Visability over in SOCAL is really good today.

Brett_Henderson wrote on Oct 7^th, 2007 at 5:09pm:

They key for me in this case was to fly it first with Bob calling the turns, early in our lessons- I was able to start visualizing it. And after a spiraling climb over the NOLF (which is inactive on weekends), I just have to stay at 3500 the whole way.
I know that I wasn't at a recommended VFR altitude for those headings (flying N/NW), but the narrowness of the corridor and the "right-lane" rule make it much less likely that a midair will occur, compared to, say, a Victor airway.
And I didn't want to waste fuel climbing to 4500...

Sure enough, today I heard a Cessna call entering the corridor from the north at 3500 as I was entering from the south. This should have been no big deal, but I was having trouble getting the guy to update his position. He just kept calling "in the corridor, southbound at 3500".
  When he called "over the bridge" I was just arriving there myself; didn't see him. Ulp. But as I scanned left, there he was, way out near the beach... not the bridge... so it was fine.
Just gotta use that CTAF and keep a sharp lookout.

And definitely update your altimeter setting often...

The only VFR corridor I've flown, around airspace anywhwere near that complicated, was Lakeshore Drive, Chicago.  I didn't want to just pop into O'hare's bravo control and hope for the best (sometimes they'll deny you).. so I initiated VFR flight following with Gary, Indiana and had him turn me over to O'hare approach... Funny thing though.. even though I still had a transponder code, all he did was give me a frequency to monitor.. kinda like a CTAF for the corridor. A GPS wouldn't have helped much anyway, as it was simply a matter of staying below 2500msl and over Lake Michigan..

I took it upon myself to squawk VFR when I cleared the corridor.. contacted Waukeegan for a simple VFR airspace transistion and that was my last ATC contact  for the day...

Mobius wrote on Oct 7^th, 2007 at 5:39pm:


No 2-way required. No transponder required. But believe me, if I had a transponder I would ask for FF there to help spot traffic. That "phantom Cessna" had the hair on the back of my neck  standing up for a minute there.   
Having 1000 vertical feet spacing doesn't make it much safer- planes could still overtake each other. Especially if they're not reporting position...
Good visibility helps, though. 

But it's really easy to transit the few miles of the corridor by pilotage without busting the Class B. If you look at the TCA, you can see there are plenty of good landmarks. The corridor is pretty tall, too.

The real challenge  isn't the airspace, it's the potential for conflicting traffic.I mean, if I wanted to, I could fly the Champ through there without even using the CTAF.  No strobes, BTW...

Better to forget the GPS and keep your eyes outside!

Aerophile wrote on Oct 7^th, 2007 at 11:37pm:


It has a wind generator, but that just keeps the battery topped off for the comm radio (which is required for Class D ops).  There are also lights installed, but I don't know if they work and don't have any desire to fly something like that at night, anyway (no gyros).

Quote:


And that's one of best examples of how MSFS can help in training. You can drill UNOS until it's second nature     And get a real feel for how accurate timed, standard-rate turns can be...

Brett_Henderson wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 7:13am:


This is true, but no matter how many times I tell them to go home and work it out on FS they still don't do it. I guess because FS becomes work and it's no longer fun.