Approaching BFM...

Dan Luke wrote:

...you may be asked to report passing:

The battleship
The coal yard
The cement plant
Ladd stadium
The Dog River bridge
The Cochran bridge
The "X"
The church
The ship channel
Tillman's Corner
The malls
The big island
The tunnel
The Navy homeport

None flagged on the sectional. Of course, the tower controllers don't expect
transients to know most of these. I've been living here 13 years and I
didn't know what the "X" was.

Here at PAO, I still have only a vague idea of the location of something
called the "birdcage."

Recently I received instructions to fly to the "toll plaza." I flew
directly to the nearest toll plaza at the east end of the Dumbarton Bridge
(Hwy 84). Only later did I notice that "Toll Plaza" is a designated VFR
reporting point at the east end of the San Mateo Bridge (Hwy 92), the next
bridge up the bay. Oops, perhaps, but ATC never said anything about it.
All the bridges around here have toll plazas, and we've got a bunch of them.

Down the way at RHV, "the mall" is a prominent landmark on final. At PAO, I
once heard tower instruct a student or transient pilot to "report the Maule
in sight," and it was soon obvious that they were looking for a large
building full of shoppers. We have one of those near the airport now, but
not when this incident occurred.