Sacramento Delta Joy Ride

Saturday, looked to be bum day for lessons. The airport I normally practice landings at had some pretty squirrely variable winds that would not be super productive for me to try and land on with the level of experience I have. The clouds were too low, for us to practice stalls, spins, slow flight, etc (we always want a huge margin of safety for that sort of work).

So, instead, we said screw the lessons - and just did a joy ride through the Sacramento Delta. We followed the Sacramento river, figuring out where we were mostly by recognizing the towns and bridges (I commute via the delta weekly). We ended up over the Antioch Bridge, where the view from 2500 feet is way better than from the measly 500 feet of the bridge itself. The amount of water that runs through the delta is staggering.

Coming back was tougher - all those water ways look alike, and the aeronautical charts are not detailed enough to use the water ways for pilotage. Eventually we hooked up with highway 12, saw the towers at Walnut Grove, found I-5, and followed that back up to Executive Airport. “Nothing to see here, move along.”