What does the Port of Los Angeles look like from above? — featuring Micah Muzio

0:00 So, this is a very special episode of Mike Flies. This is my last episode flying out of Long Beach Airport. I've been based here for more than a decade now and uh my family moved and so I'm going to be going to a new airport. But before I do that, I wanted to do one last flight out of here

0:15 through the ports of uh Los Angeles. I want to see the new Gerald Desmond Bridge and we're going to fly along Palos Verdes and see all sorts of beautiful stuff. One last time along the coast. All right, uh we'll get this thing flying and we'll go check it out. One more quick thing while I continue to warm up

0:34 the engine. I'm wearing Flying Eyes sunglasses and I'd like to thank them for sponsoring Mike Flies. These are the new Kestrels. They're the new aviator design. They are incredibly lightweight and very comfortable. You can still do this kind of stuff with the uh temples cuz they're made out of this cool

0:48 material called Grilamid and look, you can pop them on and off with headsets really easily. And the super thin temples don't break the seal of these headsets so uh I can still hear everything I need to hear while flying. They're awesome when you're in your helicopter or you're just driving around

1:02 in a car and stuff. Countersteer? Sweet. If you'd like to save 10% on Flying Eyes sunglasses, click the link in the description below, use my promo code, buy some glasses, look generally like this, though probably better cuz it'll be your face instead of mine. All right, now let's fly.

1:39 I've seen the Gerald Desmond Bridge, replacement bridge rather, um in under construction for like years now and it was replacing a bridge that was originally built in the 1960s. Um what it does that's so important is that it allows traffic to go back and forth through to ports. So, you got trucks

1:57 going over the thing all day long and uh it's like a really important uh Pardon me. Yeah, here. Let me let me demonstrate. Okay. You look down here. This is the 710 Freeway and beneath this you see all those trucks. All those trucks come from the Port of Los Angeles. All this commerce comes through this port. So,

2:21 it's a really important hub for industry and you know, exchange of goods coming into the United States. All those trucks have to make their way over that bridge. So, it's a really important conduit. There's downtown Long Beach. See the ships out there in the harbor? Not going to lie, I'm going to kind of

2:45 miss this. All right. I'm going to go on the harbor frequency.

3:13 I think I'll go right over the top of the bridge, I think. Feels like a good idea, right? Let's do that. Harbor traffic helicopter 285 operating over the Gerald Desmond Bridge 800. So, the cool things about this bridge are that it is taller than the previous one. So, it offers a little more

3:30 clearance for ships underneath. These uh towers, I guess they're about 500 ft tall and then the bridge itself is about 200 ft over the water. I'll just come up even a little bit more. I'm right now about 800. We're going to climb up to about 900 ft.

4:02 And just make sure we have a totally adequate look at the bridge. I'm going to come around and we'll try to get a better We're going to make a quick orbit and then we'll come in behind you there. Really beautiful day in the harbor here. Look at all those boats just lined up. And by the way, once you get above the

4:27 the haze layer, which is I don't know, maybe like 1,000 ft or something, you can actually see quite a bit. You can see the mountains over there where I live now with my family. All right, let's come around and check out this bridge. And it's cool because you can see the old bridge right in front of the new

4:46 bridge. There you go. By the way, fun fact about this bridge, my understanding is according to what I read, it cost 1.5 seven souls one mile north of the 91 605

5:12 and that is the westbound transition on the 105. At the moment we don't see anything that's going to be need to be moved and whenever you're ready to pull pitch we'll start approaching there where you're at. Okay, sounds good. We're going to go ahead and come in behind you guys. Let you guys

5:32 So, the fun fact I was going to share is that that bridge cost 1.5 billion dollars to build. That's what I read. Pretty nice bridge though. It better be for 1.5 billion. Also, the bridge under here that Uh, I think they still use for for train service. It's called the Henry Ford Bridge and I used that as

5:52 an approach during my commercial rating for my helicopter license. I had to do an approach to the top of that bridge there. Ah, the memories. And then of course we got a lot of train action. So the boats bring in all these trailers and then the trailers are removed by the these cranes which if

6:14 you've never seen a cranes operate up close in person, it's amazing how big and fast they operate and then how long they have to do it. It just shows you the sheer size of the boats that are out here. Yeah, I guess I'll just come over this way a little bit. You can see some of that action.

