Flying to Catalina Island
No matter how well you plan things, sometimes they just don’t work out. For example, this past weekend was supposed to be centered on flying and a Siouxsie concert in LA. I did manage to do some flying but not as much as I had hoped for. I also managed to make it to the concert but, by the time the show started, my patience was running low.
I wanted to spend most of the weekend flying in the LA area. Taking off from Santa Monica Airport (SMO), I wanted to fly to Catalina Island (“The Airport in the Sky”) and then to Big Bear Lake. The Fixed Based Operator (FBO) I rent airplanes from requires a checkout ride to land at both of these airports. Catalina Island is considered tricky because it is at 1602 feet above sea level, 3250 feel long: come in too low and you could crash into the mountain side. Come in too hot, overshoot the runway and you will face a serious drop-off at the end of the runway. Big Bear Lake is tricky because it is at 6500 feet and that makes it tricky for our little airplanes to breath and climb.
The plan was to fly from SMO, land at Catalina and then fly on to Big Bear Lake. The other thing I wanted to do was to get comfortable with the LAX airspace. The airspace around LA is very congested but there are many published routes you can take to make life a little easier – some of these don’t even require you to talk to SoCAL approach.
For our flight to and from Catalina, we used the Los Angeles Special Flight Route. (This is sort of like our VFR corridor in Houston that you can take between Hobby and Intercontinental airports without having to talk to Houston Approach as long as you follow certain steps– see http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/air_traffic/lax-vfr.html for more info on the LAX routes.) After taking off from SMO, this required us to climb to 3500’. I was flying a 2000 Piper Archer III but I really wished I was flying my usual Tiger because that Archer just did not seem to climb as well as the Tiger. Once in the corridor, we simply had to make a few calls to alert other pilots of our positions and to watch for other traffic – no worries about approach. As we left the route, we made our turn towards the coastline and once there we began our climb to 6000’. This climb seemed to take forever! All during the crossing I was constantly looking at my location and thinking ‘if the engine dies now, do I return to the mainland or continue towards Catalina?’. I had to keep in mind Catalina airport’s altitude and the fact that the mainland offered better areas for an emergency landing (nice golf courses) and better emergency services, too.
Landing in Catalina was really no big deal and offered little drama (no down or updrafts, no strong gusts) but, for someone that is used to flying at sea level, I had to keep my field elevation height in mind. For example, if the altimeter read 2200’, I really was more like 600’ above field elevation. You also have to consider your touch down point: if it looks like you are going to touch down more than half way down the runway it is better to go around (I saw several airplanes do go arounds). I was down with plenty of room – no problem.
Upon landing at Catalina you have pay a $20 landing fee. You may do as many landings as you’d for those $20 but first you have to pay the landing fee. (And you will be reminded of this if you forget!)
I really enjoyed doing the landing and seeing the scenery so we planned on doing more landings after paying the fee. I also wanted to let the instructor do a take-off and landing so I could get it on video. So we climb into the plane and tried to start her up. The airplane almost started on the first attempt but it did not catch. We tried again and again the same thing. On the third attempt, we got nothing! It sounded like the starter was dead. Just to make sure it was not our battery, we tried external power. Still nothing. We called the FBO and they had us try a few things. Still nothing. The FBO then sent a Cessna for us and we left the Archer there to be taken care of later.
While we waited for the rescue plane to arrive, I decided I needed to try out one of the airport’s buffalo burgers I had heard so much about. Honestly, I was so busy thinking about the airplane, chatting with the other pilot, watching the other planes land and take off and enjoying the great scenery that I paid little attention to the burger. In any case, Catalina Island is a great destination for a $100 burger or as a day trip – for those of you in Southern California. You can always catch a bus into town to check out the many shops and restaurants or enjoy the natural beauty of the island.
I climbed into the left seat, my instructor into the right seat and the other pilot jumped into the back. I practiced one landing with the Cessna before letting the instructor take over the take-off and landing so I could video (see below). After landing, I took over the controls again. Climbing to 6000’ in the Cessna 172 with three people on tboard took even longer than before but I was in no hurry (I just don’t like having the nose pointed up for so long – I lower the nose every so often to make sure no one is coming at us).
By this time it was too late to fly to Big Bear Lake so that would have to wait for another day. Actually, flying in the LA area was going to have to wait for another day: On Sunday we had too much cloud cover to consider going up and with my friend in Santa Monica working on Sunday, I decided to catch an earlier flight back to Houston.
