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by rdl 4738 days ago
It looks like they mount stuff on CA-92/San Mateo Bridge (http://www.flysfo.com/web/export/sites/default/download/abou...) and then from there along the approach. The main issue seems to be the two parallel runways. From when I took photos of the airfield, there were a lot of lights and other things sticking out of the bay on the approach path. Decision Bar is supposed to be 1000' off the threshold so that was probably it.

I'm not a pilot; once I have spare money and time (and enough to fly monthly to keep current), probably.

It's interesting reading about stuff like the "No Transgression Zone", though.

1 comments

"once I have spare money and time"

I've been telling myself that for decades and never quite had both at the same time. Often a great excess of one or the other. By the time I finally have both, I'll probably fail my medical with my luck. I did do ground school + a bit more on my own, and I've got a couple hours in the air with an instructor. I do some semi-serious sim flying for fun, mostly the X-Plane. If I ever get serious I'll already be pretty good at navigation, flight planning, reading approach plates, E6B use, METAR decoding, NOTAM decoding, etc.

There's a remarkable number of free electronic E6B apps for most phones. And some paid ones that are marginally better. I find my tablet to be quite helpful when "flying" although I also use old fashioned mechanical E6B... Figure $10 for a paper one that'll last "awhile" and $30 for a lifetime metal one.

The frontier of flight sims right now is no one does NOTAM simulation. Why not shut down some ground stuff occasionally, just like you can shut down aircraft systems and screw around with weather? It may be there's a sim out there that does this that I don't know about.

I'm think in the Bay Area it's mostly a question of $10-15k and maybe 100 hours (flight + study time) to get the first license, and there are a decent number of rental choices.

My dream (well, the realistic one) is to get a CH-801 STOL kit plane with a diesel engine so I can live in Central Washington and get to I-5 in a reasonable amount of time, although weather probably prevents that often. That's only $150k or so, which would be saved in taxes and property cost differential several times over.