour of actual IFR climbing through the clouds to VFR on top. Clouds blanketed the LA Basin, but it was beautifully clear above and beyond the mountains; the coast began to break out occasionally around Santa Barbara.
I’ll be going with two pilots to San Jose on Sunday. We hope to check out the Santa Cruz redwoods, Monterey Bay, Big Sur, and Hearst Castle along the way. It’s TFR season ;-), so we have to leave San Jose in time to avoid Obama’s visit there, avoid an air show around Salinas, and we may have some weather challenges to consider as well.
This is a good example of the things you have to consider on a long trip. You should be able to track us via our SPOT tracker. Our general planned route is shown below. You should be able to look at the route in RunwayFinder