LA Day One: Santa Monica Pier and Flight - Hollywood Sign, Reagan Library, Van Nuys 16R

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On this trip you will notice that I have a travel companion. I met Sophie, from Australia, while on Phi Phi Island, Thailand. (http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/Ko-Phi-Phi-Don/blog-446522.html) After two years apart Sophie and I agreed that it was time to meet up on another adventure. The plan back in December was to head to Egypt, see the pyramids, take a cruise up the Nile, stay nights in Giza, Aswan, Luxor and Cairo. In December the elections were going to be held in March, in March the elections were pushed back to May. May 23rd and 24th to be exact. Our plans were to arrive in Cairo on May 24th. The beginning of May there were violent protests surrounding the elections, 12 killed and over 200 injured. I decided that Egypt was not the optimal travel destination. So we worked together to try to come up with something relatively inexpensive, I lost a couple of grand moving all of my travel, so much for travel insurance (they told me I actually had to be taken hostage or injured in the protests, if I elected not to go due to these things I am not covered. Brilliant right?), Sophie was able to find a cheap flight to LA and flights to Costa Rica were relatively inexpensive. So we had our new destination.

My flight arrived before Sophie’s into LAX, after landing I made my way over to the international terminal where I met her, after two and a half years I gave her a hug worthy of that kind of time apart. In the cab we caught up on all of the niceties as we made our way to Santa Monica and our hotel for a couple of nights. After dropping our things off we headed down to the pier for a quick lunch and some sightseeing.

For our first activity I decided that I would surprise her with a flight around the city. (Interesting side story, our cab driver was from Egypt, so I did get to use a bit of my Arabic, and he played us music from Egypt. So we did get at least a taste.) I had purchased time in a Cessna 172 with Max, a CFI out of Justice Aviation at Santa Monica municipal airport. Santa Monica is the busiest one runway airport in the world, and it is noticeable as soon as you turn the avionics on. Chatter from all of the planes flying the pattern, taking off, landing, or just in the vicinity. After a short flight briefing with Max we headed out to the plane and situated ourselves. I am not going to get into a ton of detail about LAX or Class Bravo airspace, but suffice it to say that this part of the country is extremely congested and I was thankful to have Max handle virtually all of the radio calls. After departing runway 21 we flew a PEEER One Departure, which is basically for noise abatement, once we hit the coast we flew north along the coast, over Santa Monica pier, until we turned inland through a canyon and over the Reagan Library, which had an F-14 parked out front. Next we were supposed to fly downtown, but to pilots of general aviation there is a very famous airport / runway that was close. Max called us in for clearance and I flew a long right hand base leg for runway 16R “One Six Right” at Van Nuys for a touch and go. I settled in on final with a great landing picture, but in the end a Gulf Stream was coming in much faster and may have overtaken me so I had to do a go around, just missing my touch and go, but for all intents and purposes I say it was a touch and go, Max even signed my log book as such. Onto the Hollywood sign and downtown. I realized something while flying over the 405, that I am so grateful that I live in Omaha and not LA, there is no way I could handle the commute, it was nearly 5:00 during our flight and the freeway looked like a parking lot. Piloting a plane by the Hollywood sign was on my bucket list and the flight was awesome. We made a quick loop after Griffith Observatory and headed back to SMO for a long final to runway 3. The winds and thermals made this one a little more exciting, there is some pretty significant heating that goes on and once we were no longer over the pavement and over the grass the sink was so significant that it almost completely negated ground effect. The landing was smooth, and we taxied off of the runway, parked 2447B, and headed inside to have Max sign my log book. Amazing flight! I wore the biggest smile for a long while after it.

If you are a religious blog reader you will remember Sophie from my trip to Thailand, (referenced above). For dinner I thought it would be fitting to walk down the promenade in Santa Monica to a restaurant Thai Dishes. The food was fantastic. I wanted to eat everything. We were able to reminisce a bit, while enjoying a taste of Thailand before heading back to the room for some much needed sleep. Sophie had gotten off of a 14 hour flight to get there and we had another big day planned.

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Photos

Flying over the Reagan Library
Notice the F-14

Van Nuys 16R
The other plane was landing on 16L

Hollywood Sign
Crossed this flight off of the bucket list