Night Flying Part Deux

After having only completed two hours of the night rating, which consisted of five hours, one of which had to be solo, 4 of which had to be duel, including an hour at least of navigation, the second to last night at Anglo was well set out to be an interesting time. AFter just having compleetd my skills test and the relavent mountain of paperwork which it included, the flight set off at half past eight. Clearly this was not going to be an early night, as they say, no rest for the wicked!

Golf Foxtrot, the IR Cessna 172 was the choosen machine, and having quickly decided on a route that would take us from Gillespie to Santa Monica. The route consisted of flying over towards Miramar and then out to the Gulf of Santa Catalina, which we would follow upto LA itself. The take off, followed by a spectacular vision fo a fire work display at the local NFL stadium clearly pointed out that this flight would not be the run of the mill type of excursion. The views of the night sky were spectacular, as we flew down north up the traffic pattern towards the Oceanside VOR. After a quick trim, there was little to do but enjoy the night sky, and try to occasionally check the T's and P's and guages. try being th opperative word lol, due to the fact that Golf Foxtrot had a distinct lack of internal instrument lights!

Once we hit the docks at LA, teh fun really began. Dropping down to 4500 feet and flying directly over one of LAX, one of the largest ariports in Westen America without having to make contact with the tower, we proceeded to Santa Monica. The pure thrill of looking down upon the four mighty runways, split only by the even greater terminal buildings was helped by the descent into Santa Monica itself. The approach path, which took the aricraft within 80 foot of downtown LA's skyscrapers was breath taking to say the least.

After a quick touchdown and an even quicker take off, the route back was simple. Emphasised by the fact that Jason contiued to be mesmorised by the GPS and its ability to continually change the ETA lol. After multiple attempts to gain my instructors clearence to play with the lights at Miramar lol, Gillespie approached quickly. Although arriving back at Gillespie at almost midnight may not seem like th normal way to spend a saturday night, i can guarantee that it certianly is a fantastic way to spend any night.