Date:    Monday, June 11, 2001, 11:54:04 AM
Subject: Nice flight to John Wayne airport Saturday [long trip report]

Howdy,

My 5-year old son and I had a nice little round-trip to John Wayne
airport (formerly Santa Ana) this Saturday. The first time for me to
land there. I was flying down to pick up my oldest daughter, on her way
back from San Diego. Her ride was going north to Whittier, and she
didn't want to spend the rest of the day and overnight there.

The day started out threatening to remain obscured with fog and low
clouds (at 400 ft.), but by noon, the heat of the overhead sun had
created enough of a mini-high-pressure zone to push back the marine
layer to where it belongs over the ocean.

I check the weather forecast for SBA and it is supposed to remain clear
until 8pm or so.  Our destination airport, SNA, is 7 miles visibility
with haze, but otherwise clear skies.  It looks good-to-go for a short
50 minute flight down, pick up, and a 50 minute flight back.

An interesting part of this flight is that we'll be flying through the
Los Angeles Special Flight Rules Area -- a small VFR-only corridor right
over the LAX runways at 3500 ft. southbound (and 4500 ft. northbound).

After the preflight, I settle into the cockpit and program the waypoints
for this brief flight into the Garmins. The Jepp databases in the
Garmins are current, but they don't have the waypoints for the LAX SFRA,
so I use SMO and WILMA as the endpoints for the corridor segment. I like
having my route programmed into the GPSes, even if they are based on
user or ad-hoc waypoints, because they provide distance and time
information enroute. This also enables me to drive the autopilot in GPS
heading mode, rather than the Sandel "heading bug" mode.

One thing that bugs me about these new avionics is having to turn them
off between the clearance and startup. Of course, they have modern power
supplies, complete with voltage spike protections, so that I could leave
them on without harming them while starting the engine. But, the POH and
every CFI I've ever flown with all require that all avionics be turned
off prior to engine start.

Perhaps having all available power for the starter and coils is the real
reason, but the new battery has plenty of amp-hours, and the new starter
is very efficient.

Of course, I follow the recommended procedures, but it still bugs me
that I must do so for what appears to be essentially administrative
reasons.

So, I get ATIS and clearance, and then shut down the avionics, fire up
the engine, and then turn the avionics back on -- wait for the Garmins
to boot up, check themselves, and then ask my permission to go to work.
I reload the active flight plan from where I had saved them), and
activate it.

During the Garmins' boot-up, and while the screen controls aren't active
yet, the radio components work fine (on the most recent frequency), so
if you preset the radio to ground before shutting down the avionics
prior to starting your engine, you can actually talk to ground and taxi
after you've restored power to the avioncs and while your GPSes are
initializing and finding their satellites.

The run-up is uneventful--the way it should be--and I taxi over to 15L
and let tower know. From listening in during the startup, there doesn't
seem to be a lot of traffic -- a plane in the pattern, and a
plane arriving on 15L, and a commercial plane coming (an EMB-120, I
think) in to 25.  But, the tower controller is talking very rapidly to
each of these planes, in round-robin fashion, and doesn't leave very
much time in between for new traffic, or planes holding, to announce
themselves.

I announce myself twice -- with no response. Finally, after about 6
minutes of waiting at the runway (which feels like a really long time,
especially with your engine running), I announce myself this way: "Santa
Barbara Tower, Cherokee 4184 Romeo, still holding short of 15L, ready
for departure, but not quite sure that my radio is working."

Well, that got an immediate response -- "Cherokee 4184 Romeo, been a
little busy -- continue to hold short for arriving traffic."  I
confirmed my instructions, but didn't add my mental, sarcastic comments
that he was making himself busy by working the radio so damn hard.

You see, there was arriving traffic on 15L -- but it was still 3 or 4
miles out, and the pattern traffic had just touched down on 15R and was
powering up for his next loop in the pattern.   And, the airliner on 25
had already landed and taxied off the runway.  I believe that the
controller was just working his current customers too hard, and not
leaving much time between them.

As I was preparing to be patient and calm for another interminable wait,
the tower controller changed my runway assignment, cleared me to cross
15L and depart 15R immediately, with caution that there was traffic on
downwind for T&G's on 15R. I guess he got some instructions from his
trainer-supervisor.

So, it's taxi and power up on the roll, and we're off. The front wheel
has a little bit of shimmy, even if I keep back pressure on the yoke.
It's normal actually, but I just got used to that really, really smooth
roll from the King Air flight two weeks ago. ;^)

My clearance assignment is to fly runway heading (150) and maintain VFR <=
1500.  I climb at a constant speed of 110 mph (this is a 1968 plane), so
I can see over the nose.  At about 1000 ft., tower hands me off to
departure, and I check in.  They let me fly VFR and release my altitude
restriction.

Now the autopilot goes on, and the plane turns left and flys to
intersect that imaginary line between SBA and our next waypoint, which
happens to be VNY (Van Nuys VOR). Rather than fly a sharp intercept to
this imaginary line, I bring up the active flight plan, select the
current destination waypoint (VNY), and go direct to it again -- which
has the effect of resetting the origin of this segment to the current
position.

So, instead of flying north to intercept the line between SBA and VNY, I
am now flying direct to VNY, but which is still part of a multi-segment
flight plan to SNA.

