Visiting Berkeley, CA - KOAK or KCCR ?

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Tedric

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Tedric
I'm planning a hop down to the SF Bay Area sometime on the next month or so to visit my daughter, who lives in Berkeley. I'm flown into Concord (KCCR) several times and am familiar with the airport, but its a bit of a haul to get into Berkeley from there. Oakland (KOAK) looks to be a lot closer and from the few times I've flown commercial out of there, I know its a smaller and less busy airport than say SFO or SEA - but I don't have a good sense of whether it would be a good destination for an RV-6 for a few days.

Would appreciate any thoughts/advise on this from those who've been into OAK before. I'd be going IFR if that matters.

Thanks!
 
Call for fees -- we have signature and kaiser air and both hate GA. :)

Hayward might be a reasonable backup to either -- I have had good luck with Meridian FBO there and tell people visiting me via GA to just land there -- even though I am literally 2 minutes from the north field at Oakland. Meridian can get rental cars arranged. Oakland of course has a massive rental car center.

Both are easy to get into and out of. Especially IFR
 
Thanks, will take a look at Hayward. I'm planning to just use BART or Uber, etc. to get to and from Berkeley, so likely no need for car rental.
 
Hayward airport is far from the BART station, sadly, about 20 minutes by e-scooter. Oakland has their connector directly from the terminal, I think it was 6 bucks on top of the normal bart fare. CCR was 25mn by same scooter IIRC.

None of the area airports connect to BART super well. Which sucks, as I love BART.

If you don't mind connecting to BART from CalTrain, San Carlos might actually be the best of all worlds for you. The field is about 3 mins from the station by scoot. :)
 
I have always flown into OAK and used Kaiser and never had an issue. Uber was easy.
 
OAK is really two airports in one. A GA field with three runways on the north side of the airport, and an international airport with a large commercial service runway to the south. While there is a taxiway connecting the two halves, they're about as separate as you can get.

Like any airport serving a large metro area, fees aren't cheap.
 
That’s part of what I’ve liked at Concord. Friendly service, easy parking and minimal fees especially if you gas up. I’m suspecting San Carlos would generally be a little spendy, being where it is, so more like Oakland in that regard.

Anything particularly tricky from an IFR approach/departure standpoint at either Oakland or San Carlos, typically?
 
Tedric said:
I'm planning a hop down to the SF Bay Area sometime on the next month or so to visit my daughter, who lives in Berkeley. I'm flown into Concord (KCCR) several times and am familiar with the airport, but its a bit of a haul to get into Berkeley from there. Oakland (KOAK) looks to be a lot closer and from the few times I've flown commercial out of there, I know its a smaller and less busy airport than say SFO or SEA - but I don't have a good sense of whether it would be a good destination for an RV-6 for a few days.

Would appreciate any thoughts/advise on this from those who've been into OAK before. I'd be going IFR if that matters.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Challenge yourself, Oakland (KOAK)!

By the way, where are you coming from?
 
Tedric said:
That’s part of what I’ve liked at Concord. Friendly service, easy parking and minimal fees especially if you gas up. I’m suspecting San Carlos would generally be a little spendy, being where it is, so more like Oakland in that regard.

Anything particularly tricky from an IFR approach/departure standpoint at either Oakland or San Carlos, typically?
Click to expand...
IFR departure from San Carlos is definitely tricky! This is due to the close proximity to SFO.


When are you coming? The airport is closed for pavement rehabilitation until October 11th.

San Carlos Airport Runway and Connector Taxiways Rehabilitation Project

www.smcgov.org www.smcgov.org

Fees depend on what you're flying:

General Aviation's only database of airport fees and FBO fees for light aircraft - rampfee.me

rampfee.me rampfee.me

Fuel prices are competitive for the area:


 
Tedric said:
That’s part of what I’ve liked at Concord. Friendly service, easy parking and minimal fees especially if you gas up. I’m suspecting San Carlos would generally be a little spendy, being where it is, so more like Oakland in that regard.

Anything particularly tricky from an IFR approach/departure standpoint at either Oakland or San Carlos, typically?
Click to expand...

I found San Carlos VFR departures tricky, something like “climb to 800, turn right at the reflecting pond, make a turn bearing 160°, intercept the Oakland radial…..”.
The clearance takes so long to read back my smart radios think I have a stuck mic and stop transmitting. They publish a pamphlet on all this.
 
Thanks everyone for the additional feedback. I'm coming down from Bremerton, WA (KPWT) and looks like it will be the first week of October, so that rules out San Carlos. Fees at Oakland look potentially significant (thanks for the link PalmPilot, very handy!) so I'm thinking Concord will likely get the nod.
 
Rats about the re-paving, I don't find SQL unfriendly or expensive at all and way more scenic than concord. :) Plus I like the idea that I'm annoying Larry Ellison every time I depart there and buzz the Oracle buildings.
 
Maybe they need a SID there . . . "Climb via the LARRY2 departure, maintain maximum prop RPM below 2000 feet . . . " :D
 
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