"Arrow xyz, turn left heading two seven zero, vectors for active air show"Last Sunday, my wife and I were cruising home from the San Francisco Bay area at 4500 MSL descending to 3500 MSL, just East of Concord, CA (KCCR). I'd been trying to get in touch with the local TRACON for flight following but the bay area frequencies were pretty jammed so I opted to wait until just prior to entering Travis Air Force Base's airspace and contacting Travis Approach. I call them up, they have me change frequencies, ident, they give me the local altimeter setting then tell me to stand by for a squawk code.
Everything is normal, right? Um…no, not exactly. The next thing I hear is "Arrow xxx, turn left heading two seven zero, vectors around active air show". Now, *that* got my attention. I hang a 110 degree turn to the left and start wondering where I went wrong in my pre-flight weather & NOTAM briefing. There were no graphical TFRs along my route and I'm wondering if I missed a NOTAM for an air show at Stockton, Lodi, Tracy, Rio Vista…Travis AFB maybe.
A minute later, I get vectored heading 360 degrees and this will pretty much put is over the center of Travis's air field. I'm thinking that Obviously, the air show activity isn't at Travis. Five minutes or so later, I'm told I can resume my own navigation so I turn back to my original heading before this little zigzag and fly maybe three miles away from Travis's runways but now at 3500 MSL.
Before I exit Travis's air space, I hear two other spam cans get vectored around the air show activity. Funny, nobody asked "Travis approach, where is the air show?". I sure wanted to but didn't want that on record with the ATC recordings.
When I got home, I searched through the NOTAMs and googled everything I could think of for local air shows. Zip…nada…nothing. So, I'm left wondering if Travis was doing something in a corner of their air space and just wanted everyone to stay the heck away.
Ah, well, I didn't bust any TFRs and it was a pleasant flight. I'm still scratching my head wondering what was going on though. If any Bay Area folks know what was going on, please drop me a line.
4 comments:
There was a NOTAM for aerobatic activity that might explain the diversion. There is a team of three L39s (http://www.airshowsamerica.com/L39.htm) based in Byron that periodically practice over an area known as Bacon Island. This is from memory, but I recall the position is about 20nm from the Manteca 258 radial, with a radius of a couple of nautical miles, from the surface to 4000 feet. This won't show up as a TFR, just as a NOTAM and you have to wade through them all to find it.
Thanks John. Now...if I can just figure out how to lookup old NOTAMS. Yawn...not tonight though...
Actually, it was posted again today. It's on the 278 radial, 21 miles out and goes to 7000 feet.
SCK 09/005 ECA AEROBATIC ACFT 7000/BLW 3 NMR ECA278021 AVOIDANCE
ADZD
Ah, so it is John. Thanks again. Guess I'll add this one to the list of things to check out when cruising to/from RHV.
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