After reading about the experiences you SoCal pilots have and deal with, it makes me think that when you come out to the midwest, dealing with our airspace is a nice, lazy, total yawn of a flight.
Yes. I suppose it would be like a VERY long pause in the middle of a rock and roll song. Disturbing and generally unwanted, but you need to press on to get back to the music, so you drum your fingers and wait for better times ahead.
For OP -- after popping out of SFRA at 4500, grab SoCal on 134.9, stay at 4500, and just fly direct to WHP. Understand that you need them to answer with your callsign before the sepulveda pass (charted), or you'll bust BUR C without any real good options other than to circle over SMO. (you have class B above at 5000) If I'm in a fast ship and it's a saturated frequency, I'll actually pull power back to make "room" for the comms to occur.
SoCal is great in the valley area, they'll push you around where you need to go. If your first callup is "Bugsmash 12345, over santa monica 4500, flight following whiteman, unfamiliar", they'll put on the kid gloves and handle you a bit more gently.
I am local and always do SFRA for my LAX transitions. It's painless, no anxiety about handoffs, and fewer things to think about. The wall of Class C is the only concern. If you're under 140kts (like the SFRA says you should be), there is a good 3 minutes or so to get on freq, get an answer, and thus, be granted class C transit. It's those days when I tune 134.9 and the controller is in full auctioneer mode that I get anxious about getting my $0.02 in, and I'll either slow the ship down or turn west towards topanga and try to sneak in from the side.
Once you've done it, it's cake.
$0.02
- Mike
