onwards
Pattern Altitude
I'm still so new to this (90ish hours) that every flight is an adventure. But this weekend's adventure was, by far, the most amazing yet.
I wanted to share the experience with y'all.
The decision was made earlier in the week to try and go to a place I have had on my sights for a while now - from since before I even got my license, actually. The kids were going to spend a night at grandma's, freeing me to go.
So I called the lovely lady I'm seeing and said "you are coming with me. Don't ask too many questions, just pack an overnight bag". She's flown with me before, and was excited. Our destination?
Shelter Cove, CA.
Now, I knew there was a decent chance of flying out there and having to go back or go somewhere else, on account of the foggy marine layer this time of year. But the forecasts all said it was going to be gorgeous, with plenty of time in the afternoon hours with little to no fog. So I planned to arrive somewhere around 4PM, maximizing the chances of making it through.
We took off yesterday from CCR a bit after 2PM, with an almost direct routing to 0Q5. I first flew over clear lake, just because it's so pretty from the air, then headed 290 to the coast to see the conditions. It was truly a beautiful day, and the views were breathtaking all the way through.
And then we got to the coastline. If ever there was a low-lying, completely unbroken white sheet of clouds, this was it. It hugged the coast and inland at about 1000ft. There was no way we were going to do this.
Or was there?
What the heck, we got that far, let's see what we can see. A couple minutes heading north along the coast gave us our first view of the ocean, as a small tear formed in that white sheet. We could see clearly to the water, and more importantly, that layer was very thin - a couple hundred feet top-to-bottom.
I tried ducking under right there, had a quick look around, and climbed back up. We were still over 20nm south of Shelter Cove, and I didn't want to try and fly so low to the water for that long. Hoping we might get lucky closer to the airport, we soldiered on.
My heart was sinking as the GPS counted down the miles. 10. 5. 3. 2. 1. 0. We were right over the airport, but with simply no way to make it down. Oh well. Time to turn inland. I was headed to Garberville.
But wait!
As we turned around that little pointy area at Shelter Cove jutting into the ocean, my copilot saw it first: there was another tear! almost perfectly round, less than 1000ft across, right above the water, maybe a half mile north of 0Q5. Clear to the bottom, and more importantly, immediate confirmation that the layer was thin and hung 800-1000ft above water. It was completely crisp under it. With no air movement at all, it was still. Perfect conditions to try something cool.
I went for it. I drilled - maybe corkscrewed is a better term, as I was literally doing a continuous tight turn (45deg) descending into that hole. It felt like a skater in a ring, going round and round a wall. Three (or maybe four) full circles like that, and we were 500ft under the cloud and still 400ft or so above water. It was gorgeous, vivid, and crisper than I'd ever seen anything - partly due to my heightened concentration and senses, I'm certain. I straightened and went back to the airport slowly. Runway 12 popped up so quickly I was almost over it before I knew it, but with a shallow direct headwind, landing was smooth and easy.
My heart was sure racing though!
As we got into the inn where we were staying, the guy at the front desk said the other 4 pilots that were scheduled to come in canceled after overflying the area earlier in the day. Apparently that hole in the marine layer did not form until 30 minutes before we showed up. By the time we got our stuff into the room, it was already closing, and 30 minutes later, the sky was completely covered everywhere.
Hey, I DID think 4PM would give the best chance, right? *grin*
Shelter Cove itself is just astounding, and I fell in love with it. I am DEFINITELY going back. But that's a different story.
The next day - today - we had to come back. We woke up. That white sheet was hanging all over the place. The guy at the inn said "just stay for as long as you need", and I took him up on it. We spent a lazy morning doing this and that, as I was watching the sky. Around noon, I saw a couple tears starting to form, then closing, then opening again. That's all I needed; all I wanted to see was that the layer was the same as the previous day. It sure was.
We took off less than an hour later, same runway 12. As soon as we got off the ground, I pointed the nose 30 degrees to the right, towards the ocean, set myself on a steady-but-not-too-steep climb, and ignored pretty much everything but the AI, just like I've been taught under the hood, and in actual clouds (thank goodness for good instructors that showed me what it really felt like). As we hit the fog I felt... well, nothing really. I wasn't looking outside. My eyes were fixed on the instruments. It took less than a minute and then we popped out into a beautiful blue sky. I was pointed a bit to the right of where I wanted to be heading (at about 170), which was perfectly fine; it was easy enough to turn back towards the coast and head back to CCR.
And as if this wasn't enough excitement, we then decided to make a lunch and fuel stop at Ukiah on the way back. It's a beautiful spot, except that it's surrounded by pretty steep hills and mountains requiring one to fly at 5500ft from the northwest (as we were), until the very last moment where you come out and it all drops rather dramatically into a valley and a 600ft elevation airport. So I got to do another cool maneuver, forward-slipping 4000ft very rapidly into a left pattern, sinking faster than I ever have before. Oddly enough I never felt in such solid control of a forward slip before either. My copilot said it was the only time she felt nervous at all, because we were at such an extreme attitude with that rather violent slip it very much confused her system. Oh, and someone was taking off as we were overflying like that (we coordinated well on the radio, and it was kinda neat actually). But the pattern entry was at perfect altitude, angle and distance. I was so proud of myself for just how precisely the maneuver ended up getting executed... and oh, the adrenaline rush. Yow.
