Flying over the bay, experiencing San Francisco downtown and the glamorous Golden Gate Bridge from the air, is truly a once in a life time experience. It is so much so, that many pilots, us included, do this on a weekly basis. To fully appreciate the San Francisco bay for what it is, you have to experience it for youself. Don't have a pilot license? No worries, simply call our number below and we will arrange an FAA Certified Flight Instructor for all of your bay tour needs. Already have a license, but intimidated by the huge SFO Class B airspace hovering your head? Since this is your first bay tour, and it is a little complicated, let me just let you know what one of my typical bay tour is like (what's worked for me without the ATC getting unhappy with me =P): Ask PAO ground 125.0 for a Left dumbarton departure, to a bay tour. Sometimes the ground gives me a squawk code for the bay tour, sometimes not (then they would tell me to get it in the air from San Carlos Tower 119.0). After departure with PAO tower at 118.6, I fly towards Stanford and circle over it while asking San Carlos tower for the bay tour squawk code (if not already received). San Carlos tower told me this pretty much everytime: "transition approved above 1200 feet, keep bay shore free way (highway 101) to the right, sqawk [squawk code if not already given]". I usually transition between 1500 to 2000 feet through their class D. San Carlos will then pass you to SFO tower 120.5 when you are near their class B airspace. Keep in mind that once you are abeam San Mateo bridge, you are inside class B airspace where it extends to the surface. So when they are really busy on the radio sometimes I had to circle a few minutes just before I am abeam San Mateo bridge to wait for a Class B clearance. Once you are approved, there is the highway 101 transition, and the 280 transition. Simply follow 101 (but keep it just to your right) all the way to over SF downtown, or follow 280 to SF. Once you pass the small mountain between SFO and SF itself, usually the tower will tell you to resume own navigation and remain clear of Class B airspace, and switch to Norcal approach. Then you can freely fly over the downtown, golden gate bridge, and treasure island at that point (they usually want you to stay west of the bay bridge at all times). I usually just tell Norcal where I am going ahead of time, be it treasure island, or golden gate bridge. Because there are lots of small plane traffic there also on bay tours, this way they can help me better with other traffic's altitude and direction and I can climb or descent to avoid them. Then after that I usually fly to Angel Island then fly directly east, that will take you over UC Berkeley. Then I tell Norcal approach that I want to go back to PAO. They will have this weird "runway 29 numbers" procedure for you to cross over the bay (the first time I was a bit confused so I'd tell you how it goes now). So fly south from UC Berkeley and follow 880. Norcal app will tell you to keep following 880, fly over the Coliseum (the big red Oracle stadium right on 880) at 2500 or 2000, and then run right and fly right over OAK's runway 29 numbers. Basically it's the furthest west runway at OAK, and they want you to fly right over the southwest most corner of it to avoid any arrival and departure traffic. When you are nearing the Coliseum, Norcal will pass you to OAK tower at 118.3, then to south OAK tower at 127.2 After you cross the runway 29 numbers they will tell you to left turn and fly directly to the mid-span of San Mateo bridge at or below 1500 or 1400 and fly straight back to Palo Alto. Mid-San Mateo bridge is not the middle point of the whole bridge, it's the middle point of the FLAT part of San Mateo bridge only, because there is also a raised portion of the bridge further down to the other side of the bay. I got corrected by ATC once when I went too far west near the center of the bay waters, they told me that's too close to the final approach path of the jets coming into SFO. So you only want to be about 1/3 of the way into the bay waters. Then you can fly home to PAO directly from there. Cool Daniel, I missed out another bay tour resource: http://www.sonicspike.net/flying/baytour/