onwards
Pattern Altitude
So I was flying back to CCR the other night, and coming in from the SE @6500 ft. I was with ATC with VFR following the whole way from 3o8. I know the TAC pretty well around here - lord knows I've been staring at and studying it for hours and hours in the past few weeks.
Well anyway, as I am crossing over Livermore and proceeding direct to CCR, enjoying the beautiful night scenery, the controller suddenly says "cleared for class Bravo". I did a double-take; I was certain that my route was taking me under the outer shelf (which bottoms out at 8000ft). I thanked him (literally I said "thank you for class Bravo", which I'm sure made me sound like a total dork), and 2-3 minutes later was out of it anyway as I started my descent towards the airport and came down under 6000ft.
I looked at the chart after I got back and seems like I just clipped the edge (by quite a bit less than a mile) of the the second shelf off SFO, bottom 6000ft. Totally did not expect it.
Lessons learned: (1) there isn't much of a fudge factor in those charts; (2) I better pay even better attention than I thought I was when flying close to "clearance required" air spaces; (3) ATC are really nice people. I think he saved me an incident there.
Well anyway, as I am crossing over Livermore and proceeding direct to CCR, enjoying the beautiful night scenery, the controller suddenly says "cleared for class Bravo". I did a double-take; I was certain that my route was taking me under the outer shelf (which bottoms out at 8000ft). I thanked him (literally I said "thank you for class Bravo", which I'm sure made me sound like a total dork), and 2-3 minutes later was out of it anyway as I started my descent towards the airport and came down under 6000ft.
I looked at the chart after I got back and seems like I just clipped the edge (by quite a bit less than a mile) of the the second shelf off SFO, bottom 6000ft. Totally did not expect it.
Lessons learned: (1) there isn't much of a fudge factor in those charts; (2) I better pay even better attention than I thought I was when flying close to "clearance required" air spaces; (3) ATC are really nice people. I think he saved me an incident there.