Date: Monday, January 6, 2003, 2:45:44 PM Subject: Legoland trip AKS> Tomorrow, I'm flying our whole family to Legoland, down in Carlsbad. Our AKS> boys are Lego-lunatics, and we've been told that it's a fun amusement park AKS> for kids. Saturday was a wonderful, gorgeous day for flying to McClellan-Palomar (CRQ) and amusement at Legoland, in Carlsbad, CA. We departed SBA around 9:30am, flying VFR, initially climbing to and cruising at 3500 ft. MSL. Much like the previous day, it was 72 degrees F, altimeter 30.05, and the few clouds were at 25,000 ft. Our route was VTU (Ventura VOR), VPLPP (Pacific Palisades), LAX shoreline route, OCN (Oceanside VOR), and then CRQ (Palomar). The winds were practically calm; according to the Garmin's Winds page, we had a maximum headwind of 1 kt. (I checked several times). SMO (Santa Monica), TOA (Torrance), and LGB (Long Beach) were quite busy with a lot of GA traffic. LAX was also busy, of course, but where the heavies are well-controlled and predictable, the lighter GA aircraft are not and thus, as we pass through those areas, we are much more wary. Several times we had quite a bit of traffic being tracked by our Ryan 9900X TCAD. At one point, we had nine (9) targets on the traffic screen, all within a six mile radius, and five (5) of those were within a 2 mile radius, all within 2000 ft. of our altitude. If you fly routinely in So. Cal, you really ought to have a TCAD or TCAS. Once we got near Camp Pendleton and OCN, we began our descent and entered a long downwind for runway 24. We were cleared for landing on rwy 24 for #2 behind a Cessna by CRQ tower. We lost sight of the Cessna, so I maintained my downwind (in "slow fly" mode: 10-degrees, 19" MP, ~105 kts) until we again spotted the Cessna, which had dropped to almost 500 ft. AGL before turning base. The VFR approach procedures call for 2000 ft. MSL "above the houses", so I'm not sure what procedure that Cessna was following. After spotting the Cessna, and watching it turn base and then final, I turned base and spoke to the tower, asking them to confirm that I was still cleared as #2 behind the Cessna, because there seemed to be another high-wing plane on final, that had scooted in (apparently without clearance) behind the Cessna. Tower said: "um, disregard the Cessna. You are now cleared for landing, #2 behind the Citabria." Maybe the Citabria pilot was rude, maybe he was NORDO. Anyway, the tower cleared the Citabria for landing, and then asked me to execute some S-turns in order to create some spacing. I immediately did four 30-degree bank S-turns, slowing the plane to 75-80 kts. (gotta love that STOL kit). As the tower said "Good turns, 84-Romeo; you are cleared to land.", I dropped the nose, added power, and did the mile final back at normal final approach speed. Holding the flare very long, we had a very nice landing. I taxied to Jet Source, where I've found the folks to be very service oriented. I also like parking next to the Citations and Pilati (what *is* the plural of "Pilatus"? :^) After a rest break, the Jet Source folks shuttled us over to Legoland, which is just 2 miles away. I gave the driver and the girl at the counter a tip for "lunch", since they saved us the cost of either a taxi or a car rental. Legoland was a lot of fun and really had an amazing number of Lego constructions. It had displays, exhibits, food, and fun rides for both adults and kids (mine are 4, 7, 16, and 20 years old -- they all had a good time). Here's the link: http://www.lego.com/eng/legoland/california/. Several of the activities and rides are "activity" oriented: you have to actually "work" a little to make the ride or exhibit go. It's great for letting smaller kids burn up energy. It worked: both boys pretty much slept on the plane on the way back, even though it was only 7:30pm. When the park began to close down at 5pm, my older daughter--who had met us at the park--shuttled us back to CRQ, where we hopped back into the plane, revved her up, and departed night-VFR. We climbed up to 4500, and flew the reverse of our original course. There were no winds at all, the temperature was perfect, and the beautiful nighttime view of LAX and the surrounding cities entrancing. Both boys and my younger daughter fell asleep, and my wife and I had a nice chat flying back, interrupted only occasionally by the ATC hand-offs for the Flight Following service. Once we turned at Pacific Palisades and headed for VTU, there was a little bit of wind coming from the high-pressure zones over the mountains, causing some very light turbulence as we flew between the Malibu shoreline and the hills to the north. The very light turbulence last only about 10 minutes; none of the kids woke up. As we were handed off to SBA approach, I took the opportunity of using my PPSEL-wife as a "safety pilot" to request the SBA GPS 25 approach, which I flew manually with less than 1/4-dot deviation on the HSI. The S-Tec S55 auto-pilot is actually capable of flying GPS approaches automatically, including managing the rate of descent. However, when I practise my approaches, I generally don't use the auto-pilot, except for the wing-leveler briefly while I organize the cockpit for landing. Anyway, after reaching MDA, I "saw" the airport, lined up with runway 25, pulled back to full flaps, stabilized for another nice landing. It wasn't a roll-on, but it was a very gentle bump that didn't even wake up the kids. What a nice nighttime VFR flight we had. We'll have to do it again real soon! :^)