Hemet Breakfast, Julian & Downtown
September 25, 2005
Click on any picture for larger view.
Paul Brackin was in the right seat as photographer. We took N4922D departing Montgomery (MYF) on 28L at 8:15 am for a remote breakfast, mountain scenery & downtown tour.
Clear but hazy skies haze, no winds, 21o C (70o F). Mt. Soledad, Torrey Pines, Del Mar, San Marcos and Temecula were visual waypoints enroute (see route chart below). Returning we passed Palomar Observatory, Julian, Lake Cuyamaca, Viejas casino, Mount Helix, Otay Mesa, San Diego bay, downtown, Coronado, and Mission bay were visual waypoints returning (see chart below - red enroute, blue returning).
Takeoff from Montgomery for Hemet, 8:15 AM
8:15 am takeoff runway 28L, climb over Serra Mesa to La Jolla, where we do a 360o
turn to climb another 1,000 ft before heading to the coastline at 3,200 ft.
Heading north up the coast over La Jolla to Del
Mar at 3,500 ft.
Over Del Mar, we turn inland and climb to 5,500
ft.
Over Rancho Santa Fe and San Marcos, it's hazy
enroute to Temecula, cruising at 115 KTS.
Over Temecula Paul maneuvers the plane at 6,500
ft. Dials are spinning, red lights flashing and horns blaring the whole
time. (Just kidding! He does a great job.)
At first the HMT AWOS said 100 ft overcast and
it looked like our breakfast stop was socked in, but after Paul's buzzing around
we were close enough to see the clouds had dissipated, so we head to Hemet &
radio our approach over Diamond reservoir.
We setup for right pattern entry for runway 23,
following another plane ahead of us.
After turning base to final, we make a nice
smooth landing.
We taxied off the runway to the airfield cafe, and parked the plane just outside.
(Free) Hemet Breakfast, 9:00 AM
A nice lazy breakfast of omelets, eggs, bacon,
hash browns, toast, coffee & OJ. We are the first patrons of the day, it seems.
Both of us have no cash but a wallet full of credit cards. Note: Hemet's
airfield cafe does not accept credit cards! So we got a free breakfast (we
promised to return to settle the IOU).
Takeoff from Hemet for Julian, 10:15 AM
As we taxied out for the run-up area a
sailplane was towed and released for a practice landing. It rolled along
until its wing dropped as it stopped.
We takeoff runway 23, turn to the south on
crosswind and climb out over Diamond reservoir as we turn southeast.
At 7,500 ft, we can see lake Skinner in
Temecula southwest of us, and Palomar Observatory south of us.
To the east is the Salton Sea and the Borrego
desert.
We flew south over Warner Springs, then
southeast over Julian, then south over Lake Cuyamaca at 8,500 ft.
Heading for San Diego, 11:00 AM
Just past Cuyamaca peak, we turned southwest,
decending over Viejas casino and I-8 in Pinecrest, at 6,500 ft.
We decended to 3,000 ft over El Cajon to fly under the class B airspace maze, then turned south again to Otay Mesa, a few miles from Mt. Helix.
With Tijuana on our left, just before San Diego
bay we climbed to 4,500 ft to enter the VFR corridor.
As we entered the VFR corridor, we turned north
up the bay, heading over the Coronado bridge.
A nice view of downtown San Diego, NAS North
Island, and Balboa Park.
We flew over the approach end of Lindbergh
field as a Southwest Airlines flight departed.
We emerged from the VFR corridor between Mission Bay and the I-5/I-8 interchange, at 4,000 ft.
Landing Montgomery, 11:30 AM
We slowed the plane and radioed Montgomery (MYF)
tower for approach clearance and got the usual 0400 transponder squawk code and
to make pattern entry for runway 28L. Pattern altitude for 28L is 1,400 ft so to
dump 2,500 ft we put the plane into a forward slip for a 1,500 FPM decent (yehaw!),
which gave Paul an usually good view of our controlled fall toward Qualcomm
stadium.
Once we were at pattern altitude (and at the
right place and time), we setup for a normal approach to 28L for another smooth
landing.
The route of flight is shown below. Red
for outbound to Hemet, blue for the Julian & San Diego bay/downtown tour.
