Seeking CFI at KSNA for Familiarization Flights

[Claude]

I recently moved my '82J from KHWD to KSNA.  All of my flying experience to-date in and out of KSNA has been IFR.  I am looking for a local CFI to familiarize me with local reporting points and procedures for pain-free VFR operations in SoCal.

[Skates97]

Mike Jesch is based out of Fullerton. Futher south is Paul @kortopates in the San Diego area. While the area may look crowded when you look at the TAC to people that are new to the area it's actually pretty easy to get around. Maybe I think that just because I learned here, but I'm not IFR so all my flying is VFR. I'm based out of KFUL and would be happy to chat about things if you want to get together sometime. There are quite a few others that regularly fly the LA basin who could offer pointers as well.

[Niko182]

1 hour ago, Claude said:

I recently moved my '82J from KHWD to KSNA.  All of my flying experience to-date in and out of KSNA has been IFR.  I am looking for a local CFI to familiarize me with local reporting points and procedures for pain-free VFR operations in SoCal.

Im not a CFI,but i am at john wayne and did learn to fly there. If you want help i'm more than happy to show you the main points of entry. 

The simple version:

You have 4 VFR entries.

Straight in, usually given if youre coming from the east and around saddleback mountain.

Signal Peak, shown on the VFR sectional

Miles Square park, shown on the VFR section 

Huntington pier, also shown in the sectional.

After you get to those points, you go direct to the airport, unless they tell you otherwise.

Sometimes youll overfly the airport at 1300 ft to cross over the airport from on side to another, usually to cross from 20R to 20L.

However they make a very good habit of telling you exactly what you need to do. They deal with a lot of students there and have a lot of patience.

As far as departures go, you have 4 of them.

EL Toro departure. Left turn heading 080 and youll be handed off to 128.1, and youre going torwards the el toro practice area.

Newport departure, left turn heading 150,  youll contact 128.1, and you're taking off torwards the coast, in between laguna beach and newport beach

Mesa departure, right turn heading 220, and youre taking off torwards the huntington beach pier. Youll be handed off to 125.35

Orange departure, right turn heading 340, handed off to 131.2. 

You have to deal with wake turbulence a lot there, due to 737, a320s, 757s, and a300. Therefor , for runway 20L, you takeoff and offset 15 degrees to the left. The same applies for the approach of 20L. 15 degree offset as approaching the runway.

All of the departure information is given to you during clearance. You can't takeoff if you dont get a clearance. This is a pretty concise version of 95% of the stuff to know. If you want to chat my number is 949 267 8813. My entire flight experience is from KSNA, its where I learned to fly, and got my instrument and CPL. I'll happily fly right seat with you and just show you the flow of john wayne. You wont get a log book entry in your log book from a CFI, but you wont pay anything either.

You have a really nice J. I saw it show up about a month to 2 ago. Gorgeous paint job. Just put 2 and 2 together because I remember looking that N number up online 5 or 6 weeks back.

[carusoam]

Fantastic details Niko!

Are you sure you are not a CFI? 

Best regards,

-a-

[NotarPilot]

On 10/2/2020 at 9:26 AM, Claude said:

I recently moved my '82J from KHWD to KSNA.  All of my flying experience to-date in and out of KSNA has been IFR.  I am looking for a local CFI to familiarize me with local reporting points and procedures for pain-free VFR operations in SoCal.

I’m a CFI and would be happy to help you out as well. I’m based out of Long Beach (KLGB) PM me if you’re interested and I’ll send you my number.

[Trenta]

https://www.ocair.com/generalaviation/docs/jwapilotguide.03.31.2017.pdf

 

Save this to your efb. I’m based out of John Wayne. I reference this one pager all the time. It’s basically what niko is saying. The only thing that I have noticed is sometimes both runways are on 126.8 and sometimes they have the NW side of the field on 126.8 and the SE part of the field on 119.9. I have noticed that it seems to be based on traffic and workloads. Also be ready and aware that they may ask you to side-step to the other runway. This happens to me about 1/4 of the time. I always prepare my landing spot to need to land on the shorter 20L even if I was given 20 right. 

Something to note, the numbers on 20L&R get a really big washing machine action because the large operators hold short on the taxiway at the numbers between the runways and you can’t expect them to be aware of their jet blast. Anytime I see someone holding short between 20 R&L stay above them and shift my landing spot about 500 feet down the runway.

Some VFR reference points they use OFTEN to familiarize yourself with are Signal Peak, Mile Square Park, Huntington Beach pier, Irvine Lake, and El Toro VOR. SoCal approach usually says something like “Proceed direct to mile square park and contact tower 126.8” they do it for sequencing and then may ask you to do a “cross the field over the tower at or above 1,300ft and enter a left downwind for runway 20L” or “proceed direct to numbers”. Moral is they expect you to know those handful of vfr waypoints to sequence you. 

Other than that they are good controllers. Very efficient. Do yourself a favor and get a spot on the SW ramp. Trust me. You will save a lot of time by being on that side of the field. You don’t want to get stuck in those taxiway Charlie traffic jams. 

-Trent