Last landing in the US

It had to happen eventually.
The usual coastal cloud layer was building up over Montgomery airport, I was coming from the West just in between San Diego class Bravo airspace and Gillespie Delta airspace, at 2900ft, cleared to land about 8 miles from touchdown (welcome to the States!). No way to get the runway in sight, being over the remote layer (it was thin and stable at 1400 to 1600ft) with a strong sun in front of me, and the controler put me on runway 28 R as there was some other airplanes in the pattern doing touch-and-goes 28 L.
Coming back VFR with a poor visibility, when we're cleared for runway 28L, we usually follow the freeway till it leads us to the stadium, turning point to intercept the final path on a 280° heading.
Today, I was on 28R with a well-equiped plane, so I loaded up the GPS ILS approach as a back-up and help for situational awareness and put the ILS frequency 111.7 into the two VOR/ILS instruments (which had been checked and were both current). 30° interception on the LOC, and a bit later on the glide to start the descent at a constant rate. I was doing 100kt on long final, reduced to 85 as I got closer and finally 75kt with 10° flaps on short final. I touched down on the runway markers which are what we aim for, but it doesn't always work that well. Pretty happy with the result.

Some figures from those 2 months 1/2 in the States:
Just over 50 flight hours,
10 different planes flown on a total of around 5500nm (10200km ; 6300 miles).
Lowest outside in flight temperature: about 0°C, highest outside in flight temperature: 47°C,
Longuest flight in a day: 700nm (1300km),
14 States visited (California, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, District of Columbia, New York State, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware).

Last flight in America

Last chance to fly this week, I had planned 5 flights and had to cancel all of them due to some clouds being too low over the San Diego coastline.
The chance turned up on sunday and I went for a flight with a French friend in the desert. 4 hours between San Diego, Agua Caliente, Borrego Sprins, Ocotillo and French Valley on a shiny C172-180. No better way to end 2 months 1/2 in such an awesome country!
With a temperature up to 47°C, it wasn't cold, so to speak.

Washington DC and New York

I'm back from a week in DC and NYC, and although this isn't aviation-related apart from the Air and Space Museum visit, I thought some pictures were worth be put on the blog.
I also received my US Pilot Certificate that will replace the temporary one.

Sunset from above the clouds ...

That was on the flight Atlanta - Milwaukee - San Diego, onboard an AirTran 737-700 at 38,000ft.
The video gets interesting after a 1:22 when I zoomed in towards the clouds.

Flight to Las Vegas: Part 3 - Page and Lake Powell

Flight to Las Vegas - Part 2: Monument Valley

The whole flight was : Las Vegas -> Page -> Monument Valley -> Page -> Kanab (night stay at Kanab due to an electric failure on the plane, which I'll give details in a future post). Kanab -> Las Vegas.
Not a great weather unfortunately, hence the cold-ish pictures, I really have to come back there and see Grand Canyon on my way to Page and Monument Valley under a shiny day.

Flight to Las Vegas - Part 1

I flew to North Las Vegas airport (KVGT) last wednesday as my parents were visiting the area.
I met them at the airport and we spent my birthday on the strip. What could be seen at first as expensive was actually really affordable.
The hotels are pretty cheap (they hope to take all your money when you go down to play in the Casinos), and ... I put $1 in a slot machine to give it a try and earned ... $40 !!
That's a good way to spend a night isn't it?
I was planning on flying with my parents to Grand Canyon, Page and Monument Valley on thursday but had to cancel due to a pretty bad weather in Northern Arizona and windy day in Las Vegas. That gave me plenty of time to spend in this incredible city with my parents.

For those interested, my flight plan from San Diego to North Las Vegas was:
KMYF (Montgomery Field) -> Julian VOR (JLI) via El Capitan Reservoir (no Class Bravo clearance, I picked up Flight Following a few miles before JLI on the usual 124.35) -> Thermal VOR (TRM) -> Twentynine Palms VOR (TNP) -> heading 028° direct Jotnu, a waypoint at an intersection between two VOR radials, to fly just in between the 2 MOA and East of the Restricted (R-2501) -> heading 005° direct Goffs VOR (GFS) -> Henderson, cleared through the Bravo airspace, and vectored overhead McCarran Airport, and vectored again for a right downwind entry at North Las Vegas, where I was passed onto North Las Vegas Tower -> landing runway 12R. My cruise altitude was 9500ft all the way to Las Vegas. 2h / 250nm flight.