A little while ago I read a comment about someone’s favorite day trip flight out of Southern California. They would fly north, overfly Yosemite, stop in Tahoe for lunch and fuel, then fly the San Franciso Bay and along the coast on the way back. My wife enthusiastically supported the idea.
She’s tried a few times to get me to overfly Yosemite, but I foolishly thought it wouldn’t be that impressive from the air. I was wrong. It was breathtaking from the air. Three and a half weeks later we would explore Yosemite by bike and on foot, offering a unique but equally awe-inspiring view.
Yosemite
Crossing the Central valley at 9,500’ we could see Half Dome from over 50 miles away.
As we approached the valley, its beauty unfolded before us and was so visually overwhelming that I didn’t know where to look next. Mesmerized by the sight of El Capitan and the Yosemite Falls, I completely missed Bridal Veil Falls near the entrance of the park, only noticing it later while reviewing footage from the camera under the wing.
We flew up the valley, turned just past Half Dome, and were heading back down when I noticed the 594-foot Nevada Falls off the left wing. Abandoning the plan to leave the park, thinking we had seen the iconic landmarks, I lowered the left wing after passing Half Dome to get a better look at the falls revealing yet another waterfall that had been hidden by the wing, the 317’ Vernal Falls. It seemed everywhere we looked there was another waterfall.
I flew us back across the valley past Yosemite Falls, then made a couple turns above the valley before heading southwest. As with most things, I wondered as we flew toward home why I had waited so long.
Lunch Plans on the Way
What does any of that have to do with flying a bomber pattern? Let’s backup to the planning and how we got to Yosemite.
With a rare free Saturday approaching and my goal to keep flying once a week for 52 weeks I looked at flight times and routes for the proposed trip. I decided on an abbreviated route, cutting out Tahoe and instead opting for a stop in Half Moon Bay or Monterey.
Like most plans, this one continued to evolve, or devolve depending on your point of view as the week progressed. Forecast low clouds over San Francisco Bay would likely block a VFR tour, and although flying the approach into Half Moon Bay or Monterey was doable, the absence of the bay tour reduced the overall appeal.
I started looking at other airport restaurant options and we settled on Paso Robles and Joe’s One-Niner Diner. We went to KPRB when Phil Corman hosted an awesome fly-in seven years ago. It was a great event, but we didn’t get a chance to try the restaurant. The only catch, it closes at 2pm.
We took off at 11:30 and passed the Mt Wilson observatory looking like something out of a movie sitting just above the clouds. As we flew along I started doing the math on flight times including loiter time over Yosemite and realize we will be cutting it close to closing time at Joe’s.
“Why don’t we stop at Paso Robles on the way and have lunch first?” Kathy suggested.
I thought for a moment. “Sure, we can do that,” I reply and turn towards KPRB. Rather than a direct route to KPRB I angle towards the Carrizo Plain where you can see the San Andreas Fault Line and Soda Lake. Somewhere off my right wing is a plane zipping past me at 188knots that I can’t seem to spot with my eyes. I look up the tail number and see it’s a Lancair, but although he passes less than 2 miles off my wing I still never spot him.
The Bomber Pattern
Up ahead it is a beehive of activity around KPRB. I don’t know what they have going on, but something is happening. There are multiple planes in the pattern and more converging on the airport. About 15 miles out I am listening to the CTAF, cross referencing that with what I see on my tablet, and formulating a plan of who I will likely be following in.
I make my first call 9 miles out and start solidifying who I will likely be following in the pattern. At 6 miles out I make the next call and also announce I have the Cessna in sight ahead of me. I also start slowing down so I don’t run him over.
Flying into an un-towered airport I take the Ronald Reagan approach, “Trust, but verify.”
Fifteen seconds after my 6 mile call a Bonanza (full tail number omitted to protect the guilty) makes a call that he’s 4 ½ miles to the southeast. I can clearly see on my tablet that he’s a couple miles behind me but he is coming in hot. He’s either trying to cut in front of us or he’s just not good with radio calls and going into un-towered fields. In hindsight with what is about to happen I think he’s just clueless.
“Paso Robles Traffic, Mooney 1015Echo entering a left downwind one-niner behind the Cessna, Paso Robles,” I call on the radio. The Cessna is flying what is often referred to as a Bomber Pattern. We are far outside the normal pattern, and I comment to my wife, “I don’t know why he’s going that way.”
He’s clearly the next one to land and I’ve been following him visually for a few miles. I would like to be in tighter to the airport, and while it’s possible (but wrong) to fly a tighter pattern and cut in front of him, you just need to fly the bomber pattern and stay behind him. We’re so far out that my wife asks “Is he leaving?”
Cut Off in the Pattern
Just then the Cessna announces turning base and I see him make the base turn. I drop my gear and as I’m looking over my left shoulder see another plane about 200’ higher than me on a downwind leg between me and the airport.
“What the heck is this guy doing here?” I say to my wife.
I make a call that I’m turning base and the Cessna calls turning final. I start a very shallow turn to base keeping an eye on the plane above and to my left, when he announces, “73Kilo’s turning left base we have the Cessna on final.”
In my head I’m thinking “This idiot, I’ve been following the Cessna, making calls that I’m behind him, I have him in sight, I’m on downwind behind him, does he think I just disappeared out of the air?”
What I say over the radio is, “73Kilo we got you in sight, you just cut in front of us but we’ll stay behind you 15Echo.”
All I get in response is “73Kilo, thank you.”
I turn away to widen my base leg and buy a little space between myself and the intruder. Looking back at FlightRadar24, he entered the downwind 30 knots faster than the speed I was tracking the Cessna, no wonder he overtook us. We landed and taxied to transient parking and shut down a row away from the Bonanza.
“Are you going to go say something to him,” my wife asked?
“No, he knows he cut me off, there’s no point in saying anything else,” I reply.
As we walk to the restaurant I see there is a fly-in event going on with a bunch of RV’s parked together and a BBQ. We’re walking behind the Bonanza pilot and his passenger and I notice he’s wearing a Corona Pilots Association t-shirt.
“It all makes sense now,” I say to my wife pointing at the logo on his t-shirt thinking back to the two years I spent hangered at KAJO. That airport is often referred to as the wild west and has earned the reputation. I saw all kinds of nonsense in the pattern during my two years there, including planes knowingly cutting others off.
This could have been a very bad situation at KPRB, a plane barreling into the pattern apparently unaware of the whole picture. The Cessna was clearly not where he was expected to be in a normal pattern, but anyone listening to the radio calls should have known there were two planes in the pattern and been looking for both of them. Did I want to fly a Bomber Pattern? Absolutely not! But if the guy in front of you is flying a wide pattern, you fall in line behind him, it’s the safe thing to do. You don’t fly a tight pattern inside of him. And if you have heard a Cessna followed by a Mooney in the pattern, you don’t jump in behind the Cessna.