Ventura, a half-hour by car down US-101, doesn't have the same kind of
geography (like a 4000 ft. mountain 10 miles from the south-facing
beach), and thus remains obscured and overcast on this otherwise sunny
day.  It's a vaguely uneasy feeling to be leaving SBA with sunny skies,
and within a few minutes be over solid clouds.

The clouds stay along the shoreline, so after passing Ventura, we fly
inland a bit, towards VNY, and the clouds fall behind, to the right.

We've got flight following, and SBA departure hands us off to Pt. Mugu
approach, and the terminate advisory services (apparently because LA
Center was too busy -- which makes sense, given all the coastal IFR
traffic).

Rather than fly all the way to VNY, which also happens to be in the
Burbank airspace, which extends up to 4800 and we're only at 3500, I
redirect our flight to the next way point, SMO (Santa Monica).  This
way, we don't have to climb to 5500, and we stay out of Burbank's
airspace.

As soon as we reach SMO, this is where the LAX Special Flight Rules kick
in: set the xponder to 1201, fly at 3500 south-bound (we already are),
remain within the defined borders of the corridor, announce your
intentions on 128.85 (we did), and be vigilant.

Our TCAD helps us with our vigilance, but it's a relatively quiet day --
only a few planes are to be seen.  It must be all the MVFR inland haze
and coastal IFR.

As we shoot the cooridor, we look to see what I figure must be a unique
view: the LAX runways from 3500 overhead, with lines of planes arriving
from the east. However, the clouds obscure our view of the LAX runways,
and we can't even begin to see anything of the actual coastline which I
know is down there at the end of those Class B runways. And, the inland
haze, which is limiting visibility to 5 to 7 miles, keeps us from even
seeing the line of planes. Oh well, some other day.


After we are through the corridor, our next waypoint is WILMA, after
which we announce our intention to land with SNA approach. SNA has a
complex setup, with three approach areas, each with its own frequency,
and there are three towers frequencies (I don't know why). The frequency
page (Nav page #4 on the GNS 530) is one of the longest I've seen so
far.

SNA Approach has me remain on the coastline until the Huntington Pier
("The Pier"), and then I turn inland for a 45 degree entry into the
downwind leg for a right-base onto 19R. I'm at 1000 ft' AGL as my right
wing crosses the numbers, and I start a 300 ft./minute descent, with the
airspeed at stabilized at around 105 or so.

Now this is where I get a little concerned. I've never been to SNA
before, and I'm used to a certain width in my pattern work. Not too
tight (PA32's turn like trucks) but not too wide, either. However, at
about 10 o'clock of my downwind leg for 19R, there are several tall
buildings that seem to be awfully close to being within my intended
landing pattern.

My normal pattern is to turn base at somewhere around 700 ft. AGL, and
then turn final at around 400 AGL -- breaking the 1000 ft. descent into
thirds. But, those tall buildings at 10 o'clock are pretty darn close to
my pattern, so I keep the pattern very tight to the runway, and turn
early to avoid the possibility of getting close to them. This of course,
makes a mess of the pattern, and the base leg has become a 180 degree
turn from the downwind onto final, with an over-turn correction back to
the runway centerline.

But, I line the plane up with the runway centerline, slip a tiny bit for
the slight crosswind, and land just a little bit longer than I like, but
float the plane and keep the nosewheel off the runway as long as I can.

I taxi to Signature, and see my daughter waving, where they had just
pulled up, too, in their car.  Good timing!   I wake up my son, who had
fallen asleep somewhere over Ventura, and even slept through the
landing, despite a nudge or two from me.

After refueling (no, I didn't need fuel, but I always like to have as
much fuel as I can carry, since you never know how your plans might
change, either intentionally or not), and with both my oldest daughter
and son now on board, we taxi to the mid-field run-up area.

This is interesting -- SNA has a mid-field run-up area, where all planes
do their run-up, regardless of their runway assignments.  Then, after
run-up, you talk to ground again and get runway assignments and taxi
instructions.

I did our run-up, behind two Cessna 172s, and one to our right --
essentially being boxed in. Luckily, the Cessna to our right finished up
their run-up, and opened up an exit for us, since we couldn't proceed
through the Cessnas in front of us, which seemed to be taking a really
long time to complete their run-ups. I think they were students.  They
might also have been very cautious, because there were a lot of 737s
coming and going from and to the commercial terminal at SNA -- it seems
like a pretty busy airport.

Our departure was routine, ascending to 4500, and shooting the corridor
in essentially the reverse of the original flight plan down.  Again,
that vague uneasy feeling appeared when our flight appeared to be headed
for a coastline that was completely covered in fog and clouds as far as
you can see.

Until we got to the edge of the SBA Class C airspace, and started
descending and then we could see that the clouds & fog stop just west of
Ventura (about where the mountains start getting close to the ocean --
see the relationship?)

We cross over the harbor and follow the freeway, as per the usual
approach instructions. We're home again, and the landing onto 15L is a
comfortable one, like putting on easy, comfortable slippers after a hard
day at work.

It's with mixed feelings that I complete each flight, and this one is no
different:

- glad that the flight has been exhilarating and good,

- relieved that we're safe on the ground again and not worrying about what can go
wrong every 15 minutes,

- sad that the flying is over, for now,

- and anticipating the next flight, whenever it occurs.

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