Day 64 - Vacaville to Torrance

Tony Cacciarelli • August 17, 2020

Vacaville, CA (KVCB) to

Torrance, CA (KTOA) - August 17, 2019

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Mission Accomplished

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Fog still creeping in from
San Francisco

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Clear above

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That bird was damn close!!

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Back in the TOA hangar after nine weeks

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Original Instagram Post

It was exactly nine weeks ago that I left Torrance airport and set out on a journey around the United States in a very small, not-very-fast amphibious plane.

Over that time I've seen some amazing sights, met a TON of interesting people, had some of the best flying I could've asked for, and definitely learned a lot. But, today it was time to come home.

I left Vacaville's Nut Tree Airport just after 8am. I'd planned to fly by the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco then follow the coast south. Most of the coastline was fogged in, though, so I went for a more inland route that had clear skies and still some pretty great views. I made a quick fuel stop in Paso Robles then down past Santa Barbara and followed the coast from there. The Wings Over Camarillo airshow was today, so there was a TFR that I had to avoid, but otherwise it was surprisingly quiet coming into LA.

Once I got to Torrance things got...weird. There was a LOT of traffic all coming in at once, and from all different directions. I did a low approach and circled back around to land, all while avoiding a TBM coming in fast in the opposite direction, and almost hitting a hawk or eagle or something while I was on downwind. It was REALLY CLOSE!

Ended up high on final and had to slip it in. Not the calm, cool finish I'd hoped for, but it sure wasn't dull! I had some family there to meet me, so we got the plane back in the hangar, unloaded and did some celebrating. I was definitely ready for a drink!

Usually I end these posts with what I'm planning for the following day. All I have for this one is - resting. It's been a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience, but it's also been a long time living out of hotels and eating way too much restaurant food, so I'm glad to be home. I'm still gathering up all the stats from the trip and will post those when they're ready, so stay tuned.

Until then, thanks for following along and - Fly Casual

😀👍🏼

This was my third time flying an A5 from Vacaville to Torrance and each time I'd planned to fly past the Golden Gate Bridge and follow the coast down to LA. All three times that plan has been scuttled by the infamous San Francisco fog. It actually extended pretty far south of San Franciso. I flew right along the edge of it with clouds on my right and clear skies on my left all the way to Paso Robles.

When I got to Torrance, the wind was out of the East, which meant they were landing and departing runways 11L and 11R. The thing that throws a bit of a wrench in things is aircraft on an instrument flight plan fly the runway 29R approach and then circle to land on runway 11L. There happened to be a TBM doing this right as I was trying to do my low approach and even though I was using 11R the controller had me turning early to be sure I didn't get too close to the oncoming traffic. It just meant that I had to do things a little sooner than I'd anticipated, but throw in the near miss with a hawk on downwind and ending up higher than I wanted to be on final and the result was probably the worst landing I had of the entire trip. Dammit.

I included some video of the hawk - right around :39 in. I've muted the sound as it was definitely NSFW, but I think you get the gist of my response.

I'll probably do a few more posts to this blog with a wrap up and some final thoughts, but there you have it.

I hope this provided a little more insight into some of the adventures I had. I was limited in how much I was able to post each night, partly by the limits of social media but also by how much time I could spend writing things up.

It's been fun going back through the photos and video and getting to re-live each day. I'm surprised by how much I still remember, so I guess it's good that I got it written down before it evaporates.

One last thought for this day. While this was an amazing journey and I will reflect back on it for the rest of my life, I think it's really important to continue to have new adventures and think of new things to experience.

There's a saying that I heard years ago, I don't know who might've said it, so I can't give proper credit, and I'm pretty sure I'm paraphrasing but it goes something like this:

"Life ends when you stop doing new things and spend your time only dwelling on the things you've done."