Date:    Monday, June 4, 2001, 4:25:38 AM
Subject: Watsonville Airshow Fly-in weekend trip [Very long]

I've finally got some time to sit down and do a write up about our
Watsonville trip last Memorial Day weekend.

The trip actually started on Thursday, when my CFI, Joel, and I few our
Cherokee 6-300 from Santa Barbara (SBA) to Santa Ynez (IZA), in an
IFR-to-VFR on-top because of the week-long marine-layer clouds at 800
ft. over SBA. I got some actual IFR practice, and we also practiced the
IZA GPS RWY 8 approach into IZA.  On the drive back home from IZA, Joel
even spent the 20 minute ride quizzing me in preparation for the oral
part of the IFR practical test.

IZA, being more arid and dry, is usually clear because of the
four-thousand foot mountain, part of the Los Padres, that sits between
it and the south-facing coast of Santa Barbara. So, IZA gets a lot of
"ferry traffic" from SBA whenever it is IMC and there are nearby flyins.

I had originally planned an early departure from IZA, but the marine
layer somehow sneaked past the mountains during the night and was a bit
lazy about leaving. Sometime around noon, the sky turned from grey-white
fog to blue. So, we packed up the plane with our camping gear and food
for the weekend, and the five of us (my wife, two sons, younger
daughter, and myself) and departed IZA.

Flying with the new panel is a real pleasure. The #1 GPS (GNS530) is
placed in Nav page 2, a moving map display, with the right side data
elements enabled, and the #2 GPS (GNS430) is placed in Nav page 4, the
frequencies display for the next waypoint.

Since the #2 GPS has the frequencies displayed, I use the #2 comm as
primary. Sequencing to the next frequency is easy, since the Garmin does
the sequencing mostly automatically.

Our flight plan is IZA, PRB (Paso Robles), SNS (Salinas), WVI. There
is a temporary tower frequency and ground control at WVI; you don't
actually talk to ground, you just listen and do.

I program both GPS #1 and #2 with the flight plan, enable GPSS, put the
Sandel 3308 HSI on "GPS1/Auto", and set the auto-pilot (A/P) on HDG. I
dial in the altitude hold to 4500 and press ALT on the A/P.  At this
point, GPS #1 is driving the plane, even holding a slight crab to offset
the crosswind, and turning as appropriate at the waypoint changes.

Normally, I use flight following, but on this Memorial Day Friday, with
the coastal fog over the entire coast of California, there is lots of
IFR traffic in addition to the many VFR planes headed for Watsonville
(WVI), so ATC isn't willing to take any more load for flight following.

Not a real biggie anyway, with the Ryan TCAD 9900 showing me any nearby
traffic (within a 6 mile radius).

As we get within 20 nm. of WVI, I start listening in to the WVI
temporary tower (normally, WVI is a CTAF/UNICOM field). At 14 nm., I
announce my position, and get sequenced in. I hear (but can't really
see) a P51 mustang get cleared to land. Too bad! That would be pretty
cool to watch from the air. At 4nm, tower says that I'm #2 behind a
Lance. When I turn base, the tower says that I'm cleared to land, and be
advised that there's a C-46 on a long final. I take that as a suggestion
to fly and land as reasonably quickly and safely as I can. So, I land
and skeedadle as quick as I can off the runway, and get a personal
"follow-me" truck to take us to the overnight camping area.

We get pushed back into a grassy area off the taxiway in front of the
hangers, next to a Cessna 195, a Cessna 180, a Cessna 172, and a Piper
Archer.  There is an entire row of "modern" planes -- the antiques are
parked on the other side of the hangars.

We pulled out our camping gear, and start setting up our Kelty Ridgeway
tent. Some of our neighbors make comments about the size of our tent;
apparently, they are used to camping in pup tents. So I respond with
"What tent? It's our hangar!" :^). Like other Costco specials, it's a
good size tent -- it can sleep 10-12 people comfortably. We brought one
of those queen-sized air mattresses, and it only occupied about a third
of the space within the tent.

