ATC at RDU is awesome. They offered to send medical personnel to meet the airplane. They offered any runway. To be clear, I did not declare an emergency, and they did not force other aircraft to deviate, it just worked out with the timing as they had several Southwest Airline jets inbound for 5R, where the Southwest terminal is located. FYI, I did the downwind and base legs for 5L, and while on base, I was cleared for 5R. Extending the base aimed me at the beginning of 5R, which you can see if you look at the RDU airport diagram. This lead to an almost non-existent final leg.

Good advice. I am still learning, but I will follow Whiteman Tower's advice about talking to ATC until I learn something better. I would like to add to your comment about Palm Springs. On the Los Angeles sectional, there is a frequency pop-up near Banning Pass telling you to contact SoCal Approach on 134.0. The frequency can be congested, but dodging airspace and airplanes is much more difficult than following ATC vectors. On my last trip coming from the east, the first freeway vector I received was from Burbank Tower, telling me to fly to and stay north of the 5 freeway. The 5 freeway is clearly marked in the vicinity of Burbank on the Los Angeles TAC. On the other hand, the 118, 101, and 405 freeways are not clearly marked in the vicinity of VNY-WHP-BUR. That is why I have handcrafted my own custom paper map to keep on my kneeboard while in the airspace. It is very simple, showing the freeways in relation to the 3 airports. It is one of the images shown in the video.

@@terrywoodfield4081 Yes, SoCal can be congested. That is why you want to be very concise in your phraseology. This is why I would go with a CFI if not familiar with flying in one of the most congested areas of the country. Usually, how I do it is: SoCal Approach, Mooney 5554Q is 5 miles West of Banning airport, level one-zero-thousand, request flight following to Santa Monica. Socal: Mooney 5554Q squawk 1234 Socal: Mooney 5554Q radar contact. Altimeter, 29.92 That easy! Now you are free to fly anywhere you want except Class B and any restrictions given. Many people are scared of ATC but with some practice a person will feel naked without it. And they can even save you from a violation. I once was flying a route that I have flown many, many, times. So much so that I had forgot that there was a little bit of Class B by Big Bear. I usually start descending after clearing the mountains but for some reason I stayed high this one night. Socal asked me if I wanted a clearance into the Class B. I said no and thanked him because I had forgot about that little area of class B. He saved me from a violation!

I recorded radio communications, at least until my dashboard GoPro overheated. As you suggested, Whiteman Tower said, "Make a right downwind departure inside the 5 freeway." Whiteman Tower handed me off to Van Nuys Tower while turning from crosswind to downwind. I had requested the 405 corridor on initial call, and Van Nuys Tower responded, "Remain east of the freeway, 1,800, southbound transition approved." This exchange all happened while I was still on downwind at Whiteman. That "east of the freeway" instruction might have caused my confusion, as Van Nuys never used "405" until later. I reviewed the audio shortly after the flight, and focused on my "guilt." Your comment motivated me to make a more thorough review. I now feel a little vindicated, although part of radio communication is anticipating the next call, and I should have anticipated, "Remain east of the 405 freeway," and should have been more focused on what the likely flight path would look like. At the very least, I should have sought clarification of which freeway to stay east of. If this had been my first trip out of Whiteman, I would have flown exactly as I did and not felt like I made a mistake, because when Van Nuys said "east of the freeway," I was just turning to exit downwind to the west, and was staring right at "the freeway," which was the 5 freeway. The Whiteman Tower controller's advice to "talk to SoCal approach" is legit. I think the LAX VFR SFR allows transition when ATC is too busy for small airplanes. I told the Whiteman Tower controller that I had an experience where a Burbank controller was annoyed that I just didn't drop below class C and contact Van Nuys directly when approaching from the south. Whiteman tower said that I may have misunderstood the Burbank controller, because ATC benefits from "controlling" as many aircraft in the airspace as can be safely handled with equipment and staffing. I plan to bring this up at the next AOPA/Wings event that features ATC. I asked the CFI who conducted my flight review about this, and he said that the advice may vary by region, and that for the most part he felt like Houston controller's want to talk to you.

@@terrywoodfield4081 Maybe ask for clarification on what freeway to remain clear of. Never Assume.

@RetreadPhoto The only pilot deviation was turning south when I was supposed to turn west while flying the right downwind for runway 12 at WHP. As far as I know, I did everything else correctly. For example, I communicated my destination (Avalon AVX) and route (405 corridor and LAX SFR). Because I communicated "405 corridor", I should have expected to stay east of the 405, not the 5, even though the controller said, "Remain east of the freeway," without a number designation. The correct thing for me would have been to reply, "Verify east of the 5 [emphasis on the number 5] freeway," if I thought that is what he meant and I recognized the freeway. Otherwise I should have said, "Verify I am over the 405 freeway," if I thought he was referring to the 405 freeway.

