The Looooooooooong Cross Country

This morning, we returned from YESTERDAY'S cross country after a restful night's sleep at The Shilo Inn in beautiful Yuma, Arizona. How did we end up overnighting in Yuma? Read on.

I mentioned earlier that I had combined my last two instrument cross-country flights into one. This was intended to be beneficial for several reasons including time savings, the possibility of actual instrument meteorological conditions, flying in some of the busiest airspace and something to look forward to besides the same 7 airports. Sometimes, learning to fly is like that movie Groundhog Day (cue: "I Got You Babe"). A trip to San Diego would be the cure.

We filed for a 17:30Z departure and got off just fine. No ATC delays, no revisions. Our route was files as IWA PXR V95 GBD V94 POTER V66 BRD IMP HAILE MYF. Approaching Yuma, we both received a call from Mother Nature and not liking the Piper lavatory, decided to divert to Yuma. After landing, we parked at Bet-Ko Air took advantage of their low fuel price and answered the call.

Back in the air, we picked up another clearance to Montgomery Field and got back on course. There was a huge fire near Calexico with smoke towering to about 25,000 feet. LA center gave us permission to go around. At about Jacumba, we encountered some developing Thunderstorms. We encountered a little chop and one updraft that that helped us climb from 8,000 to 10,000. It lifted us about 500 feet in 30 seconds. That's a lot of climb for a crap weasel Piper Cadet at that altitude!

On final approach for the ILS24R approach at Montgomery Field, we were surprised to see that they had a Cessna 172 doing a parallel approach directly abeam us on 24L. I'm glad that I wasn't flying single pilot IFR. I know tower had visual, but those runways are close. I wish I had my camera. We parked at Gibbs Aviation, ordered fuel and checked out the weather. TCU distant East. Radar was returning moderate to heavy precipitation. The forecasts looked like thunderstorms for the next 3-4 hours over the coastal mountains.

We decided to take a long lunch and fly to Carlsbad a little later. We rented a car and took it to one of my favorite places to eat in San Diego, Point Loma Seafoods. I ordered a crab sandwich for myself and one promised to my friend Rex (sorry, man). I brought a soft cooler for water and Rex's sandwich. My instructor isn't a seafood fan, so I got mine to go and we went in search of something to satisfy his palate. We ended up at In-N-Out. Since they've expanded to Arizona, it hasn't been the same for me. We ate our lunch at In-N-Out and headed back to Montgomery Field.

We said goodbye to Gibbs Aviation (nice people) and filed a quick IFR plan to Carlsbad McLellan-Palomar (CRQ), which is only about 20NM from MYF. We figured with spacing and vectoring, it would take us about 20 minutes for the flight. Ahem.

We followed the DP and we're vectored about 4-5 miles out from the coast by SoCal approach. Then they sent us direct to Oceanside VOR. Twice we had traffic alerts for other traffic at the same altitude within 1/4 mile. One was another Cherokee coming right at us. RADAR GOOD. EYES BETTER. Just south of Carlsbad, we were vectored east. Nice, they're taking us right to the localizer. WRONG. They took us all the way to Ramona, then turned us back. Then they had us cross the localizer and do another 360 around Escondido. Finally, we were cleared for the ILS24 approach. They cleared a GIV when were were on a 1 mile final. Caution WAKE TURBULENCE, you insignificant little Piper, was the tone of the controller. We survive the wake turbulence and our 20 minute turned 1 hour+ flight to Carlsbad is over.

We won the lottery by getting the one remaining tie down at transient parking. Some Barney Fife looking and acting security guard rapidly approached us with a look on his face like we just popped out of a Sanford & Son re-run. What are YOU doing HERE?
Yes sir, we don't want to make any trouble for the private jets, we just want to buy some gas and be on our way. He directs us to one of the FBO where they promptly charge us almost $6 for LL100. I think they refer to it as Low-Life 100. Ick, it's not for jets. We ask for some bottled water and they said, "We don't have free bottled water". Ok, I'll buy two, please. That will be $2.50. I hand over the cash and they hand over 2 of those mini 1/2 bottles of water you get on an airline. They did have the FBO's logo printed on the label, so I guess it was worth it. Gee thanks. Surprisingly, they offered a golf cart ride back to the plane. I think they all wanted our Cadet gone. Again, ick.

I'm getting Carpal Tunnel, so I'll post part 2 soon.