I needed to get a flight in before the end of the day on Saturday to maintain my once a week for 52 weeks goal. The previous Saturday I had taken friends out to Hemet, and this was my last chance. When I looked at the weather forecast earlier in the week Saturday was promising so I hadn’t gone up for an “insurance” flight after work. Fortunately, the forecast was correct.
It was a little hazy with some high cirrus but Catalina definitely in the cards. After pre-flight and putting on our life jackets we climbed in, taxied down to perform the run-up, and called up Ground to get flight following to Catalina.
After departure Tower handed us off to SoCal who cleared us to 4,500′ and our own navigation. There was a Southwest 737 that passed under us on final into Long Beach as we crossed over the approach path. It never gets old watching the big iron from above.
As we headed out over the channel with the sun glistening off the ocean below I could see Catalina ahead. I also noted the scattered layer of clouds just above and around the island blocking the normal entry to the traffic pattern from Two Harbors.
The “Airport in the Sky” as Catalina is often called presents some unique challenges. Sitting at 1,602′ above sea level on a plateau, with cliffs dropping to the ocean below on the east side and the hills dropping swiftly to the ocean below on the west side it, along with the clouds that sometimes hug the island below the elevation of the airport it can have the illusion of floating in the sky. Runway 22, landing to the west is sloped upward and there is a slight hump in the center which also causes the runway to look shorter than it is.
Straight-in approaches are strongly discouraged because of the visual illusions presented when landing there. Two Harbors makes a good reporting point to turn inbound towards the airport and puts you on a 45° entry to a right downwind for runway 22. Today there were clouds over Two Harbors extending south towards the airport where it was clear.
I had three choices. I could stay high above the clouds and circle down over the airport. Catalina can get busy and circling down didn’t sound very appealing to me. I could go under them and skim the island but that was even less appealing than circling down over the airport. The third option was to duck down below the clouds, fly through the gap at Two Harbors to the backside of the island, and then once past the clouds pop back up to pattern altitude and enter the downwind.
I called up SoCal, telling them I had the one minute weather, the airport in sight and wanted to begin my VFR descent. He advised there was no traffic observed between me and the airport, to squawk VFR, and change to advisory frequency. I had been monitoring the CTAF (Common Traffic Advisory Frequency) for Catalina from the time we started across the channel to build a picture of the traffic inbound and outbound so switched that frequency to the primary position and started down.
We leveled off and crossed the isthmus between Two Harbors at 1,300′ with cliffs on either side and scattered clouds above. Rolling into a left bank to turn south the turquoise waters along the coast quickly changing to a deep blue as the ocean floor dropped away was incredible. It is hard to believe you aren’t looking down at the coastline of an island way out in the Pacific.
This is where the cloud clearances for Class G airspace are handy. During the day the visibility and cloud clearances for Class G airspace are 1 mile and clear of clouds. There’s no way I want to be flying around with only 1 mile of visibility, but staying just clear of clouds instead of maintaining 2,000′ horizontal separation or 500′ below/1,000′ above is actually fun.
Just as we were approaching an extended downwind I could see a break in the clouds so I started our climb back up to pattern altitude and turned towards the airport. There was plenty of room between the clouds and we entered a right downwind before watching the cliffs drop away and turning onto the base leg for runway 22.
It had been five months since the last time I landed at Catalina but it was nice and smooth, that is until the rollout on the “new” runway which isn’t very smooth. We had a cookie appetizer while waiting for our sandwiches to be made.
After lunch we wandered around and made our way to the west end of the airport where you can overlook the Pacific Ocean before heading back to the plane for the flight back. Catalina is always a treat, in less than 30 minutes you feel like you are in a different world.
