Looooooooong Beach

Time building flying is coming right along. In a few weeks, I'll finally have enough hours to put on form 8710 and apply for a Commercial Single Engine Certificate.

Saturday, a plane was reserved for a time building cross country. I was planning on heading to Long Beach and back. That would be good for about 6.5 hours. A check of the weather told me that Long Beach wasn't a good idea and to choose somewhere outside of California. Santa Fe came to mind. The weather form Santa Fe looked good and the FBO there said a crew car was waiting for me.

I did the requisite flight plan and got ready for bed. I went to put my phone on the charger and notice a voice mail alert from "restricted". That almost always means a call from school. Sure enough, it was. My flight had been cancelled due to lack of availability. Lack of availability? 16 Cadets and not one available? Apparently, several planes had gone down at once and only 4 were flying. Of course, time building flights don't make dual money, so they are the first to get bumped. On the bright side, it was a Saturday and I got to spend the entire day with my wife and kids. Nice. Also, I was guaranteed that Sunday would be no problem for an aircraft.

Saturday night, it was time to start thinking about flight planning. My daughter was going with me and she was really excited about going to California. The weather looked to be improving. My 16:00z departure would find skies broken at 12,000, scattered at 8,000 and few at 5,000. Not bad at all. LA was at South end of a front moving across Northern California. Winds aloft showed a headwind en route ranging from 10-20 knots. I calculated the trip to take a little less than 4 hours, no problem for an IFR flight with 5:30 fuel.

Sunday morning, we headed out to the airport, received a final brief from the Flight Service Station, picked up IFR clearance and headed off for Long Beach. The winds were forecast the same and all Airmets were 100 miles to the north of my route. Ground speed was looking fine until the California border, then the wind started. Ground speed from Blythe to Coachella Valley: 80 knots. Average ground speed range from Coachella Valley to Hemet: 52 knots.

I had called Flight Watch for updates and they had nothing. Once I was handed off the Palm Springs Approach, I started hearing about light aircraft pilots turning back due to severe turbulence and wind shear. Nobody under 8,000 feet was going through Banning Pass. I talked to Approach. It was difficult to maintain 10,000. I would lose 1,000 and then gain 1,000. He gave me a block clearance from 10-11,000 and I climbed to 11,000. It smoothed out, but ground speed remained painfully slow. At one time it showed 42 knots!

Once past Banning pass, SoCal started my descent. From 11,000 to 6,000 the clouds were thick and tossing us around like popcorn in a popper. We finally broke through over March AFB and things started to smooth out, but headwind was still an issue. At this point, my fat rear end is becoming numb and my bladder is about to explode. Elapsed time: 4:00:00.

SoCal gives me a traffic alert for a Twin Otter that just released a group of jumpers. I glance out and up just in time to see it spiraling straight down into the cloud base above. Cool sight.

I had basically used climb power for nearly a 100 mile stretch to maintain altitude and was starting to get nervous about fuel. My left tank was near zero and my right tank was wavering at 1/4. The problem with fuel gauges is that they only have to be accurate at EMPTY. I did some quick calculations and figured it would be just under 5:00:00 when we reached Long Beach. Figuring the time spent at climb power, I had enough fuel to make Long Beach with about 10 minutes to spare.

I called SoCal and declared minimum fuel. They asked if we needed to divert to Orange County and I declined. They vectored us direct to final at Long Beach, we joined the localizer and were FINALLY on the ground. Flight time: 4:50, total Hobbs time: 5.3. The aircraft took 46 gallons, which meant we had 15 minutes of usable fuel remaining.

Lessons learned:

1. Weather forecasts are just that.


2. Just because the flight plan says 90 minute fuel reserve, doesn't mean you can count on it.


3. Declaring minimum fuel gets you the priority you need to ensure safety. ATC will do everything necessary to help you.

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By the time we parked, ordered fuel and picked up a rental car, it was nearly 1:30 Pacific time, or 2:30 Arizona time (for anyone that doesn't know, Arizona doesn't follow Daylight Savings Time). On final approach my daughter recognized the Carnival Pride and Queen Mary. We have been on the Carnival Pride a few times and had visited the Queen Mary as well. She asked if we could go to the Queen Mary for lunch and we did. But before leaving, I checked the weather. The winds were finally being reported accurately for our route of flight. With darkness just a few hours away, I didn't want to be traveling through mountain passes in those conditions and darkness.

We made our way to the Queen Mary and got there in time to have the big Sunday Brunch. Let me tell you how hungry my daughter was. That girl ate more than I did! She had four helpings of roast beef, not to mention pasta and three different desserts. After brunch, she wanted to explore the ship. That was when I realized that not only was it too dangerous to fly home that night, I felt like a freight train had run over me...twice. The flight out was just grueling.

I called Signature Flight Support and they handled room reservations for us. Then I called the school. They weren't too happy about the situation, but finally realized that the plane just wasn't coming back until the next day. I basically said, "Do you want the plane back in one piece, or a thousand?"

We settled in at the Marriott, enjoyed Pizza Hut room service and watched The Amazing Race together before she finally drifted off to sleep. Before she dozed she said, "Today was the best day ever, Daddy." I couldn't have asked for a more perfect end to the day.

I sat in bed and watched the LA news. Apparently, there was a light plane crash in Cajon Pass. Cajon Pass is north of Banning Pass, but very similar in weather phenomena. Although I felt terrible for the pilot and passenger(s), it convinced me that I made the correct decision to stay the night.

We woke up bright and early so we could eat and have a flight plan completed by 6:30 a.m. The weather was much improved, other than foggy IFR conditions for the LA Basin. It was expected to clear by 9 a.m., but that was 10 AZ time and too long to wait. I filed a quick IFR plan and after a short hold for IFR release, we were off. Departure only kept us in the fog for about 15 minutes and soon we were on top. Here's a picture taken from somewhere over the Huntington Beach area towards the North. I think those are the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance.

We hit 11,000 by Perris and cruised V64-V16 back to Phoenix. Favorable tailwinds got us back to Gateway in exactly 3 hours, with nearly half full tanks as well. It felt good to be home.

One positive to the nasty headwind: 8.3 on the Hobbs this trip. One more long CC should be all I need.

Next trip: Viva Las Vegas, baby.