On Sunday, John (Strategic Accounts Manager from Wipro), his wife Jennifer and I flew from Hawthorne to Camarillo for lunch.
The weather was pretty much overcast with tops at 5000. I filed my flight plan for 6000 (IFR). However, ATC restricted me at 4000 – which meant, pretty much after my climb to 4000, I was in the clouds till I began the initial descent into Camarillo.
Point Mugu approach was vectoring me for the VOR approach to Runway 26. Since N7275R is a /G, I requested the GPS Y 26 approach instead. Piece of cake – I broke out of the clouds and finally saw the runway at about 1600 feet, well beyond the final approach fix (phew – can log this as an actual!). The touch down was smooth.
A juicy tri-tip sandwich was a treat! My friends, had bacon cheese burgers, which looked awesome too.
The flight back was fun. I was flying at 5000 ft, about 200-300 feet above the clouds. At one point, I had a couple planes over taking me, descending through 6000 – restricted above me till they overtook and then down to 5000. It was interesting, since the pilot of the other plane told ATC that they had no joy, since I was probably in the clouds. At that very second, I ran straight into a cloud and got a couple nice bumps.
Once we crossed LAX, I canceled IFR and descended steeply in 360′s over Alondra Park. I gave my passengers a treat – descending at 2000 ft/min for about 1400-1500 feet and made left traffic for 25 at HHR. Touch down was not as good as the one in CMA, but oh well! It was a fun flight
