I think those guys won't have a problem renting a limo next time...

At Oscar's time, that is actually a major problem here. Every single limo in L.A. and surrounding counties are booked a year in advance, so they have to get more from as far as San Francisco...

There are also times when it's not appropriate to use a limo in the L.A. area.

I had VIP business guests from France about 10 years ago. They had given me exceptional hospitality when I visited them in Paris, with a low flying King Air ride over the Loire valley and the beautiful Chambord area, all on the way to a Five Hour Seven Course Meal in Lyon (arguably the most gastronomic town in France).

I knew it would be foolish to try to match them on their own style of food, so I rented a limo and took them down the coast to the famous Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego for their then decent and very pleasant Sunday Champagne Brunch in great surroundings.

After a couple of hours of unlimited food and champagne, the mood was pretty good :O) and we hopped in the limo again.

Their expectation of course was that we would now be returning to L.A.

Pretty good guess of course, and initially this seemed to be correct, but unexpectedly the driver turned off towards the coast, away from the freeway to L.A.

It turned out to be Lindbergh Field (major airport), but surely we weren't going to fly back for such a short trip? That wouldn't make any sense, especially since it was a beautiful day.

Well, apparently not, because the driver turned away from the terminals. Instead he drove around the hangars and drove onto the field up to a big Jet Ranger. Aha! We were going to helicopter back to L.A.!

We took off and quickly pointed out Los Angeles in the distance, but soon saw the French surprised again as the pilot headed off over the water in a different direction towards an island.

We were going to Catalina! After walking off some of the morning's calories, we did the usual glass bottom boat tours and some other fun stuff, then hopped in the chopper again to fly to L.A.

Just as we touched down, the limo entered through the gates. The driver had been sitting in super heavy congestion the entire time from San Diego to L.A., but still managed to produce a faint smile as he held open the doors for us, and took us to the next eating place, which almost got me fired by the board.

(I took these top French executives who regularly ate at ultra-expensive Guide Michelin 3-star (the highest rating, "worth a trip") restaurants to what? I took them to El Cholo ("The Tramp" in Spanish), a Mexican restaurant that's been around since 1927. Why? Because I knew that a) I couldn't beat them on French food in L.A., b) they had never had good Mexican food, since there is no authentic Mexican food in Europe, so they would have nothing to compare with, c) they loved good wines, preferably $3,000/bottle or over, or old Armagnac or Cognac from Napoleon's time, which I thought was a waste of my company's money, but I knew which tequilas were outstanding (Porfidio Anejo, Chinaco Anejo and a few more that were available at El Cholo), and I knew that this would be a new and incomparable experience for them. I recommended the Green Corn Tamales, which are seasonal only, and a few other things that are great at this restaurant, and these super picky eaters had an absolute blast that they were talking about for years afterwards!!!)

The conservative board members were collectively clattering their knees at the abomination of these VIP guests having been served "tacos" by this total idiot.

They could barely believe it when they saw the profuse thank-you letters afterwards that just never ended, it was quite obvious that these guests had had a great time, and they backed up their words with a lot of business, so I didn't have to go sell pencils on the pier... :O)

According to my good female friend guys with deep voice have hude pe... Oh God i'm getting flaged aren't I??

Huge pencils...? They're not allowed to write with pens...?

-----------

Those VOs remind me of Steve Wright, the English DJ, who used to present the Breakfast Show on Radio 1 a few years back (before that, Steve Wright in the Afternoon). Well, one of the 'characters' on the show was Voice Over Man.

Alway speaking in that exaggerated, over-enthusiastic manner. Great stuff. Surely someone here will recall? Someone, anyone...

Worley

I think he meant personality. Chicks love it. ;)

Actually, it was Pablo Francisco that began parodying LaFontaine.

So in essense, Don is now going around doing Francisco doing him.

Surely someone here will recall? Someone, anyone...

In case you're not aware, Steve Wright now does "Steve Wright In The Afternoon" weekdays on Radio 2. I don't think he has the Voice Over Man anymore but "Ask Elvis" is very funny.

Steve also does "Sunday Love Songs" each Sunday morning on Radio 2.

Coursedesign:

Great story.

Back when I was living in LA (up until 1990), I did a lot of private-pilot flying. One of the great things to do back then was to fly from SMO (Santa Monica airport, home of the Douglas DC2 and DC3) to Catalina Island for lunch. You take off heading west towards the ocean from SMO, do a right-270 to gain altitude, then cross LAX at about 2,500 feet, head over Palos Verdes, then cross the 20 miles of very deep ocean. I'd swear the engine would almost always begin running rough about that point.

After 10 minutes or so, get in the pattern for the Catalina airport, which is basically just a mountaintop bulldozed flat just enough for a very small runway. If you're ever going to soil you pants you will be doing it there, on short final. One second you're 2,000 feet over the ocean, then--bam!--you cross the cliff-edge of the runway, and you land.

The whole point of going to Catalina (aside from the thrills) was having genuine Buffalo Burgers at the movie-set-cute little airport terminal there. There are herds of buffalo on Catalina, brought over by a Hollywood crew back in the 1920's for a movie and left there to save transportation costs. The herd is culled every year and gets made into burgers. You sit there on the Spanish hacienda-style outdoor patio and watch the herd grazing no more than a couple hundred yards away while munching on Grandpa. Yumm, buffalo...

Afterwards you can walk down from the airport and mingle with the herd. Well, okay, not exactly "mingle." Especially during mating season, the males are a bit touchy and if you have an encounter with a 2,000lb horny animal with territorial instincts on his mind you won't fare well.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling; your story just had me reliving a few of my finer moments.

