While you might not believe that there’s a season for TFRs, it’s true in California right now. We have presidential visits, airshows, wildfires, football, and for a few days longer, baseball. All of these have TFRs associated with them. Take a look at this depiction courtesy of RunwayFinder from last Saturday.
See all those red and orange circles? Those are TFRs and that’s not even all the ones you need to worry about in California over the next few days!
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
…or maybe better termed confusion over pressure settings, altitude, and weather.
Most pilots know the memory aid “high to low, hot to cold, look out below”. This reminds us that without local altimeter settings or understanding of temperatures, we may not be where we think we are altitude-wise. Many fewer pilots seem to understand the following situation:
KSBD 192350Z 25013G18KT 7SM SKC 34/11 A2988
KL35 200035Z AUTO 06007KT 10SM CLR 22/M01 A3028
I most often hear this question from prospective pilots and their families. It’s also the question that comes up most often at a party if someone finds out I’m a flight instructor. The question starts from a perception (driven mostly by media reports) that these “little planes” fall out of the sky with regularity. What is true is that every small plane crash is news. That should be an indicator that the event is unusual. Most car fatalities hardly merit a line in the newspaper noting who died, because we kill 30-40,000 people annually in the US in motor vehicle accidents. Continue reading
Thanks to Steve from Mac Help for Mom, the site is now up and flying.