KRHV-KPSP flight

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Palm Springs Trip: pg 1 RHV-PSP leg | pg 2 on ground in Palm Springs | pg 3 PSP-RHV leg

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With our RV-6A out of the paint shop for all of about a week, Kellie was up for her second "cross-country" flight and first real long distance trip with me in the RV. In my first 200 hours of RV flying, Kellie had only gone up with me 4 times. 3 of those flights were 15 to 20 minute hops and the 4th was about 35 minutes each way to the Calaveras Airport open house in April 2010. So I was pretty excited when she decided she was up for a Saturday flight to Palm Springs to have lunch with my parents!

Weather forecast looked great from San Jose all the way to Palm Springs and back, so we departed from Reid-Hillview (KRHV) airport in San Jose around 0915 on Saturday 12 February 2011. We landed about 1130, enjoyed some shopping and lunch with mom and dad in downtown Palm Springs, and took off headed for home around 3:30 pm the same afternoon.

Nice 80F day in Palm Springs with calm winds at ground level along entire route of flight and fairly light winds at altitude. Winds aloft forecast said we'd have 5 to 6 kt headwinds on the way out and same for tailwinds on the way home but it didn't quite work out that way....headwinds of 12-20 kts all the way to Palm Springs made it a 2 hour and 20 minute flight, but mostly smooth and not a cloud in sight.

Credit for the photography goes to my wife, and this page shows some of the sights on the southbound flight from San Jose to Palm Springs.

First shot here is on departure from RHV, looking over top of the Santa Cruz mountains with Watsonville, Monterey Bay, and the Monterey Peninsula in the distance:

This shot is looking over the valley around Hollister before heading out over the hills towards the Central Valley haze:

Close up of the California hills south of Hollister, CA:

Sierras off to the east while flying over the Central Valley near Lemore NAS towards Bakersfield:

Central Valley farm fields:

Bakersfield suburbs:

Crossing the first hills south of Bakersfield, with a few snow fields on top:

And after crossing the western edge of the Mojave Desert, over Palmdale and within sight of the huge Edwards AFB runways, we skirted the northern edge of these mountains that reach up to about 10,000' (we were cruising at 9,500'):

And a little wider view of the mountain range just south of Palmdale as we headed over the pass towards the San Bernardino and Redlands area (ATC called it Cajon Pass and gave me next freq for flight following in case we lost comms through the pass but I couldn't find the name of the pass on my charts):

As we approached the Banning Pass area leading into Palm Springs, Kellie got a few pictures of the mountains on the north side of Banning Pass. Some of these peaks are over 11,000' while we cruised on at 9,500' delaying the descent into Palm Springs way too long for an ear friendly decent into Palm Springs:

These are the mountains north of Palm Springs and south of the Big Bear City airport (L35) where I have yet to land with my RV but intend to sometime soon (L35 elevation 6,752') as it looks like a beautiful area and lake right near the mountain top airport:

Close up of the mountains as we're within about 10 miles of and looking ahead at the Palm Springs International airport:

Palm Springs airport from high (probably 7,500' at this point!), right downwind for 31R (the "short" runway on the left). First time I ever got cleared to land from 6 miles and still 7,000' above the airport....tried to stay high as long as possible to spare Kellie a rougher ride through Banning Pass but in hindsight was bad planning as I think she'd have preferred a few more bumps to the trouble she has clearing her ears on rapid descents:

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Palm Springs Trip: pg 1 RHV-PSP leg | pg 2 on ground in Palm Springs | pg 3 PSP-RHV leg

This page was last updated on 12/18/11.

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