GlennChan: more voiceover madness

Dude, why'd LaFontaine have to diss Hal Douglas like that?

Rob

I used to have a plane at Santa Monica airport, N91076, that I flew over across most of the U.S.

So you also experienced the famous "auto-rough" effect over the ocean... :O)

What do you mean the Catalina runway was "bulldozed flat?" If only!

The center of the runway was quite a bit higher in elevation, so many pilots panicked on their initial landing roll, because it looked like they were going to go "over the edge." This caused several accidents involving unprepared pilots.

I also remember with fondness my instrument checkride, because as luck would have it I was of course given Marc Grillo, the toughest FAA inspector in the region.

On top of that, on the day of the checkride, the winds were very strong and very gusty so he said to fly to the Mojave Desert and show him some NDB approaches (a sociopath's request, but certainly within his rights :O). During climbout he gave me a stern look as the plane was going in just about every direction on the compass, but he soon calmed down when he saw from the panel that "on average" the plane was on exactly the right course (which was the best anyone could do with this wind).

Suddenly he gave me a simulated Air Traffic Control command to change to a new course and altitude at a certain upcoming fix (virtual point in space). Between keeping the airplane right-side-up and on course in the super-gusty winds, while flying on instruments (no peeking outside) after he had just pulled out a couple of suction cups from his pocket to cover some random instruments to make it "a little more interesting," I got a bit distracted and I missed making the turn when I should have. Thirty seconds later I could FEEL an ugly grin coming from his face (my head was covered by a hood so I could only see the instruments in front of me), so I figured I must have made some mistake.

DRAT!!! My turn... Quick thinking. I was doing 120 knots, i.e. 2 miles per minute, sooo, I had only overshot the turn by 1 mile. I immediately pointed out to Inspector Grillo that this was within the safety corridor of the airway he wanted me to turn onto. "So turn then!," was his response. "Umm, good point," was my feeble response as I nervously turned, thinking that I had lost a couple of points with my sloppiness.

Then I rechecked the chart again and saw in horror that the new airway had a higher minimum altitude.

DRAT again! The rascal had succeeded in tricking me again, and my sloppiness had once more lost me points on this checkride that was now beginning to not look so good.

I put the plane into a max. performance climb and pointed out with some embarrassment that regulations gave me so many miles from the airway intersection to reach the new, higher minimum altitude caused by rising cumulus granitus clouds (aka mountains) underneath, and that I would in fact get there in time. Instead of the "Yeah sure!" that I expected, I got "Oh?!?"

It turned out that he had just given me the ATC command to check my ability to make instrument turns under the hood in very gusty conditions while being distracted with difficult questions about the instrumentation, and he had not even looked at the chart for the area...

He-he!!! Sweet revenge! He was a bit nicer after that and actually seemed more relaxed.

After shooting some gusty approaches we headed back to SMO on instruments. Approaching from the northwest, I was expecting to hear the usual "Turn right SMO 210 Radial and contact Tower on 120.1," but it was not to be. ATC was silent. When I was getting close, I gave them an extra position report, "076 approaching SMO 210 radial," but only got a "Roger" back.

Now Inspector Grillo was sitting up in his seat and was really looking to see how I was going to handle this situation that neither of us had ever encountered before even as we had flown exactly this route many many times before.

This is one of the most crowded airspaces in the world, and ATC was not quite doing their job, yet as a pilot it wasn't up to me to say so.

Continuing, I was heading straight into the meat grinder of arriving LAX airliners on parallel runways, with massive wake turbulence to boot.

"076 passing SMO 210 radial," I calmly volunteered with a silent "hint, hint," because ATC was within their right to send me into the meat grinder if they wanted to (and I had the right to take any action to avoid an emergency).

Finally I got an answer: "Oooh, 076 Turn Right Intercept SMO 210 Radial Cleared for the VOR Alpha Approach Contact Tower on 120.1 Good Day." [If you can handle ATC radio communications in L.A., you can handle it anywhere after that. The traffic volume is enormous, and New York minutes go by in seconds here.]

As soon as I had the plane down to 1200 feet and lined up with the runway (which isn't that easy with sweaty palms, gusty winds and a quirky VOR), Inspector Grillo announced, "I've got it," and landed the plane. I thought it meant that I had failed, but it turned out that he just wanted another landing in his logbook for his currency requirements.

He signed off on my checkride immediately.

WHEW!

:O)

LA Region; Airports; Wild Rides;

Orange County Noise Abatement, i.e. nosedive into the Pacific Ocean.
http://www.ocair.com/generalaviation/ganoise.htm

Not fun when the "commercial" airline that you purchase a seat on "accidently" cuts the engines, causing you to plunge toward the Pacific Ocean.

"Compliance with the GANO is mandatory unless deviations are made necessary by ATC instructions, a medical emergency, an in-flight emergency or other safety considerations."

I could do with less "in-flight emergencies" on that leg.

I do occasionally catch Steve Wright on Radio 2, and yes, "Ask Elvis" is wonderful. I think he sang "Pop Life" a couple of weeks ago.

Great.

Coursedesign:

We'll have to get together at some Vegas function to talk airplane. For nearly 20 years instrument flying was as much of a passion to me as video stuff is to me now. One of my personal highlights was landing at night at LAX in fog on an ILS approach, breaking out literally at minimums, with a 727 on final behind me.

Anybody else on this board interested in flying?