In order to get some practice at an uncontrolled airport, today we would be flying over to Santa Paula.

After preflight, we took off and tracked the Fillmore VOR. After looking at the charts, we followed the 250 radial from Fillmore which put us directly on course to Santa Paula. We went to the right of the runway and announced are position over the town and our intentions of joining the left traffic pattern for landing.

We taxied to parking and checked out the area. There was something very retro about the field. There was no tower, a classic diner, beautiful scenery and some old facilities.

After taking a drink in the diner, we did some work around the pattern and even had an incident where we were on final and another plane taxied onto the runway. We kept him in sight thinking he was just going to position and hold but he actually started taking off. People on the radio were giving him a hard time (probably because mistakes like that could affect any one of the pilots there). We ended up going around and keeping the runway in our sights to the left of the plane.

After a couple of more times in the pattern, we made a left downwind departure and tracked the VOR back to Van Nuys. We did a couple of stalls as a refresher and went over emergency procedures. I got some experience talking on the CTAF and at an uncontrolled airport. I definitely plan on going back to Santa Paula…when I have a bit more experience.