@RetreadPhoto I used Foreflight and GNS 430 moving map. Van Nuys instructed me to turn west into the class C while I was in the WHP ATA. The controller could have had me turn northwest and avoid the class C completely. It was very clear to me that the pilot deviation only covered a portion of the flight wholly inside the WHP ATA. The route of flight through class C is shown in the video. It is very unlikely that I conflicted with Burbank traffic, given altitude and distance from the BUR runway 08-26 flight path. I could have left out the additional conversation about where I was encouraged to talk to ATC rather than using the LAX SFR no-ATC procedure. This was unrelated to the deviation. The controller offered the advice based on the flow of the conversation, not related to the deviation. I thought it was interesting. I did not realize it would be interpreted as part of the deviation.

I appreciate your comments. I'll be flying back next month, this time with custom maps highlighting all of the major freeways.

⁠Born and raised in LA and learned to fly at WHP and I still get the freeways confused sometimes 😅

I am obsessed with cameras. I started by buying a refurbished Garmin Virb in 2015, the torpedo camera. My first wing camera was a cheap ($50) GoPro clone (DBPower) purchased in 2018. I went cheap because I wasn't comfortable with wing mounts. I found a cheap ($150?) refurbished GoPro Hero 5 in 2019. My first new GoPro was a discounted GoPro Hero 8 purchased at Costco after the GoPro Hero 9 came out. My first and only new non-discounted GoPro was a GoPro Hero 11. I bought a discounted Insta360 X3 at Costco before the L.A. trip. I am thinking of doing a flying with cameras KZbin video, although many excellent ones already exist. The Insta360 X3 is incredible, but the GoPro 11 and 12 produce superior image quality. The Garmin Virb Ultra was superior to the GoPro Hero 6 (better image, better battery life, never overheats, better video editor), but failed in the marketplace. When my last Garmin Virb Ultra battery fails, it becomes a paper weight. I still use it with a propeller filter as my point over the nose camera. I have a Hudson River Exclusion trip planned for June, my third, and I plan to use my Golden Gate Bridge camera configuration. --- Yes, Marble Canyon is great. I picked Page, AZ, this trip because I did Marble Canyon last trip. Thanks for the comment.

@@terrywoodfield4081 I get it. I've done some recording in the past, then started in aviation training, but finally actually did video production after that. I love recording my flying even when I don't post it- I post about 1.5% of my flying hours. I do miss good competition to the gopro. I sold my Hero12 and got another 11 because I like having the GPS data- it makes it easier on me if the filenames are timestamped and gives me multiple sources for overlay data. But the overheating and battery life is a disappointment.

@@flysport_tedder I like the overlay data exported to Google Earth, but haven't figured out the best way to incorporate it in a KZbin video. My best efforts look amateurish, so I'll keep trying. I had over 20 hours of video for my L.A. trip, so I guess I post 2% to 5%.

@@terrywoodfield4081 I use Telemetry Overlay. Sometimes I download the data from my MFD so I can get things like TAS, but usually gopro is enough.

Looks like we got there from opposite directions. I watched your excellent SF Bay Tour video and many other bay area KZbin videos to prepare for my San Francisco flight. I also checked FAA regs to try to be legal, because what was legal in a video 5 years ago might not be legal today. I commented on this in my L.A. Part 3 video. Thanks for watching!

@@terrywoodfield4081 I watch in order so I'm looking forward to your "flight" series.

It was a VFR flight. There was a marine layer (thin layer of clouds at about 1,000 AGL) beginning at the Rose Bowl and extending to the east. Rather than descend to stay below the Burbank Class C airspace, I climbed to 5,500 feet to stay above. Also, air traffic is pretty heavy in SoCal, so some deviations were simply to stay clear of other aircraft. Some deviations were just spur of the moment related to sightseeing. I did not file an official flight plan because: (1) short flight, (2) heavily populated, and (3) I was often communicating with air traffic control. So there was no expectation of following a flight plan. I filed a VFR flight plan for all legs from Houston to Los Angeles and stayed very close to those flight plans. For official filed flight plans, such changes would not be expected nor normal. For sightseeing trips using an informal flight plan, deviations are expected and normal, no matter what geographic location. On the other hand, flying from Whiteman Airport to Zamperini Field would see few deviations because of the Special VFR corridor over LAX and the highly restricted airspace. I hope this answers your question.

@@terrywoodfield4081 yes thank you very much!

Decades ago during a trip to San Francisco for a conference, I reserved a rental aircraft with a CFI at Hayward to fly over the Golden Gate Bridge. The ceilings were too low on the day of the flight, so I had to cancel. I have made many trips since then to the Bay Area, but never tried again. Now that I have my own airplane, I flew to Los Angeles to stay for a week and could choose a good VFR day to try again. My first plan fell apart because of high winds forecast for SFO, so I flew to Yosemite! Weather for this flight was almost perfect.

@@terrywoodfield4081 Yosemite had to be beautiful. Yes, Bay Area especially SFO and north is subject to high winds and low stratus layer known as the marine layer.

@@roadboat9216 Yes, I lived in SoCal for 22 years, so I know all about the marine layer.

That’s what I am hoping. The annual inspection is scheduled for next Monday, so I’ll have it looked at then.

East of St. George, Utah, approaching Zion National Park.

You'll learn that a video can't capture it, so you will not regret doing it in person. We took a driving trip through Zion and Bryce over several days about 20 years ago, spending several weeks in Utah and Colorado. I recommend driving as well, but flying definitely is the way to go.