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Sunday June 30, 2002 - Saying Goodbye
Time for my last flight with Mike. I had passed the Stage III check and
Mike was leaving town some time in the next week. If I had failed this
probably would not have been much fun since I had today was for fun.
I just wanted to go somewhere and come back and it was obvious that Mike
didn't feel like any real flight training. So we decided to head over to
Half Moon Bay and enjoy the sea breezes and come back.
So that is what we did. Off from Livermore with left crosswind and then
down over Sunol and West over Fremont. We squeaked over the Bay along the
Dumbarton Bridge. Busy airspace here - it's the main transition route for
VFR traffic over the South Bay. You are sneaking under the San Francisco
Class B overhead at 2500' and just to the North and just North of the San Jose
Class C to the South. So there is a lot of VFR traffic plus you have the
big boys only a couple thousand feet overhead so you have to worry a bit about
wake turbulence as well if they are busy.
Today though it's surprisingly quiet for a Sunday afternoon. It's clear
so the big boys are mostly doing their turns to final farther North over the San
Mateo Bridge and traffic from the South is able to do a full visual approach
which means they get to do a steeper glide-path so they are higher.
Then squeak out from under the low Class B shelf and a quick climb to clear
the Peninsula hills (technically the San Francisco Mountains but that's
generous) and a quick zag North into Half Moon Bay. Coming into Half Moon
Bay is always tricky because noise abatement says no straight-ins. But the
traffic pattern is to the East of the field up against the hills so its a
squeeze coming in up against 2000' terrain for a 1000' pattern altitude
underneath a 2500' Class B shelf and having to do a 315 degree turn to the 45.
But I've been here before so not too hard.
It's bit bumpy on final and the windsock is straight out with a quartering
headwind. But I float it down nice and gentle and actually make an A-
landing.
We had some quick and nicely cold Cokes and then back to Livermore. Of
course today was mostly sight-seeing so up around the Class B to the North.
We got flight following from Bay Approach up around the city - which was helpful
as there was a lot of traffic around the Golden Gate. So up the coast past
Pacifica and Great Beach, then East over the Golden Gate and just North of the
City with a great view of Alcatraz. Bay Approach dumped us to VFR again
when we switched to the East so we skirted Oakland's Class C and then back to
Livermore. A nice relaxing way to finish six months of training.
We gave Mike a couple of books on the DC area (where he's moving to) and
spent 30 minutes getting all the endorsements right in my logbook. We also
talked about the check-ride and I was even more sure I didn't want to ride with
Larry. So I had a project to find another DE. But I was officially
done with my training. Woo-hoo.
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