The Start of 2010 Bay Tour Sunset Season

One of the indescribable joys of flying in the SF Bay Area.

Ever since my return landing from last week’s trip to Oceano…I’ve been eager to get back into the skies. No matter how much time I spend walking around the airport and/or listening to ATC, nothing beats the feeling of being the captain of a flight. The preflight, the runup, and the departure…they all get my juices flowing.

Well I had no intention of flying this weekend, since I spent most of my flying budget last week on the trip to Oceano. But while getting ready to leave the office on Friday, one of my coworkers dropped by to ask me a work-related question. Five minutes later (and even before she asked her original question), she became interested in taking a sunset flight Saturday evening. And just like that, we booked the plane and my weekend seemed to look just a bit brighter.

The weather was forecasted to be absolutely gorgeous all weekend (75 and sunny) and perfect for a sunset flight. Spring and Fall seem to be the best times of year for sunset flights in the Bay Area, since the weather is warm and fog isn’t an issue. The only issue that may arise is a temporary flight restriction over SF (due to SF Giants baseball games), which prevent Class B transitions over the city and SFO.

Saturday Night’s Flight

Saturday was just a weird day for me all around. I had absolutely nothing planned to do throughout the day, and so I spent much of it just hanging downtown Palo Alto reading a Spanish book (Arte Menor by Benita Gonzalez, an acclaimed Argentinian writer). I arrived at the airport around 6pm, grabbed the keys from the lockbox, and began my preflight. I hadn’t flown N343MM in over a month, but I was looking forward to jumping back into it. It’s such a nice plane and perfect for Bay Tours for new passengers.

My passenger for the day, Tessa, arrived around 6:30p, which was perfect timing since I’d completed the preflight and weather briefing by that time. However, it was still a bit early for us to depart. So I spent a few minutes walking her around the airport, showing her different planes, and answering all her preliminary questions. That’s one thing I really enjoy about introducing new people to general aviation, they ask great questions, which allows me to share in the joy and nostalgia of flight.

Since the sun was scheduled to officially set at 7:51p, I didn’ t want to depart the field any earlier than about 7-7:15p. After running her through the safey procedures and explaining our route, we headed for the runup. While taxiing past an arriving helicopter and parked KingAir, Tessa commented, “wow…this is so cool.” Those words are like candy to a pilot’s ears. Unfortunately, when I received the ATIS I found out that we would not be able to do a Class B transition on our Bay Tour. There was a SF Giants game that night, which meant a temporary flight restriction (TFR) over the city of SF. That doesn’t limit our ability to take a Bay Tour, it just doesn’t allow us to fly over downtown or SFO on our way back to Palo Alto (PAO). Instead, we’d simply hangout over the Bay and then proceed over Oakland on our way back to PAO.

Departure

We departed PAO at almost exactly 7:15p and flew a Right Dumbarton departure. Like I usually do, I climbed to 2500 ft and requested a switch to NorCal Approach for Flight Following as soon as I hit the Salt Stacks near Fremont. There, I was cleared for my Bay Tour and given altitude clearance at my discretion up to the floor of Class B airspace. So we climbed to 3500 ft as we neared the Sunol Pass. Tessa was a helpful First Officer, as she stayed attentive in pointing out planes in the area. The Sunol Pass can be busy at times and outside of a Cessna 172 flying in our vicinity, there wasn’t much else going on at the time. That’s the other great thing about flying sunset flights; the traffic is like the winds…by that time of day…it really starts to die down.

Mt. Diablo from 3500 ft.

We took a left turn and headed up the Livermore Valley basically flying right above I-680. With the Bay on our left side and Mount Diablo on our right, we seemed to just glide along the smooth skies. As I reached Walnut Creek area, I requested clearance into the Bay and was basically told that I could hang out as long as I wanted, so long as I stayed west of the Bay Bridge.

The Bay and the Sunset

We entered the Bay at the perfect time to witness the setting sun.

We entered the SF Bay right around 7:45p and it couldn’t have been a better time. The sun shone bright red/orange as it sank over Sausalito and Mt. Tamalpais. We flew direct over Berkeley, towards Alcatraz, and then the northern tip of the Golden Gate Bridge. Soon after I made a quick steep turn (45 degree bank for a little turns around a point practice over Alcatraz) back into the Bay and we waved goodbye to the setting sun. It was absolutely breathtaking, so much that we were competing with the moment… wondering if we should enjoy it by taking countless pictures or simply stare in awe of such a beautiful sight.

Alcatraz and the City.

The Golden Gate Bridge at sunset.

Prior to heading south, NorCal informed me of another Cessna in the area also preforming a Bay Tour. For the third time during the flight, I had a hard time finding the traffic. So Norcal instructed me to turn 20 degrees to the left to avoid the traffic before resuming my own navigation. We then turned south and headed for the Oakland Colesseum. Along the way, I pointed out a couple of local visual references for Tessa, including the Mormon Temple in the Oakland Hills, the Colesseum, and the Oakland Airport. Typical of most Class C transitions, we flew directly over the numbers on runway 29 at Oakland, before being cleared down to 1400 ft and direct to the midspan of the San Mateo Bridge. For some odd reason, it became pretty bumpy between the San Mateo and Dumbarton Bridges, but Tessa was not fazed. She spent most of that time trying to locate the sunken ship in the middle of the bay, which I had pointed out to her on the map as another visual reference.

Buenas noches!

Arrival Back to PAO

We received our landing clearance at PAO even before crossing the Dumbarton Bridge and entering the pattern. Needless to say, the airport was all ours. I entered the downwind at 100kts and slowed the plane down to about 90kts using the standard 10 degrees of flaps. Though it wasn’t offically nighttime yet, the lights of the city and the airport were gleaming. As we neared around turn to base, Tessa softly said, “wow…this is so beautiful.”

We turned base and slowed to 80-85kts, as I put in the second notch of flaps. On final, I made the decision to fly the approach with 25 degrees of flaps, rather than the full 40 degrees. It wasn’t too windy (about 300 at 10 kts) but for some reason I feel like I can land the Archer better with two notches of flaps rather than three. I guess it’s because I feel like I’m flying the plane to the runway rather than allowing it glide more. Plus, I’ve also noticed that my approaches are more stable in this landing configuration (in terms of airspeed and glidepath) than with full flaps.

Needless to say, the approach was like a smooth slide down an escalator. As we cleared the runway threshold, I remembered back to my initial checkout in the Archer. On that flight, I made a soft field landing that was “softer than a kiss on the cheek” by leaving in a “smidge” of power during flare. And so I tried it again on this landing. Boy did it work…when my wheels lightly touched the ground I had a thought of, “damn that was too good to be true.” Given my first landing the previous weekend at Oceano, this one definitely made up for it in my mind. Then I heard the best compliment I’ve ever gotten on my landings (and fortunately I’ve had many). As we slowed down and exited the runway, Tessa said, “wow..that was so smooth…it was better than the airlines.” She needn’t say more!

What’s My Motivation?

After we taxiied back, parked the plane, and headed for the airport exit, Tessa asked me, “what is the most exhilirating part of flying?” I thought for a moment and then said, “I think it’s gotta be the landing. It’s the culmination of everything and everytime I do it, I want to do it again. It’s like I can’t believe I just did all that and I was able to land the plane. And everytime I land, it’s like I don’t want to stop…I just want to keep doing it over and over again.” And that’s even truer when you’ve just flown a beautiful flight, shared in the nostalgia of flight with a newbie, and made a nearly perfect landing.

Did I ever mention that I love being a pilot?! Thanks for a fun flight, Tessa!

Who’s next???