ORIGINAL: albsurfer
ORIGINAL: dbcisco
I understand now, I thought LA was the only crowed place in CA. I went to UCLA a couple years ago and one sunny end of July day I decided to walk to La Brea. Thought I was going to have a heart attack. I thought other than the LA area California was all open country (like in the movies). Am I thinking northern CA for that? or is all CA like your area?
No, it isn't. We do have some areas with open land, but usually it's already owned by someone, a company, or some level of government. Northern CA is better in many places. You can go inland from us a little ways and find valleys, but it's so hot there, without facilities or water nearby, that a lot of guys don't go flying there. Most of that is desert anyway. Southern CA without water is a big dry-brush firetrap. Northern CA has more water and a better weather temperament year-round. Central CA isn't that far from me, either. It's not too bad, but it's difficult to figure out there if it is farmland, a park, or open land in areas. We have people coming from the Long Beach area & Simi Valley to fly here just because of noise and flying regs around homes. Simi even has a field! But... it's close to the freeway and flying anything above a .46 size plane (I'm told) can easily violate the highway airspace. LOTS of people living here, even in the depressed economy.
I live up in Lancaster, CA, about an hour north of the LA basin. We're in the edge of the Mojave Desert here (still part of LA County, believe it or not), but open land is still hard to come by. Add in Edwards AFB and Palmdale Airport/USAF Plant 42 and the airspace around here is also very restricted. We'll be moving farther north, to California City, before too much longer but even there finding a good place to fly is difficult because of the same restrictions. Weather here also factors in since it's hot, dry and often very windy.
Ah, well, at leas the night skies are pretty decent for my astronomy bug.