ArVeeNiner
Well Known Member
It's been a while since I've flown. Between rain, cold, vacation, dead battery, and just plain old regular life, I just couldn't get in the air. Yesterday I was supposed to take my 1973 VW Thing to the local VW show but it filled up 5 minutes before I tried to sign up. I decided to make lemonade out of lemons and go on a flight.
My primary mission was to fly up and see my good friend Dave and make him buy me breakfast. I'm happy to report, it worked!
My route was the typical one I take up there. I go along the east foothills, east of Hayward (where my love for flying started as a kid watching the planes fly over the mall on their way to land at HWD), east of Oakland, over Berkeley, Petaluma, Santa Rosa, and finally to my destination. I fly below the SFO Class B and to the east of the OAK Class C.
I decided to get Flight Following both ways since I'm a bit rusty with those skills. I typically take this route and talk to nobody but getting FF was a good exercise.
Here is my flight track. That turn to the right was to avoid a pesky 737 out of KOAK:
Flying near Richmond, just past Berkeley:
IMG_0514 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
Petaluma Airport-Great breakfast can be found on the field at the Two Niner Diner:
Sneaking over KSTS airspace at 2,700 feet. ATC dropped me shortly after I took this picture:
There is my destination in the center of the picture. A very sleepy and nice airport.
IMG_0519 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
After breakfast Dave decided to give me a tour of the devastating Tubbs Fire burn area that destroyed some areas of Santa Rosa last year. His family actually evacuated their house on their own and headed north to wait it out. Fortunately, his home and neighborhood was spared. Much of Santa Rosa wasn't so lucky. Very sad.
He took me to the former site of multi million dollar homes. This is near the Fountain Grove area that was devastated:
IMG_0526 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
Driveways leading to nowhere:
IMG_0528 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
Stairs that lead nowhere:
IMG_0534 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
Fire Station 5, gone:
IMG_0532 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
You don't see any construction in the Fountain Grove area. Dave told me that newer areas like this had plastic water supply pipes in the ground. The heat cause them to leech Benzine so they will have to be replaced first. That alone will take 2 years.
To be continued...
My primary mission was to fly up and see my good friend Dave and make him buy me breakfast. I'm happy to report, it worked!
My route was the typical one I take up there. I go along the east foothills, east of Hayward (where my love for flying started as a kid watching the planes fly over the mall on their way to land at HWD), east of Oakland, over Berkeley, Petaluma, Santa Rosa, and finally to my destination. I fly below the SFO Class B and to the east of the OAK Class C.
I decided to get Flight Following both ways since I'm a bit rusty with those skills. I typically take this route and talk to nobody but getting FF was a good exercise.
Here is my flight track. That turn to the right was to avoid a pesky 737 out of KOAK:
Flying near Richmond, just past Berkeley:
IMG_0514 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
Petaluma Airport-Great breakfast can be found on the field at the Two Niner Diner:
Sneaking over KSTS airspace at 2,700 feet. ATC dropped me shortly after I took this picture:
There is my destination in the center of the picture. A very sleepy and nice airport.
IMG_0519 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
After breakfast Dave decided to give me a tour of the devastating Tubbs Fire burn area that destroyed some areas of Santa Rosa last year. His family actually evacuated their house on their own and headed north to wait it out. Fortunately, his home and neighborhood was spared. Much of Santa Rosa wasn't so lucky. Very sad.
He took me to the former site of multi million dollar homes. This is near the Fountain Grove area that was devastated:
IMG_0526 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
Driveways leading to nowhere:
IMG_0528 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
Stairs that lead nowhere:
IMG_0534 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
Fire Station 5, gone:
IMG_0532 by Kelly Johnson, on Flickr
You don't see any construction in the Fountain Grove area. Dave told me that newer areas like this had plastic water supply pipes in the ground. The heat cause them to leech Benzine so they will have to be replaced first. That alone will take 2 years.
To be continued...
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