SoCalPlaneDoc
New member
But not intentionally.
Yesterday I flew my -3 from my home in San Diego to my place in Joshua Tree - a small community in the high desert in Southern California. Usually takes 40-45 minutes and avoids having to make a 3 hour drive on highways peppered with drivers of questionable ability. Made this flight more times than I can remember. This time was different.
Like every other time I was cruising at 9500 ft, indicating 165 mph, using flight following with Southern California Traffic (SOCAL). The course is almost direct from San Diego with a slight dogleg to avoid Mt San Jacinto, an 11,000+ peak towing just west of Palm Springs. Usually the flight is smooth and uneventful, but this time I hit some serious turbulence when I was approaching the Palm Springs VOR. First the nose pitched up hard and it felt like someone slammed on the brakes. What followed was about a minute (seemed like longer) of being tossed around faster than my attempts to keep the wings level and was loosing altitude fast - I caught my VSI indicating -2000 at one point. I reduced power to slow down, called SOCAL and reported moderate to heavy turbulence and asked for block clearance to my destination, which was just 10 minutes away. Right after, the plane rolled to the left and kept going, even though I was using full right aileron trying to stop it. When I was completely inverted, I reversed aileron to the left and let it go all the way around and was able to stop the roll once level again. Just as fast as it started, the turbulence stopped save for a little wiggle now and then. SOCAL asked for info about altitudes and such - I heard them warn a Bonanza that was behind me on the same path (I had passed him about 20 minutes earlier - I love this plane).
The whole event was probably no more than a minute but I'd pumped enough adrenalin for an hour.
So what happened? On-shore easterly airflow is typical for this area and flying on the downwind side of that 10,000 mountain below it's peak usually means turbulence. When the winds are low it's no big deal - in fact, it's often totally absent. I had checked the weather before I left, the winds were reported under 10 mph so I had no concern. When my aerobatics were over I asked SOCAL for surface winds at Palm Springs - 40mph with gusts.. ACK! Some freaky summer winds had kicked up since I got briefed.
You have to lose a lot of altitude in a short time to get down to pattern altitude at my destination (L22) so I set up for that an took some time to settle down and look around - you could see dust storms on the desert floor. The airport is in a valley and it was dust-free so I pushed on. Calling for advisories brought no answer - it's an uncontrolled airport community so that's not unusual. I set up for a downwind, dropped the gear.. flaps.. then did a 180 to final (not enough space in the valley to do an elegant base). The plane seemed to stop all forward progress...I had to use cruise power to get to the threshold, and a lot of power just to taxi to the end. The airport hobos told me the winds were the same as Palm Springs, 40mph + gusts. Despite that, the plane greased the landing.
During the whole ordeal that 53 year old plane felt stronger, smoother, and more powerful than any other I've flown.
Yesterday I flew my -3 from my home in San Diego to my place in Joshua Tree - a small community in the high desert in Southern California. Usually takes 40-45 minutes and avoids having to make a 3 hour drive on highways peppered with drivers of questionable ability. Made this flight more times than I can remember. This time was different.
Like every other time I was cruising at 9500 ft, indicating 165 mph, using flight following with Southern California Traffic (SOCAL). The course is almost direct from San Diego with a slight dogleg to avoid Mt San Jacinto, an 11,000+ peak towing just west of Palm Springs. Usually the flight is smooth and uneventful, but this time I hit some serious turbulence when I was approaching the Palm Springs VOR. First the nose pitched up hard and it felt like someone slammed on the brakes. What followed was about a minute (seemed like longer) of being tossed around faster than my attempts to keep the wings level and was loosing altitude fast - I caught my VSI indicating -2000 at one point. I reduced power to slow down, called SOCAL and reported moderate to heavy turbulence and asked for block clearance to my destination, which was just 10 minutes away. Right after, the plane rolled to the left and kept going, even though I was using full right aileron trying to stop it. When I was completely inverted, I reversed aileron to the left and let it go all the way around and was able to stop the roll once level again. Just as fast as it started, the turbulence stopped save for a little wiggle now and then. SOCAL asked for info about altitudes and such - I heard them warn a Bonanza that was behind me on the same path (I had passed him about 20 minutes earlier - I love this plane).
The whole event was probably no more than a minute but I'd pumped enough adrenalin for an hour.
So what happened? On-shore easterly airflow is typical for this area and flying on the downwind side of that 10,000 mountain below it's peak usually means turbulence. When the winds are low it's no big deal - in fact, it's often totally absent. I had checked the weather before I left, the winds were reported under 10 mph so I had no concern. When my aerobatics were over I asked SOCAL for surface winds at Palm Springs - 40mph with gusts.. ACK! Some freaky summer winds had kicked up since I got briefed.
You have to lose a lot of altitude in a short time to get down to pattern altitude at my destination (L22) so I set up for that an took some time to settle down and look around - you could see dust storms on the desert floor. The airport is in a valley and it was dust-free so I pushed on. Calling for advisories brought no answer - it's an uncontrolled airport community so that's not unusual. I set up for a downwind, dropped the gear.. flaps.. then did a 180 to final (not enough space in the valley to do an elegant base). The plane seemed to stop all forward progress...I had to use cruise power to get to the threshold, and a lot of power just to taxi to the end. The airport hobos told me the winds were the same as Palm Springs, 40mph + gusts. Despite that, the plane greased the landing.
During the whole ordeal that 53 year old plane felt stronger, smoother, and more powerful than any other I've flown.
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