While we were setting up camp, some friends from the SBA EAA walk by and
we chat a bit. Their planes are parked not too far away -- Joanie's
Cherokee 140 is a one-owner plane -- she bought it new over 24 years
ago. John's Aeronca Chief is back up the grass closer to the runways. He
flew it in with his 12-year-old son. It has no radios, no transponder --
basically, no electrical system. He flies with a hand-held radio, to
communicate and listen when he has to.

It's a neat feeling to see those folks--it reinforces the sense of an
"aviation community".

After the tent is setup, we head over to the airport restaurant, where
they have a fairly decent Mexican menu.

There is an evening airshow:

* a hang-glider with flashing light embedded somewhere within the wing--
my kids said it looked like a luna moth. The hang-glider also has
multiple pairs of flares on the trailing edge of the wing that would be
turned on, one by one, until the entire wing appeared to be on fire. I
wasn't sure if the demonstration was on how to illuminate the flight of
a hang-glider at night, or if it was on how to fly a hang-glider on
fire.

* a demonstration of precision helicopter flying, the "ShowCopters",
with three helicopters.  The demonstration is very impressive: I didn't
know that helicopters could fly in just about any direction relative to
their tail; I also didn't know that they could whip their tails about with
such precision. There is one really neat maneuver where the three rotary
craft approach each other directly, but lean toward each other steeply,
which kills their forward momentum until they are all canted towards a
common middle point, and hovering.  Then, they start moving laterally in
unison, the three ships' motion describing a circle with their relative
positions remaining almost constant.  I don't know how to fly
helicopters, but it looks difficult enough.

* a "rocket car", where the sonic impact from the rocket ignition (kind
of a "burp" of fire) is sufficiently strong to feel it in your body. The
rocket car "burps" its way to the end of the runway, turns around, fires
its engines up (kind of like a run-up, I guess), and then lets 'er rip!
Wow!! The rate of acceleration is so unbelievable. By the time the
rocket car reaches the midpoint of the 4000 ft. runway, it appears to be
easily exceeding 200 miles/hour, at which point the "pilot"/driver turns
off the rocket, deploys the parachute, and somehow manages to slow down
without actually exiting the runway end. A pretty impressive display of
speed (and subsequent braking).

* a fireworks display, that puts many 4th-of-July shows to shame.  The
finale made us all laugh with amazement.

The next morning, Saturday, we head down to the portable shower unit,
pay our $2/person, for a decent, warm shower. Then, we head over to the
local EAA hangar, where they are cooking breakfasts for a very nominal
charge. As we walk along, there are many rows of antique and
experimental airplanes to look at. There's almost an entire row of
Cessna 195s. At the head of the row, near the concession stands, are two
pairs of brand new Socatas and Pipers.

Sometime around noon, the airshow begins, this one with an Extra, a
bi-plane, a stubby little plane with a really big engine that I never
learned the name of, the ShowCopters again, and the rocket car again.
That stubby little but extremely fast airplane races the rocket car. It
seems unfair at first, because of the "head start" of the airplane, but
the rocket car's acceleration is incredible -- it catches up and beats
the airplane by just a bit before shutting off its rocket and popping
the chute.

There is an Abrahms M1 tank at the show, and the California National
Guard demonstrates how quickly the 62 ton vehicle can accelerate up to
its 30 mph maximum, while maintaining a pinpoint accuracy of its turret
on a target.  It's a very scary feeling to have that big turret swing
around, and down, apparently locking in on you.

The show has been fun, but the planes start lining up on the taxiway at
about 4pm in anticipation of the 4:30pm opening of the runways for
departures.  We pack up the tent and chairs, stuff 'em into the Cherokee
6, and pull out and line up.  We sit for about 20 minutes, and then the
tower starts letting out planes, with departures on both sides of the
main runway.  Finally, its our turn to get released on the right side of
the runway, and then we're off.

