Second cross country

For the second x/c, I had planned a flight from Van Nuys to Santa Maria (SMX), but when I got in the plane, Kent wanted me to divert to New Cuyama (L00) instead. I calculated the new heading and leg time, and off we went.

This time the plan was for me to do all of the navigating myself, with Kent just letting me make mistakes. Fortunately there would be none of that. The wind was a bit stronger than expected, so our times were behind a bit – but uniformly so. I hit all of the checkpoints, and used VOR’s for last legs. Once I spotted L00, I got in the pattern and made a reasonable crosswind landing on the narrowest runway I have ever seen. We parked the plane, and headed to Burger Barn (I’m guessing the ONLY restaurant in town) for a quick bite. The flight back we planned to go north past Mount Pinos, then straight south following I5 back to VNY. We even diverted to look at other airports on the way. All in all, a great trip and I learned a lot. One more dual, and I’ll do a solo x/c!