wrote:
Okay, so I thought I'd head over from PAO and log some approaches at
the usual suspects: KLVK, KSCK, KTCY, maybe KOAK.

Thing is, getting back to PAO. There's no GPS in the A/C I fly so the
GPS-31 at PAO is out. Similarly, asking for the VOR/DME-31 seems to
result in endless, endless vectoring over San Jose.


When I visited the Norcal TRACON facility last year, their advice
for getting the PAO VOR/DME-31 approach was to prefile. Asking for
this approach as a pop-up pretty much guarantees 45-60 minutes of
vectoring and/or holding. So I would suggest before departure, pick
one of the outlying airports, and prefile IFR from there to PAO.
After your practice approaches, land and open your prefiled IFR flight
plan.

Alternatively, you could ask for the Moffet ILS approach, then go
VFR or SVFR to PAO.