Getting to Know the Bay Area Airspace

Last year, I earned my pilot’s license on July 5, 2008…one of the most challenging experiences of my life. And I’d flown a little more than 40 hours in a six week period to earn my license. But all my flying was done in the Chicago area and I live in California. So I knew that when I returned to Cali, that I would need to find a flying club and get checked out by an instructor before I’d be able to rent an aircraft. After about six weeks, August 17, 2008…I flew a 1 1/2 hr checkout flight with an instructor out of Advantage Aviation, Kenneth Hirsch. That initial flight taught me alot about Bay Area airspace and gave me some added confidence…but I wanted to take another flight to really test my skills and my understanding of the area.

The following weekend, I decided to fly a triangle route within the Bay from Palo Alto (PAO) to Reid-Hillview (RHV) to Livermore (LVK) and back to PAO. Each leg of the flight was about 18 nm and trust me it was INTENSE.

The weather for the flight was typical Bay Area summertime perfection (340/10 V20 SKC 23/17 A29.98).  I preflighted my lil 747 (Cessna 152 with the callsign of N747ZP) and requested a right downwind departure, but instead was given a left downwind departure and boy, did that make it interesting. I also requested Flight Following and I pretty much always do so when I’m flying in the Bay Area, since the airspace is so dense. I took off on Runway 31 and turned south for my departure. I hadn’t even reached 1500 ft or abeam the approach end of the runway before I was handed off to Moffett. At Moffett I was cleared to climb through 1500 ft to 3500ft and within a couple of minutes, I was handed over to San Jose Intl (SJC) Tower. 

SJC cleared me for my mid-field cross and as soon as I was just beyond the mid-field of SJC, they requested my descent to 2500ft and  handed me off to RHV Tower, where I was cleared to enter a left downwind for runway 31L and asked to again change to the alternate Tower frequency at RHV. So in all, in this barely 20 minute flight…I was passed between 6 different controllers (including PAO Ground)…this definitely tested my radio and cockpit management skills. 

At RHV, I took a quick break by taxing back for a departure, now on 31R. I specifically requested to continue my Flight Following and the Tower said ok. After taking off from 31R, I was immediately handed off to NorCal approach. I called NorCal approach, but they didn’t know who I was or where I was going. And I guess he didn’t have to bandwidth to handle me, so he requested that I call NorCal Departure. I finally reached  NorCal departure, received my squawk code, climbed to 3500 ft, and stayed clear of Class C airspace (SJC). Within about 2 mins, I was requested to make an immediate turn 20 degrees to the right to aviod oncoming traffic, and this was interesting because I was flying essentially at the same altitude as the foothills to my right. But I also climbed about 200 feet, because I was near a Victor Airway intersection and I wanted to ensure I was clear of any aircraft that might be on that route. 

Shortly thereafter (and I’m talking a couple of minutes), I was given clearance to fly at my discretion and my radar services were terminated (I guess they were really busy that day). So I flew to the Sunol intersection and called LVK Tower. As I was descending into LVK I started to feel some heat around my legs, but all my engine instruments were showing okay. I received my clearance to land on 25L and did so smoothly. After landing I checked the instruments on the taxiway by performing mini-engine run up. and again everything seemed ok. So I taxied back to 25L for takeoff. As I started my takeoff roll, I noticed that the engine oil pressure seemed high, so I immediately aborted my takeoff and taxied off the runway. But the Tower radio was so busy that it took me at least 3 minutes to tell the Tower that I had aborted my takeoff and that I needed to taxi somewhere to check things out. Once he finally got to me, he gave me clearance to taxi to the wash rack near the hangars. 

So, I shut it down on the ramp and got out to inspect the oil and the engine. I also knew that I’d be late returning the aircraft, so I called Advantage to let them know the issue. They even offered to have an instructor fly over to fly the aircraft back if I didn’t feel comfortable. My brief inspection didn’t turn up anything, so I headed back out to PAO. The flight back to PAO was a piece of cake compared to my first two legs, outside of a prevelance of crossing traffic at the Sunol pass. I finally returned to PAO 1.5hrs later, a smarter and more comfortable pilot. 

Kinda crazy for a 1st solo flight in the Bay Area, huh?