We decided to get out for a date night and took the Cirrus up to Lake Tahoe. From Van Nuys it was only about a 1.5 hour trip. We departed Van Nuys and did a pit stop in Camarillo for some fuel (both for the plane and ourselves). Camarillo has one of the best airport restaurants ever. In aviation, the best restaurants are at the airport. It’s a way to get people to fly for that $100 hamburger (the $100 is in relation to the gas it costs to fly there :)). It makes it fun to get out in the plane and try new restaurants. I’ve been intermittently fasting (one meal a day) for a bit but decided today was a day we could break the fast, after all, it was vacation date night/day. Lost like 15 pounds in 6 weeks doing it.
The flight to Camarillo is only about 8 min so it’s pretty quick up and down. We take-off, get handed off to Van Nuys departure and within a few minutes are talking to Camarillo tower arranging the landing sequence. The departure from Van Nuys can be pretty annoying sometimes, they’ll prioritize jets as they burn a lot on the ground. I was holding short and ready to go when the tower moved me to a corner so 3 jets could depart. They put baby in the corner. I totally could have taken off quickly and in time, so it was odd they did that. It caused delays and took us about 30 min from start to get airborne. Conversely, from Camarillo it takes about 5min. I’d love to get a hangar in Camarillo but it’s booked up for like 5 years. The only thing available is a shared one, I might consider it but I don’t know.
I’ve got a deposit down for the Vision jet and I have been on the list for 2 years but they’re telling me its going to be another 2 years..I’ll have to find hangar space that fits that thing. Everything from now until then is training and gathering experience for that.
Here’s a shot departing Camarillo
Flight was uneventful, we arrived and landed r/w 36 (which was an interesting approach given the mountain right in front of us). I had to kinda keep left then dive down for a controlled approach pretty quickly.
Once on the ground, we ordered an UBER to the hotel which was a short 15 min ride. Easy. The #Cirrus life I guess.
We just got some beers, hung out in the hotel and then got dinner. We ended with a bottle of champagne in the hotel room and that was that.
The next day was pretty cool, we had a massive tail wind and we got to see (from a distance) some sort of rocket launch. We left at 11 and were back around 12:15. Hard to get used that.
I ended up getting my IFR (instrument rating) in Canada and am working on the conversion in the US/FAA. I hope to have it all done by this week. In the next post, I flew from KVNY (LA) to CYYZ (Toronto) and back. Which was very interesting, and a great experience.