KSAN Taxiway Delta Transition is no longer available
According to this reddit post and this video, the taxiway delta transition is no longer available as early as 2024. This tour was flown back in 2023.
Video of the Tour
What better way to start this tour with a video! Here’s the tour flown in a Cessna 182 back in 2023.
Breaking it Down
🔼 Track of San Diego Bay Tour as I flew it
The route we were flying took us near Mount Soledad, Crystal Pier, OB Pier (basically the entire shoreline and beaches down) and circle back in the canal next to the city, 180 just past the Coronado Bridge and fly over San Diego International Airport before turning and landing at our destination that day at Montgomery.
I was coming in all the way from San Carlos, flying past LA and arriving into San Diego area from the north. I started to descend from 10000ft as the Bravo floor lowers to stay outside of the Bravo, don’t go into the VFR corridor but rather stay below the bravo as we’ll by flying through the departure end of KSAN soon and we need to be flying very low.
San Diego (KSAN)'s Class Bravo Airspace Carve Out
As seen on the chart, KSAN’s Class B airpsace has some carve out, look near the Mormon Temple, the Bravo airspace goes from 1800ft to 3200ft and again 6800ft to 10000ft. What is in between is the friendly neighborhood Class E.
These carve outs, sometimes referred to as “VFR corridors”, gives easy VFR transition routes from other airports in the area without talking to ATC / obtaining Bravo clearance. (However, please do still talk to ATCs, always get flight following!)
The Piers
I had to dodge some cloud layers on my descend (thus the curved turn near Mormon temple) but otherwise usually you get to direct Mission Bay VOR (MZB) and as you get closer, ATC will transition you to follow the shortline and report Crystal Pier and OB Pier (not depicted on the chart but it’s the long pier after the peninsula). We were asked to continue southbound from OB Pier at 500ft which is … nerve-wrecking! I have never flown so low before and you need to keep your eyes out for banner-towing aircrafts. We had two or three that day and they were all flying very low as well.
Transition through North Island NAS airspace
Once you get close to the southern tip, you will be transferred to North Island NAS tower. Tell them your plan is to fly the canal inbound, 180 at Coronado and request Taxiway Delta transition at KSAN. I was flying at ~800ft during this segment.
SAN Taxiway D Transition
Once going past the Cornado bridge, execute the 180 and the tower should give you a altitude to climb to for the transition, I was given 2000 ft to climb to so I did a 360 to climb up and then head straight towards the taxiway.
Turnout to Montgomery
You will leave the Bravo airspace right before abeam Crystal Pier. My destination that day was to land at Montgomery (KMYF) so things gets a bit busy. I get the ATIS and skewed towards left so I had time to establish contact with the tower before entering the Class D airspace. Once established, the tower called for a left downtown entry for 28L and we made an uneventful landing there!
Conclusion
It was quiet a lot of steps to do in quiet a short amount of time and multiple frequencies to hop onto (SoCal → SAN Tower → NZY Tower → SAN Tower → MYF ATIS and Tower) and multiple visual checkpoints that could be quiet overwhelming for someone who’s flying it the first time. However, it is totally doable with some preparation. Learning how to fly out of the SF Bay Area got me used to talking to ATC and always be on flight following and early that day, transitioning through the LA area boosted my confidence a bit as well. Hopefully this article (while a little bit outdated) can help you planning to do San Diego Bay Tour as well!