6:35 So all these containers I have no idea what all they carry but you can see the cranes the in front of me here pulling or putting uh putting those back on. Are they putting them back on? They're putting them back on. I guess we're shipping some stuff out. Normally things just sort of come

6:51 into Los Angeles. Not very much stuff goes away. And then of course we've got the Vincent Thomas Bridge. This is the green one over here expertly rendered in Grand Theft Auto. If you haven't seen my Grand Theft Auto video, it's it's worth it but I compare all the things in real Los Angeles

7:13 versus Los Santos and this is one of those things. I got a little bit of marine layer rolling in here along the coastline. So I'll come to the right here a little

7:38 bit we can take a look at San Pedro. Harbor traffic helicopter 285 operating over San Pedro 700. Nice looking town. I for a while there considered living in San Pedro. The commute would have been a little bit too far for my purposes, but I've always had an affinity for for the

8:04 community. Not in small part because my bass playing icon, the guy that I love most as a bass player, a guy named Mike Watt from the Minutemen and also as an independent artist is from San Pedro. In fact, we got to do a video. If you want to do a deep dive way back in the day at Kelley Blue Book I did a video

8:24 with Mike Watt where I wanted to check out his van. You know, that the one that he toured in. And we did a video with him over here in San Pedro. It's pretty cool. We come over here to to Point Fermin. And yeah, we got that marine layer coming in. We'll be able to still be able to see plenty of stuff here along

8:40 the coastline. Harbor traffic helicopter 285 Point Fermin 700 going to be west along the shoreline. Uh, that is a majestic day to look out to. And if you look out on the nose you can see the silhouettes of Catalina Island. This is where you can insert your wine mixer jokes.

9:07 It's funny, everywhere I go it's like all these memories. On this little peninsula that sticks out here I shot a video with a Mini Cooper once. 47 do you guys have a specific spot for us to drop? Coming right up. We'll check out Point Fermin and also the Korean Friendship Bell. Cool, complete orbit.

9:28 Ooh, what a cool moody day to be here flying along the coast. It's not on the side trail. So basically just to your at now. There's the uh Friendship Bell coming up under the belly. Pro tip, if you're in the greater San Pedro area, uh that's a great place to fly a kite or eat a sandwich while looking at the

9:49 ocean. Do you like eating sandwiches while looking at the ocean? Tell us in the comments. 2540 Papa over Queen's Gate at 1,400. Yeah, so a very cloudy day to fly along here. Got just the the clouds sort of creeping in. We'll see what we can see. Normally, this would be my go-to flight for people

10:11 who haven't flown in a helicopter yet because it's very, very quick from Long Beach and you get a really nice um You can do some low-level flight without bothering anybody. Uh not today. Probably best not to be in that. Harbor traffic helicopter 35, baseball diamond West Long Shoreline 90.

10:41 All right, so off the nose here, you'll see this big golf course. That's uh the Trump golf course. And one of the cool things about that is that there is a uh You can just Coming out of the fifth uh we're at your six and we're going to make that drop right there in that drain. It's to your

10:53 9:00 now. Somebody's doing work on the same channel. Uh so yeah, you you can go to the golf course to golf, but you can also follow these trails that are on the belly cam here and go all the way down to the beach. So you just park up here and then you can walk right through. So uh if you're fancy and you like golf,

11:07 you can go to the golf course and if you're uh cheap and unfancy like me, you can go down and hang out on the ocean. It's a really, really lovely place. Now, why is it that I'm not getting money from the California Tourism Bureau? It doesn't make any sense. Where's my money? Yes, I'm kidding.

11:27 Oh, and this is going to be interesting cuz uh somebody asked me to fly over the Wayfarer Chapel and uh I'm not sure if it's going to be visible or if it's going to be covered with this marine layer. Let's find out. In the meantime, we can look over here at you know, Rancho Palos Verdes.

11:49 Kind of a fancy nice place to live. Beautiful view of the ocean. I always judge visibility by how easily I can see Catalina. If you can see the silhouette, that's pretty good, you know. But if you can see texture and real detail, then that's a sign that it's a really good flying day. Very

12:09 clear. All right, let's see if I can spot that Wayfarer Chapel. All right. I mean, I don't know if I've never been there, but I think I think I might see it. That it? See something that looks like Well, let's just guess. I think this might be it, and if it's not, the text on screen will correct my mistake.

12:44 Oh, and I want to be able to see the lighthouse. So over here this this kind of southwestern most tip of of the coastline is called Point Vicente, and there's a lighthouse there. And at the lighthouse, I mean, it's like it's just a wonderful place to you know, come see the sunset. People gather for the

13:01 sunset. And I don't believe you can see it now. Somewhere in the fog is the Point Vicente lighthouse. Use your imagination. All right. I mean, I wouldn't say this is the best day to do a coastal flight along Palos Verdes, but

13:27 you know, the last time I'm flying out of Long Beach though, had to do it. All right, well, I'm going to be out of Long Beach way. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you for supporting the channel. I'll miss Long Beach, but there will be new helicopter adventures in store. So, I'll

13:41 go I'll see you guys next time, okay? You take care. Cheers.