Today I had my BFR done out of Long Beach. Getting there proved quite a challenge as LGB is a complicated maze of intersecting runways and taxiways. It was confusing even with a printed airport diagram in the cockpit. We had to say stuff like, "taxi to Long Beach Flying Club via Kilo, Bravo, and Foxtrot, will hold short of Runway Three Zero" and "request taxi to Two Five Left at Delta via Foxtrot with Charlie." It was pure alphabet soup.
The flight portion proved quite useful as well as scenic, as I got to fly the LA Special Flight Rules corridor above LAX for the first time, yielding some fantastic views of numerous sailboats dotting the ocean just off of Marina del Rey, did some air work over the ultra-blue Pacific just southwest of Long Beach Harbor, low overflight over Los Alamito's airspace and Knott's Berry Farm, before a full stop landing at Fullerton.
Interestingly, Fullerton provided some challenging gusts and crosswinds, giving me some additional insights on how our plane's nose gear steering works. It turns out, the landing gear steering spring is not necessarily tuned to give the same yawing moment as the rudder for the same rudder pedal travel. As a result, in a crosswind landing, there could be a sudden increase in yawing moment when the nose gear touches down, and a similar decrease when the nose lifts off the ground. The result could be quite alarming if the nose gear chatters between these two modes. I have developed a technique to minimize this chattering for both takeoff and landing.
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