At the airport, mike tells me we are going be practicing diversions. He asked for my TAC chart, and started to look over it. He said he was going to give me a harder course than he gives his other students, mainly because he is confident I can do it, and he wanted to see how I did under pressure. He didn’t disclose any information to me about the flight, where we were going, planned to go, altitudes, nothing. He simply said. We are flying towards bracket (KPOC). I was a little nervous, but I knew what to do, and what to look for, and thank god I had the Garmin G1000 in front of me for this. It made it 100% easier than I expected. Although it was still a little difficult to perform what mike wanted, while staying safe and legal, in the small amount of time I had.
We get airborne, and once outside Burbank, we get put on flight following. Just then mike says, “Ohh dude. I don’t feel so well, so land at the next closest airport”. I look on my TAC just to ensure it was El Monte (KEMT) and yes it was. I have landed here many times before. This should be easy. I use the G1000 to pull up nearest airports. Cursor on KEMT hit enter, and then BAM! Frequencies are displayed for us. Along with a lot of other airport information that is needed. While pulling up the info, I contact SoCal and request to cancel flight following. They approve and tell me to squawk 1200. I perform this, then i tune in El Monte tower, and they are non-stop on the radio. So we have to stay just out of their airspace. For about 5 minutes, I am flying right on the edge of their airspace. Finally I get a radio call in. “El Monte tower, Skyhawk 88 niner lima bravo, 5 to the north, inbound for landing, negative weather”. The controller comes back and gives me all of the weather. SWEET! I was just expecting an altimeter setting and the wind. Then they tell us to turn final, and we are cleared to land. We turn right towards the runway and begin our descent down to the runway.
Half way to the runway, the controller comes on and tells us to turn right base. I chime in and say “niner lima bravo is on final”. She then comes back and corrects the announcement for an aircraft ending in 9LT instead of 9LB. We land and taxi back to the active once we were on the ground. Awesome landing! A few moments later while taxing, mike tells me where we are going. So I stop at the hold short bars, and glance back. No once behind us, and someone turning final 5 miles out. We have a moment for me to look at the charts and see how we are going to get to Santa Ana (KSNA). We need to climb to 3500 and maintain to keep out of Fullerton (KFUL), and stay under the class bravo above us. And we need to be this high, as the route brings up over Disneyland, and the TFR is 2000’ AGL. We would be well over this.
We get cleared to takeoff and we do. We begin our climb to get over the hill that is just south of KEMT. Once we reach our cruising altitude, mike breaks the silence “Dude, my stomach again. Need to stop at closet airport NOW!” Ok. Use the G1000 to find the nearest airport and it is Fullerton. I check my chart just to verify and sure enough. I start an immediate descent. I get the frequencies for Fullerton, and contact them just 2 or 3 miles before entering their airspace. They clear us to land and give us altimeter setting along with wind, due to my “Negative Weather” comment. Good for when you need to get down fast and don’t have time to get ATIS, AWOS, ASOS at controlled airports. We were high when we were cleared to land runway 24, so I had to practically cut the power, and slip it the entire pattern to loose altitude. We were at 2500, pattern at Fullerton is 1100, and had to lose 1000+ feet in the pattern just to be at pattern altitude. Then need to lose another 1000’ to land on the runway. We extended downwind just a bit to help, and we touched right at the numbers on touchdown. Sweet! Landing #2 perfect. 
Mike then says we need to go to an uncontrolled airport, and tells me to go west. I look at the airspace, and its altitudes, and it seems at 4500 as long as we stay out of the class bravo from 5000 up, we could get over Los Alamitos and Long beach airspace with no problem. So that’s what we do. As I look at the chart I see only once uncontrolled airport over to the west and that’s Compton (KCPM). So I know where we are going from here. Once almost through long beach, mike asks me if I know what airport I’m going to. I said yes. He says, well, that’s why I mentioned it’s uncontrolled; to see if you could put 2 and 2 together. Using any and all information, to draw the bigger picture always helps. As we get almost out of long beach’s airspace I start my descent, contact the CTAF and announce my intentions. 
We taxi back and hold at the hold short lines. Check behind us and no one there. Mike then says he wants to go check out the blimp a bit more. So we take back off, and turn towards the blimp, we circle once or twice, and mike says “Dude, I’m not feeling so hot. Land to the south west at the nearest airport“. I use the G1000 and see Torrance (KTOA) airport, and verify on my TAC chart. Ok. Good. Contact Torrance and get cleared to land on runway 29R. We extend our downwind to lose some altitude, and then come in on a perfect glideslope. Touch right at the 1000’ markers, and turn off at the first taxiway. Landing #4 perfect. We had a lot of runway to go to reach a taxiway. Once off the runway, we had to taxi back to the active. This is a feat at this bigger airport. They had taxiways everywhere. But I managed to get through it no problem. While taxiing we saw a piper with a dog in the copilot’s chair. I guess in his case dog is his copilot. 
There were some people behind us so we could not sit at hold short bars and look at the charts, so we pulled into the run-up, as mike told me he wanted to go home. He wanted to go home on the Special Flight Rules Area over LAX. Sure I though. I have done this a bunch of times already. So we planned for a right downwind, while climbing, then extend the downwind, and once at 4500’ or just about, turn towards the North West and pick up the 312 degree inbound heading to the SMO VOR. Transmit to corridor traffic on 128.55 and squawk 1201, and put on all lights. Once out of the corridor we will descend to stay below the Burbank airspace at 3000’. Get ATIS from KVNY and contact tower on 119.3. They hand me off to 120.2 for the east side of the airport. We get cleared to land #3 after a Cherokee. We see him turn base and then final. We are cleared to land with a jet landing on the opposite runway. Soon the jet and I are neck and neck and he is beating me to the runway. I do not want to get his wake anywhere near the airplane, so I elect to go around. This was a super quick go around, as the controller advised me to climb to PA while executing turn to the left to intercept the downwind leg. Then do a descending turn onto base, and continue my approach. Within 1 minute we were back on the base. I have never got this before but it was cool. Mike said he has never seen that either. We come in on glideslope and come in for the smoothest landing that day. Mike told me he was amazed at how far I have come within a few months. (I know exactly what he is talking about. It’s because I’m confident in the airplane now. It’s an extension of me when I am flying.) That and I have a good instructor. THANKS MIKE!!!
Our day came to an end after tying down the plane, and going for our de briefing. Mike said he was extremely impressed with the entire flight. I had situational awareness, knew how to get around, in the muck of the airspace in LA. Up over and under airspace, and the entire time I knew where the plane was, was in front of the plane, and had the tools and resources that I needed to get exactly what was thrown at me done. Mike was happy with that, and said this upcoming weekend I should be able to do my long cross country solo to KSMX and KPRB.
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