The Bay Transition - California - 2001

I am assuming the statute of limitations applies to this experience.

Looking down on San Diego Bay looking North towards Los Angeles. The Coronado Bridge is at the bottom of the picture crossing the bay. You can see the San Diego International Airport runway in the centre of the picture running left / right on the north shore.

On arriving in San Diego at my flying school to do my commercial and instrument rating, the first thing the flying school do is send you on “the Bay Transition”. This is to introduce you to what San Diego looks like from the sky, point out all the beautiful landmarks around the San Diego bay, but more importantly show you all the ‘no fly’ zones.

And there are many.

Apart from downtown San Diego and the nearby international airport to the north of the CBD, there is also the Navy Top Gun school at Miramar, a few air force bases and a massive harbour for the US Pacific fleet.

Then of course there is the US / Mexico border, which we told in no uncertain terms to cross. Stories were shared of light planes accidentally ‘busting’ airspace with the US and Mexico border and being chased down by fighter planes from one of the numerous nearby military air bases.

The skies above San Diego, therefore, are littered with no-fly zones which are imaginary walls in the sky that you should not cross or hop over. A forty-minute flight around the bay was all I saw of San Diego from the air for a very long time, as I immediately went into my instrument flying and spent the next many hours flying under ‘the hood’.

All the pins are military bases of some kind and 'no-fly zones'. The black arrow shows the direction the picture above was taken. The black dot below El Cajon is the location of Gillespie Field where I flew from. The black dot on the border with Mexico is Brown Field.

The hood is a pair of plastic glasses, like safety glasses that have the tops and sides frosted, so you cannot see straight ahead unless you look up and then down your nose. The idea is that even in good weather you can simulate flying in bad weather and be limited to only focusing on the instrument panel in front of you. As you shoot an approach to a runway, at a certain altitude you can look up and hopefully see a runway in front of you and commit to landing or go around for another try.

The next 3 weeks were spent completely under the hood and I never saw anything more of San Diego than an airstrip for a few fleeting seconds on a touch and go (where you land and touch down, then immediately add power and take off again), before heading back into the skies and the fog of the hood!

As I was nearing the end of my instrument training, I was aware that I needed more night hours to get ready for my commercial license, so asked my instructor the best plan to build these hours up. He suggested that I hop in one of the planes in the evening, fly over to Brown Field to the south and spend some time doing touch and go’s.

“Can’t miss it” the instructor said.

“2,500-meter runway – well lit” the instructor added

‘If you cannot find it, use your instruments. You’ve landed there before under the hood before” he said reassuringly.

So, of I set shortly after nightfall and was immediately surprised at how much light there was. Having only flown in Kenya at night, where lighting is limited, even in Nairobi, and where I was very familiar with all the landmarks, taking off at Gillespie was somewhat awe-inspiring. The land was awash with orange and white lights and I could only use the freeways to figure out where certain landmarks were.

I immediately switched to the instrument VOR to find my way to Brown in this sea of light below me. Being only 17 miles away from Gillespie I radioed into Brown as soon as I was cleared by Gillespie tower.

Brown tower responded to my call and said they had me on radar, and I was cleared to enter the circuit and proceed with the ‘option’. When doing touch and go’s in the US, if the airport is not busy, they often give you ‘the option’ meaning you can do as you want while touching down. If the strip is long enough you can do two touch and goes, or even stop on the runway and then do a standing take off again. Great for new pilots to try different take off configurations in their own time without the stress of other traffic.

So being given the option I assumed the airport would not have any other traffic on it.

I saw the runway about five miles out, chose my spot to enter a right-hand circuit, and called Brown again on entering.

“2-5-Yankee entering the circuit right hand base leg” I called into Brown tower.

“2-5-Yankee copied. Cleared for the option runway 2-6-right” tower responded.

Great, I thought. I pinpointed a large well lit car park as my base leg turning point for future circuits and turned onto finals.

Strange though, there was traffic on the runway taking off? Why would tower give me the option on a runway being used.? I figured it was traffic departing, so maybe tower wasn’t worried about it.

