At the beginning of March, I saw a post from piperboy84 that indicated he was in “The Glens of LA” and not in Angus. Since I was in Santa Monica, I contacted him to see if we could meet for a beer. It turned out to be lunch at the appropriately named (but not very good) Spitfire Grill, adjacent to Santa Monica airport.
Having discovered that, in spite of our different heritages, we were mutually compatible
, he agreed to take me for a tour of the Los Angeles basin in a 172.
We met at Justice Aviation on Friday, did the pre-flight, taxied out, did our run-up, obeyed the signs as much as possible:
waited for departing and arriving traffic:
and then took off over "Harrison Ford’s Golf Course” - his Ryan had been removed that morning, the day after the accident:
We did a climbing right 270° over Santa Monica:
to arrive at 3500’ over SMO for the Special VFR Route over the top of LAX. The lower level Mini Route, where you have to talk to LAX Tower was closed, because the SMO VOR was out of service. The Special VFR Route has a dedicated Squawk code and traffic frequency, which you use to make blind position reports, but no clearance is required. Imagine that over LHR!
A nice view of the new Bradley International Terminal:
Heading south from LAX. Torrance Airport is in the middle distance and the Palos Verde hills beyond. Catalina Island is on the horizon. Torrance is home to the Robinson Factory and is officially Zamperini Field, named after the hero of the movie “Unbroken”:
We reached the coast and turned east over the adjacent ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. This is a very high-density traffic area. There have been several mid-airs here:
and then we said hello to the Queen Mary (note the Foxtrot Class sub by her bow and the dome that once housed the Spruce Goose), before heading northeast towards Fullerton:
On the way to Fullerton, we flew at 2800' over the top of the Long Beach and Los Alamitos Class D zones (snow on Mt. Baldy 10,064’, in the San Gabriel Mountains at the top left):
and then landed at Fullerton (note the VASIs are showing pb84 is slightly high, but given the obstacles in the undershoot, I would class that as good airmanship!
To be continued (due to 15 image limit)