Tried to go to CA66 (Monterey Bay Academy) with my friend Taygan. We had what was reported as 10 statute miles visibility with lots of smoke. I took off and climbed on a Southbound downwind, and then realized I was drifting off to the right towards KSJC airspace. I turned away and flew some more, and found myself again drifting off to the right. Basically I was used to flying by a "sight picture" and the lack of visibility on the horizon was throwing me off. We made it to 5,500' MSL and the sky started getting more blue; if we had pushed to 7,500' MSL we would probably have been clear of the smoke, but with very poor ground visibility. I didn't want to fly low over the urban areas, which is why I punched it and climbed on my way outbound. All things considered, lesson learned in flying through hazy visibility, but I figured we'd had enough excitement for one day and we turned around and came home.
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