The last leg of the trip was quite uneventful. But I needed that after all the rest.
What an incredible experience!
I wanted to share the experience with y'all.
The decision was made earlier in the week to try and go to a place I have had on my sights for a while now - from since before I even got my license, actually. The kids were going to spend a night at grandma's, freeing me to go.
So I called the lovely lady I'm seeing and said "you are coming with me. Don't ask too many questions, just pack an overnight bag". She's flown with me before, and was excited. Our destination?
Shelter Cove, CA.
Now, I knew there was a decent chance of flying out there and having to go back or go somewhere else, on account of the foggy marine layer this time of year. But the forecasts all said it was going to be gorgeous, with plenty of time in the afternoon hours with little to no fog. So I planned to arrive somewhere around 4PM, maximizing the chances of making it through.
We took off yesterday from CCR a bit after 2PM, with an almost direct routing to 0Q5. I first flew over clear lake, just because it's so pretty from the air, then headed 290 to the coast to see the conditions. It was truly a beautiful day, and the views were breathtaking all the way through.
And then we got to the coastline. If ever there was a low-lying, completely unbroken white sheet of clouds, this was it. It hugged the coast and inland at about 1000ft. There was no way we were going to do this.
Or was there?
What the heck, we got that far, let's see what we can see. A couple minutes heading north along the coast gave us our first view of the ocean, as a small tear formed in that white sheet. We could see clearly to the water, and more importantly, that layer was very thin - a couple hundred feet top-to-bottom.
I tried ducking under right there, had a quick look around, and climbed back up. We were still over 20nm south of Shelter Cove, and I didn't want to try and fly so low to the water for that long. Hoping we might get lucky closer to the airport, we soldiered on.
My heart was sinking as the GPS counted down the miles. 10. 5. 3. 2. 1. 0. We were right over the airport, but with simply no way to make it down. Oh well. Time to turn inland. I was headed to Garberville.
But wait!
As we turned around that little pointy area at Shelter Cove jutting into the ocean, my copilot saw it first: there was another tear! almost perfectly round, less than 1000ft across, right above the water, maybe a half mile north of 0Q5. Clear to the bottom, and more importantly, immediate confirmation that the layer was thin and hung 800-1000ft above water. It was completely crisp under it. With no air movement at all, it was still. Perfect conditions to try something cool.
I went for it. I drilled - maybe corkscrewed is a better term, as I was literally doing a continuous tight turn (45deg) descending into that hole. It felt like a skater in a ring, going round and round a wall. Three (or maybe four) full circles like that, and we were 500ft under the cloud and still 400ft or so above water. It was gorgeous, vivid, and crisper than I'd ever seen anything - partly due to my heightened concentration and senses, I'm certain. I straightened and went back to the airport slowly. Runway 12 popped up so quickly I was almost over it before I knew it, but with a shallow direct headwind, landing was smooth and easy.
My heart was sure racing though!
As we got into the inn where we were staying, the guy at the front desk said the other 4 pilots that were scheduled to come in canceled after overflying the area earlier in the day. Apparently that hole in the marine layer did not form until 30 minutes before we showed up. By the time we got our stuff into the room, it was already closing, and 30 minutes later, the sky was completely covered everywhere.
Hey, I DID think 4PM would give the best chance, right? *grin*
Shelter Cove itself is just astounding, and I fell in love with it. I am DEFINITELY going back. But that's a different story.
The next day - today - we had to come back. We woke up. That white sheet was hanging all over the place. The guy at the inn said "just stay for as long as you need", and I took him up on it. We spent a lazy morning doing this and that, as I was watching the sky. Around noon, I saw a couple tears starting to form, then closing, then opening again. That's all I needed; all I wanted to see was that the layer was the same as the previous day. It sure was.
We took off less than an hour later, same runway 12. As soon as we got off the ground, I pointed the nose 30 degrees to the right, towards the ocean, set myself on a steady-but-not-too-steep climb, and ignored pretty much everything but the AI, just like I've been taught under the hood, and in actual clouds (thank goodness for good instructors that showed me what it really felt like). As we hit the fog I felt... well, nothing really. I wasn't looking outside. My eyes were fixed on the instruments. It took less than a minute and then we popped out into a beautiful blue sky. I was pointed a bit to the right of where I wanted to be heading (at about 170), which was perfectly fine; it was easy enough to turn back towards the coast and head back to CCR.
And as if this wasn't enough excitement, we then decided to make a lunch and fuel stop at Ukiah on the way back. It's a beautiful spot, except that it's surrounded by pretty steep hills and mountains requiring one to fly at 5500ft from the northwest (as we were), until the very last moment where you come out and it all drops rather dramatically into a valley and a 600ft elevation airport. So I got to do another cool maneuver, forward-slipping 4000ft very rapidly into a left pattern, sinking faster than I ever have before. Oddly enough I never felt in such solid control of a forward slip before either. My copilot said it was the only time she felt nervous at all, because we were at such an extreme attitude with that rather violent slip it very much confused her system. Oh, and someone was taking off as we were overflying like that (we coordinated well on the radio, and it was kinda neat actually). But the pattern entry was at perfect altitude, angle and distance. I was so proud of myself for just how precisely the maneuver ended up getting executed... and oh, the adrenaline rush. Yow.
The last leg of the trip was quite uneventful. But I needed that after all the rest.
What an incredible experience!
