Re: Approaching BFM...

[Craig Prouse]

Dan Luke wrote:

> ...you may be asked to report passing:
>
> The battleship
> The coal yard
> The cement plant
> Ladd stadium
> The Dog River bridge
> The Cochran bridge
> The "X"
> The church
> The ship channel
> Tillman's Corner
> The malls
> The big island
> The tunnel
> The Navy homeport
>
> None flagged on the sectional. Of course, the tower controllers don't expect
> transients to know most of these. I've been living here 13 years and I
> didn't know what the "X" was.

Here at PAO, I still have only a vague idea of the location of something
called the "birdcage."

Recently I received instructions to fly to the "toll plaza." I flew
directly to the nearest toll plaza at the east end of the Dumbarton Bridge
(Hwy 84). Only later did I notice that "Toll Plaza" is a designated VFR
reporting point at the east end of the San Mateo Bridge (Hwy 92), the next
bridge up the bay. Oops, perhaps, but ATC never said anything about it.
All the bridges around here have toll plazas, and we've got a bunch of them.

Down the way at RHV, "the mall" is a prominent landmark on final. At PAO, I
once heard tower instruct a student or transient pilot to "report the Maule
in sight," and it was soon obvious that they were looking for a large
building full of shoppers. We have one of those near the airport now, but
not when this incident occurred.

[John Clear]

[ posted and mailed ]

In article >,
Craig Prouse > wrote:
>
>Here at PAO, I still have only a vague idea of the location of something
>called the "birdcage."

It is the birdhouse. It is out towards the bay, sort of abeam the
31 numbers. It doesn't really have birds, it is more of a nature
center type thing.

The one at PAO that cracks me up is the 'old yacht harbor'. If
there weren't for the pictures on the wall in the CAP building
showing what it looked like before the yacht harbor became a silted
in sludge pond, I'd have not idea where to look.

John
--
John Clear - http://www.panix.com/~jac

[Sonja Wong]

Craig Prouse wrote:

> Here at PAO, I still have only a vague idea of the location of something
> called the "birdcage."
>
> Recently I received instructions to fly to the "toll plaza." I flew
> directly to the nearest toll plaza at the east end of the Dumbarton Bridge
> (Hwy 84). Only later did I notice that "Toll Plaza" is a designated VFR
> reporting point at the east end of the San Mateo Bridge (Hwy 92), the next
> bridge up the bay. Oops, perhaps, but ATC never said anything about it.
> All the bridges around here have toll plazas, and we've got a bunch of them.

I've never heard of anyone having to report the Toll Plaza when flying
to PAO (though I've had to do it once or twice flying from SQL to HWD,
but then you just fly along the San Mateo bridge, so it makes sense)...

I always think it's funny that when you're over Walnut Creek and telling
OAK tower you want to land, they tell you to report over the Mormon
temple. That'd be okay--if the Mormon temple were actually visible from
that side of the hills! I had to make my best guess as to where it was
twice, and twice ended up a mile or two south of it.

Now if anyone can tell me where the abandoned airport is for CCR or
which group of buildings is the Embassy Suites for SJC, I'd be set!

-Sonja

[John Harper]

The Embassy Suites is relatively easy, it's where 237 meets 680 (although I
agree
there's absolutely nothing to distinguish it especially from the air, it's
not
even THAT tall. The Crowne Plaza at the 237/880 intersection is much more
distinctive from the air, but is inside the Class C surface zone).

I find all these VRPs quite a hoot. I'm still waiting to be told to report
over
"Ed's Tire and Muffler" or "Gloria's Dry Cleaning and Laundry".

John

"Sonja Wong" > wrote in message
...
> Craig Prouse wrote:
>
> > Here at PAO, I still have only a vague idea of the location of something
> > called the "birdcage."
> >
> > Recently I received instructions to fly to the "toll plaza." I flew
> > directly to the nearest toll plaza at the east end of the Dumbarton
Bridge
> > (Hwy 84). Only later did I notice that "Toll Plaza" is a designated VFR
> > reporting point at the east end of the San Mateo Bridge (Hwy 92), the
next
> > bridge up the bay. Oops, perhaps, but ATC never said anything about it.
> > All the bridges around here have toll plazas, and we've got a bunch of
them.
>
> I've never heard of anyone having to report the Toll Plaza when flying
> to PAO (though I've had to do it once or twice flying from SQL to HWD,
> but then you just fly along the San Mateo bridge, so it makes sense)...
>
> I always think it's funny that when you're over Walnut Creek and telling
> OAK tower you want to land, they tell you to report over the Mormon
> temple. That'd be okay--if the Mormon temple were actually visible from
> that side of the hills! I had to make my best guess as to where it was
> twice, and twice ended up a mile or two south of it.
>
> Now if anyone can tell me where the abandoned airport is for CCR or
> which group of buildings is the Embassy Suites for SJC, I'd be set!
>
> -Sonja
>

[Rich]

Sonja Wong > wrote in message >...
>
> Now if anyone can tell me where the abandoned airport is for CCR or
> which group of buildings is the Embassy Suites for SJC, I'd be set!
>
> -Sonja

The abandonned airport at CCR is at the Concord Naval Weapons Station.
It's on the VFR charts and there's a picture of it here:

http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/CA/Airfields_CA_Oakland.htm#concord

Embassy Suites is in that mess of buildings at the 237/880
interchange. It's shown on this map:

http://www.mastercfi.com/rhv.htm

Rich

[Sonja Wong]

Rich wrote:
> The abandonned airport at CCR is at the Concord Naval Weapons Station.
> It's on the VFR charts and there's a picture of it here:
>
> http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/CA/Airfields_CA_Oakland.htm#concord
>
> Embassy Suites is in that mess of buildings at the 237/880
> interchange. It's shown on this map:
>
> http://www.mastercfi.com/rhv.htm

Thanks for the tips, John and Rich. A friend of mine who flew out of
RHV tried to point out the Embassy Suites to me once, but I couldn't
really pick it out from among all the other clusters of buildings around
there. I wish they would just call it by the interchange--like HWD uses
the 580/680 interchange as a reporting point. It would be much less
ambiguous.

Then again, I had conflicting traffic report over 580/680 once about 3
seconds after I had reported only to look out the window and see that he
was over Lake Chabot! So maybe VRPs are only as good as the pilots
using them..

-Sonja