I slowed my approach down due to the traffic to allow it to take off, landed, did my touch and go and turned right into the circuit to do this as many times as required to build the night hours needed.

I called down wind and then base leg to tower. They replied that all was clear and to proceed.

Again, I turned onto base leg over the ‘car park’ and called into tower, who again gave me clearance for the option.

This time around there was a lot of radio interference in my headset. I called to Brown asking if it was them calling me and if they had the interference too. Tower came back with a negative to both, so I carried on.

I did four more circuits, with the persistent radio interference and the required scheduled reporting to Brown, who still seemed to have no issues with my progress.

I had planned to land and park up on the fifth circuit as touch and go's get tedious at the best of times, but being at night and in a new location it was quite tiring.

I hoped the coffee would be good at the airport café.

On the downwind leg, I reported into Brown again and they once more gave me the option.

As I was looking out over the right wing, I noticed a large commercial jet lining up on the runway I was about to land on.

“Brown tower, confirm cleared for the option runway 2-6-right? I have heavy traffic lining up for takeoff?” I asked.

Silence for about 10 seconds.

“2-5-Yankee confirm position please?”

“About to tun base leg 2-6-right” I replied.

“2-5-Yankee, turn immediately right to a northerly heading and proceed 1 mile till you see Brown Field”.

WTF!!!!!!

I did as I was told quickly and then called into Brown again and asked them what was going on.

“2-5-Yankee, you have been doing touch and go’s at Tijuana International Airport. Confirm you now see Brown straight ahead?"

Well now I bloody did! Well-lit my arse! With all the other lights, I had seen the brightest lit airstrip and assumed it to be Brown and had been cleared by Brown. Just so happens that Brown lights were not as bright as Tijuana’s and those Mexican lights were what I assumed to be Brown and they had lured me in like a moth to a flame.

If you Google Brown Field, it states, and I quote, ‘the approach to the runway is either from the east (normally) or from the west (when Santa Ana wind conditions exist). Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM/KSDM) in San Diego, California lies just over one nautical mile (about 2 km) north of TIJ (Tijuana International), with a similar runway length and orientation.’

I could see the error clearly now. Parallel runways, not a nautical mile apart and a border running between the two.

The above shows the location of the 2 runways and the border down the middle. The car park I was using is where it states 'port of entry'

Not my proudest aviation moment, I must admit, but in my defence, I was in unfamiliar territory, at night, AND I had been cleared by Brown the whole time. Surely the guy in the tower must have wondered where a plane doing touch a go’s was on his strip? Did he think I was in a Stealth bomber? Or was he engrossed in his hot dog and newspaper not to even look up?

The ‘car park’ I had been using as marker for base leg turned out to be the cars all lining up to come into the US at the border.

Brown had massively messed up and told me to immediately head back to Gillespie.

I turned onto my heading to Gillespie sweating buckets and waiting for an interception at any moment. I stayed low and fast and got back to Gillespie in short order.

I did not know what to expect from Gillespie tower when I called in, but they allowed me to land and park up as I normally do. No requests to report to tower and no blue and red flashing lights waiting for me on the apron.

I had somehow managed to get away with it and can only assume it was because Brown tower had messed up so bad that they did want to report it. How I managed to avoid radar is anyone’s guess.

The radio interference I can now only think was Tijuana Tower trying to reach me and had the frequency slightly off, so was mostly static – or Mexican.

I got back to the apartments and went straight to my instructors’ room and told him the story. He went white and could obviously see his career crashing around him.

The next day there was still no knocks on the doors, and we all began to relax a bit having now obviously gotten away with it.

I asked my instructor, tongue in cheek if I could log the Mexican landings in my logbook and got a resounding ‘NO!”.

On passing any exams or getting a new license at the school it was customary for the school to give you a school T-shirt signed by all your classmates.

I got a Mexican hat.

Thank the lord I did not stop for a coffee on my fifth circuit in the end!!

Gillespie Field in El Cajon. This is the approach to 09L. The tower is to the right of the strip and our school apron is the circular parking area below the tower as you look at it here.