eetrojan
Pattern Altitude
Here’s a video of my first "Stage 2" flight lesson re pilotage, mistakes and all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua6w-UxtaNQ
We flew a round-trip circuit in the Los Angeles basin, staying above the ceilings of some delta class airspace and below the floors of the LAX bravo shelves.
I played around with Adobe Premiere’s “Write-On” effect to animate our flight path onto a TAC. Goofy, but fun to try…
On most of my Stage 1 lessons, we made a sharp left after a 190 departure to fly on a 080 heading to the El Toro practice area located to the east of the airport. But today, I did my first "Mesa 220" departure toward the coast, flew west along the coastlines of Huntington Beach, Long Beach, and San Pedro to the Vincent Thomas bridge, turned north and flew along the 110 freeway to the 91 freeway, turned east and flew along the 91 to Fullerton/Disneyland, and then returned to John Wayne via Mile Square Park. I even did my first tower crossing to join the left traffic pattern for runway 19L. No blimps were harmed in the filming of this video.
So, the "firsts" for me on this flight include:
Couple of dumb questions: Since SoCal Approach stayed with us during our entire loop around the LA area, is that the same as “flight following?” And, after we reached our initially cleared destination (Long Beach Practice Area) and advised them of our intent to fly around LA, could they have declined to stay with us?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua6w-UxtaNQ
We flew a round-trip circuit in the Los Angeles basin, staying above the ceilings of some delta class airspace and below the floors of the LAX bravo shelves.
I played around with Adobe Premiere’s “Write-On” effect to animate our flight path onto a TAC. Goofy, but fun to try…
On most of my Stage 1 lessons, we made a sharp left after a 190 departure to fly on a 080 heading to the El Toro practice area located to the east of the airport. But today, I did my first "Mesa 220" departure toward the coast, flew west along the coastlines of Huntington Beach, Long Beach, and San Pedro to the Vincent Thomas bridge, turned north and flew along the 110 freeway to the 91 freeway, turned east and flew along the 91 to Fullerton/Disneyland, and then returned to John Wayne via Mile Square Park. I even did my first tower crossing to join the left traffic pattern for runway 19L. No blimps were harmed in the filming of this video.
So, the "firsts" for me on this flight include:
- Contacting clearance delivery for a “departure” as opposed to a “local”
- Dealing with departure
- Flying to the west of the airport
- Seeing Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Seal Beach, etc., from the air
- Dialing in a VOR and figuring out which radial I’m on
- Determining the length of a nearby airport's longest runway from my chart while in flight (but didn’t quite do it right)
- Staying in touch with SoCal Approach during the entire flight
- Flying below bravo shelves
- Seeing a blimp pointed at me while in the air (it was quite a bit lower)
- Getting ATIS from the controller (I was expecting to temporarily change frequency, but he just gave it to us)
- Flying through the Disney TFR (which is perfectly ok, I'm told, so long as you’re in communication with ATC)
- Crossing over the tower and runway 19R, from the west, to join left traffic for 19L
Couple of dumb questions: Since SoCal Approach stayed with us during our entire loop around the LA area, is that the same as “flight following?” And, after we reached our initially cleared destination (Long Beach Practice Area) and advised them of our intent to fly around LA, could they have declined to stay with us?