Having talked with John, we learn that there's a nice campground at
Columbia airport, so its direct to Columbia, almost due East, on about a
40 minute flight. We land on rwy 17, and turn right onto a dirt taxiway
to the airport parking for camping, which is about a 50 ft. walk from
the actual campgrounds. There are a row of about 10 planes parked for
camping, so the camping seems like a popular activity. The cost is very
reasonable at $6/per plane, which includes the use of the clean
facilities, with hot water showers.

John and his son Eric show up to help us carry our camping gear, and
help us setup the tent.  After which, we take a walk to the "Blue Moon"
restaurant, which is just about a mile from the airport.  The food at
the "Blue Moon" is pretty good, and after the walk back, especially with
my three-year-old son on my shoulders, we're all ready for sleep.

The only negative aspect of camping at Columbia were our neighbors,
which we couldn't help but learn included an extremely loud,
foul-mouthed waitress frustrated with her job and life. Sometime after
11pm, my wife--normally a very tolerant woman--spoke up and let our
neighbors know that they were being unnecessarily loud and rude.  They
grumbled, but they quieted down some.

The next day, Sunday, we showered and packed up and reloaded the plane,
and then walked to breakfast in the "old town" part of Columbia.

The old town part of Columbia has been restored to its 1800s period look
(remember the 49'ers gold rush days?), with the service providers
wearing period costumes. There's a real smithy, and a gold panning
station, where for (there's that magic number) $6 you can pan for gold
flakes in the long series of troughs. If panning for gold isn't your
style, you can ride around the town in a horse-drawn carriage, or take a
horse ride around the outskirts of town. There are some bed-n-breakfast
places so you can spend a nice, romantic weekend there if you like.

We walked back, refueled, boarded the plane, and departed rwy 17. As we
were departing, we heard a water tanker announce itself on final to rwy
30 -- which seemed a little strange, since the wind and traffic was
preferring rwy 17. As we turned toward our heading south, we saw the
tanker turning final onto the opposite end of rwy 17, and there was
someone already on the runway behind us. Over the radio, we heard the
tanker do a go-around, so there was no near "incident", but it seemed
like the tanker crew wasn't really practising "proper" uncontrolled
field procedures.

We dialed in IZA on the GPS, set the altitude hold and alert to 6500,
and VS to +5, engaged the A/P. The kids promptly fell asleep. I guess
the breakfast and walk, combined with the warm cozy cabin, and droning
vibration of the plane were the right ingredients to induce naps.

About 30 nm from IZA, we see a solid line of fluffy white clouds topping
at about 4500. From the various ASOS & ATIS reports it appears that the
cloud bases are around 2000 ft, with a few clouds at 1200. We're pretty
sure that we won't be able to land VFR from 6500 at IZA, but we fly over
it anyway, to see if the San Marcos pass has any openings -- it doesn't
-- and then we turn back to the New Cuyama river, where we previously
saw an opening under the clouds.

From the map, and past knowledge of the area, we're pretty sure that we
can fly at about 1000-1500 ft. above the road from New Cuyama, past the
Santa Maria reservoir, avoid the low hilly terrain, and remain below the
2000 ft. cloud bases. We would just have to negotiate the occasional
1200 ft. clouds.

We were also sure of the airport conditions, since we heard IZA traffic
doing touch & go's.  Someone in the IZA traffic also reported cloud
bases at 2000.

So, throughout the flight from the New Cuyama river to IZA, there was
really no problem. A few times, we had to drop down to about 700 or 800
ft. to remain 500 ft. below the clouds -- but we were over farmlands or
pastures.

The landing at IZA was uneventful, which is the best kind.

All in all, a great weekend of flying-related fun.

-- 
Best regards,
 Alan K. Stebbens <Alan_Stebbens@Yahoo.com>, N4184R, PA32-300, SBA