Went absolutely nowhere today - and had a ton of fun.

Are those guns visible from Google Earth? Those of us over here on the East
Coast want to see how it's done. We don't have mountains near the coast,
just sand dunes.
ron




"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT" net wrote in
message ...
Weather has been -for lack of a more appropriate term - ****ty here
lately. The "June gloom" has come early once again with morning fog
and low clouds.. Had two ships scheduled for me and a buddy to take
two of our coworkers for $200 pancakes and we were thinking Mother
Nature was gonna be nasty and make us cancel.

Surprisingly, when I checked weather about an hour before our
scheduled takeoff, the visibility was 8 miles and sky was 700' broken
with an overcast layer at 2,400'. Not VFR, but we could definitely
get a special VFR out of the area. Even better was our destination;
vis 10+ ceiling at 1400'.

We didn't call our co-workers to join us since it was marginal
conditions, but thought we'd at least get some time turning fuel into
noise and a decent breakfast. We launched about 30 mins late due to
the special VFR request and headed North initially and then East to
pick up the Interstate so we could fly IFR (I Follow Roads) to our
destination. About 30 mins out, I pick up AWOS and am happy to hear
it's getting even better. Ceiling is up to 1,600' and wind is 3 knots
almost right down the runway. I can already taste the bacon... A few
minutes later we see a wall of low clouds blocking our path and we're
not willing to fly down with the semis to get through it. It looks a
lot better to the West so we head that way to give it a try..

We divert West and head up the small canyon we usually fly down on the
return trip from our destination field. No joy there either so back
to the interstate and then we try to the East to see how another
canyon is looking. Crap.. The "wall of doom" is settled right on top
of the hills and it took us all of 2 seconds to decide to pass on
breakfast and head back down the interstate to the South to go "play"
near a local lake.

Halfway to the lake, my buddy comes over the radio and asks me if I've
seen the gun emplacement in the hills above the lake. Now I've lived
in San Diego since 1971 and I'd not only never seen the guns, but
never knew they were even there. He took the lead and I followed him
to the emplacement and we flew a couple circles around it and then
both made a low approach to it (not at the same time...) to check it
out.

Looks like a 5" gun turret from a ship - almost identical to the
turrets I saw on the battleship North Carolina last Summer - and 3
Bofors Anti-Aircraft guns. No idea how they got up there or why
they're there, but we're going to hike up to them this weekend and
check 'em out. (No room to land or we'd fly up. ehhhe)

After checking out the guns we head East to the local practice area
and shortly before getting there, the ceiling goes to hell so we
decide to call it a day and head back.

Once we're back we get the ships shut down and secured and head back
into the office. Evidently the office manager, the ops director and a
couple CFIs heard us yapping on the radio so they had a good laugh
busting our chops about our conversations as we flew then asked where
we went. "Nowhere, but we had a lot of fun doing it!" Of course, the
CFIs grilled us about what it was looking like "up there" so we had to
give 'em the official PIREP for the area.

Other than low ceilings, the weather was pretty good. Damned good
visibility but ya just couldn't fly very high. I was a little
disappointed we couldn't eat breakfast, but I don't think I've ever
had so much fun going nowhere and taking 1.7 hours to do so...