We’ve been planning to get out of town for a bit, so we decided to head up to San Luis Obispo for a long weekend. Friday morning, after we were done buying a new car in the hell that is Hamer Toyota, we dropped off the dog with the sitter and headed out.
Above the Pen Mar Golf course at the end of Rwy21
After 313TD’s wheels left the earth, the day got a whole lot better real fast. It was stupid hot out though. My oil temps were running 220 before we got north of Malibu, so I put the nose down and cruised us for a while to bring it down.
Leaving Malibu behind. PCH below. Surf’s up.
We went along the coast for a while, then cut east to get on course for the San Marcus VOR. In the pic there, Point Dume in Malibu is about middle of frame.
Have I mentioned that I love flight-following? We picked up a squawk code at SMO and they hung with us all the way. I went with the San Marcus VOR as a waypoint, because I wanted to stay clear of the mountains and stay near the many airports on the way up there. It’s an Experimental aircraft. Every flight is a test flight.
But the flight, once we got to 10,500ft, was smooth and fast. There was a little bit of chop over the foothills, and the climb lasted longer than I’d have liked because of the oil temps, but it was easy going once we got there. Fuel burn was about 9gph and we held it to a respectable 182 mph the whole way to San Luis Obispo.
Arrival at SLO
We had some high overcast, which helped, because it eased up the in-cabin temperatures quite a bit for us. Although, at 10,500ft, it’s pretty chilly. The RV-7 is a drafty airplane, at least mine is.
Arrival over farmland, SLO
It’s amazing how a little rain turns everything green. Greenish. This will all be brown 3 months from now. Or on fire. Take your pick.
On glide path for rwy29, KSBP
On final approach to KSBP, runway 29. The weather couldn’t have been nicer, and 313TD handled the trip perfectly.
After touchdown, we parked at transient, and the very friendly, very helpful folks at the San Luis Jet Center gave us a ride to the FBO in their golf cart. We picked up a rental car from Enterprise, which is right there next to the Jet Center.
NOTAM: If you call and reserve a car, walk the 200 steps to pick it up yourself. If you have the Jet Center people deliver the keys to you, a $22/day car becomes a $44/day car.
But we stayed at a nice AirBnB really close to town, and we did several of the recommended activities, namely a hike in the Johnson Ranch open space preserve, a picnic lunch on the river in town, a trip to the Hearst Castle (which was awesome), and right before we left, we took a quick walk through the Bishop Peak Trail. We didn’t go all the way up, that would have been crazy. Just a quick walk through the woods, where Shelley took this pic:
Hike in the woods before departing
I want to live amongst the rocks and trees.
Our day was better than somebody’s: On our way up to the trailhead, the road was blocked by the Fire Department, putting out a house fire that coated the whole valley in a stream of wispy smoke.
Preflighting 313TD before departure
Even with the hike, were were preflighting at 9:30AM, before the heat started.
Making sure no birds nested in my intakes.
No birds in my cowl? good.
Departing Rwy 29 takeoff roll
Squawk code obtained, cleared for takeoff, RWY29, left downwind departure.
Takeoff Roll SLO 2
Winds were calm, and takeoff was nice. Yes, I could be a little more over the centerline, I’ll work on that, I promise.
Departing rw7 29
These planes really don’t need much runway at all, and with cooler temps, my oil temp wasn’t complaining.
Rolling into the downwind at San Luis Obispo
We basically reversed the trip, heading to the San Marcus VOR, then back to SMO.
Another absolutely amazing day for a flight. In March. In a t-shirt. Here we’re looking sort of West-ish, heading Southeast.
Looking West, now south of KSBP
That’s US101 off our starboard wing. If we’d taken that, in a car, we’d have spent 3 hours on the road. Actual flight time there was 53 minutes, according to the flight clock on the transponder, and 57 minutes back.
At altitude it was a little chilly, so we got to use the cabin heat, which puts out a respectable volume of hot air. The cold draft from the rear of the plane tells me I’m going to be investing in hats if we live someplace cold, but it was definitely workable.
Over Ventura, we did a slow descent from 9500ft to 3500ft, to get in under the LAX Class B along the coast. But as soon as we dropped below 4500 feet the outside temperature went way up. Not only that, flight following handed us off to 125.5, and they refused to call us back, which was weird. I thought my radio may have malfed again, so we pulled out the handheld, but it was just SoCal being rude. SMO tower heard us just fine. There was pretty much nobody in the pattern or inbound so they cleared us to land while we were still above the Palisades, which is probably the only time that’s ever happened to me. Of course, by the time we got into the pattern the temperature outside was 85 degrees, which makes for a sticky, miserable flight if you don’t have AC.
A huge thanks to Shelley for all the pics and for spotting traffic outside the window.
