October 16, 2021
The rotorcraft club I belong to — the Lone Star Rotorcraft Club (LSRC) — was having their annual fly-in on Saturday, so Amy and I decided to head down there and say hello. At the same time, following the idea I had for the Critters Lodge Fly-in, we opted to stay for an hour or so, then fly out to another location for lunch, then fly home. This resulted in a grand flight around Houston. And although these areas are well-known to me, I hadn’t done them in quite some time so I was definitely looking forward to it. And the day wasn’t without a few bits of drama, so read on!
From XS09 to T00
The flight from our home airport [XS09] to Chambers County [T00] was uneventful. Both of us remarked that having not flown that route in a while, our respective memories of landmarks and landscape had faded enough to make it more interesting than past trips. Yes, I took pictures of some of the same old things but, for some reason, they seemed a bit different (but, no, none of them were). Mostly, though, we were happy to be flying over something other than just trees, trees and more trees.
![Chambers County airport [T00]](https://i0.wp.com/www.texas-flyer.com/newblog/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/4N1A3981.jpg?w=656&h=449&ssl=1 "4N1A3981")
The weather
A cold front had gone through the SE Texas area the day before, so conditions were cool (to us; low-70F’s/21C’s). The sky — as you can see in the photos — was a bright blue and mostly clear of clouds. But it was windy. Gyro’s like mine handle wind quite well, but you still must respect it. The wind was from the north and not too strong at the home airport, but got up to 25 mph/40 kph near the coast. And although strong, it was significantly turbulent. Yet on several occasions when we felt the wind, I said to Amy, “You should be glad we’re not in a fixed-wing light aircraft right now!”
When we first left the home airport, I could see a small crowd of aircraft around Conroe airport on my ADS-B/navigation display. So at that moment, I thought that being a Saturday and pretty good weather, there’d be a lot of traffic in the skies. Yet I was wrong. Except for Conroe airport, we almost had the sky to ourselves… the entire day was spookily absent most light aircraft.
Time in the air for this segment: 1 hour, 7 minutes
Distance traveled: 68.3 nm / 78.6 sm / 126.5 km
The fly-in
Upon arriving in the area of the LSRC fly-in airport, I considered which runway to pick. The hard-surface runway is 12/30, so 30 (meaning, the runway points to 300 degrees) would have been best. But with a north wind, that would still be a cross-wind at 60-degrees. The turf runway is 17/35, so 35 would be an even better choice, with only a 10-degree crosswind. My Cavalon is limited to a 22 knot (25 mph) crosswind component. Even with 25 mph winds, landing on 30 would not exceed that, but 35 was still a better choice. So I announced that I was entering right-downwind for 35, cut across mid-field, did the downwind, base and final — and flew a bit down the runway before landing in order to reduce my taxiing. The turf runway is a bit bumpy.
It was a good landing and soon enough I was being guided to my parking spot in the grass in front of the LSRC hangars.
It was great to be back at the club hangars for a visit… my Cavalon was hangared here for over a year, and it was good to see all the members, too! While chatting with someone, up walked a fellow I hadn’t met. Unless you’re an active gyro pilot and subscribe to certain gyro-related Facebook groups, you wouldn’t know who Vance Breese is, but I certainly do! I was introduced and I was very happy to be standing there talking to him.
Vance lives and flies out of southern California (KSMX, Santa Maria, Ca, about 140 miles NW of Los Angeles, near the coast). What he was doing in Anahuac, Texas, I didn’t know and I forgot to ask! We were busy talking about gyro-things, and I picked his brain a bit on a type of flying unknown to me: mountain flying. (I’m planning on a trip to Montana next year…. maybe.) So we had a great conversation and I was thrilled to have met him. He even complimented me on my landing, which was high praise indeed.
Probably 10 minutes later, one of the gyro pilots decided to fly a bit and taxied their gyro to runway 12. In the first 50 feet of their takeoff run, the rotor struck the tail and the prop, and pieces went flying. The gyro was still able to taxi back, so while it was coming back, Amy and I ran out to the runway to collect those pieces. We were joined by 3 or 4 other pilots. (Runways need to be clear of any objects lest they cause issues with other aircraft.)
Someone got a video of the entire takeoff, although I only saw it (on a tiny screen of a smartphone) at a distance. I saw only the last moment of the event with my own eyes. It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback; I certainly don’t know the actual cause of the unfortunate event. Suffice it to say, gyros are easy in most aspects of their use, but takeoff’s and landing’s can be difficult… particularly takeoff’s. Even for experienced pilots. There is a high task load, a lot of parameters to consider, and several complex steps that each have to be done just right for a successful takeoff. No one is immune to small mistakes that can end up having rather expensive consequences. And having an audience (such as during a fly-in) only adds to the anxiety, distraction and load tasking. I certainly hope this gyro is back in the air soon!
A couple more shots from the fly-in:
We continued seeing old friends, meeting new ones, and chatting but eventually we got a bit hungry and knew it would be about a 1-hour flight to our lunch spot, Texas Gulf Coast Regional Airport [KLBX]. We said our so-long’s and mounted up. The wind hadn’t changed much, so we did the long taxi over the bumpy turf runway in order to take off on runway 35. It was the right decision and the take-off was without any issues.
The flight to KLBX
When I hangared out of Anahuac, making the lunch run to KLBX was pretty standard, so I knew the way. As in the first leg, so much was familiar but so much was also new-ish. As I am often wont to do, I hugged the coastline rather than head out over a large body of water.
Time in the air for this segment: 1 hour
Distance traveled: 67.6 nm / 77.8 sm / 125.2 km
Lunch at KLBX
As mentioned, there was very little air traffic and Texas Gulf Coast Regional [KLBX] wasn’t any different. There was activity on the ground, but only one other aircraft was in the pattern when we came into the area, which is highly unusual. Since it was lunchtime, we were expecting to see a number of aircraft parked outside the Runway Cafe, but there was only one!
When we sat down, there were no other customers except the pilot and passenger of the other aircraft we saw. They were next to us, so we briefly chatted. Throughout our lunch, we could hear them grouse to each other about not looking forward to the flight home. Amy and I, of course, being in a gyro, didn’t suffer at all from the wind or turbulence, except for a headwind: our ground speed was definitely reduced!
Lunch was good and while we ate we watched an RV-8 do quite a number of touch-n-go’s on the long runway. Our neighbors departed in their Cessna before we did and, I admit, I felt sorry for them. Many times in the past, before I owned a gyro, I flew in similar windy conditions, and it wasn’t much fun.
Sometime around 2 pm we paid our tab and left. We double-checked the fuel level to ensure my fuel plan was accurate (it was), then saddled up and headed down the taxiway for departure on 35. We had two minor events occur at this point in our trip.
Dealing with minor issues
Often when I’m at (what I call) a large airport, rather than taxiing on to the runway and then start my pre-rotation, I’ll initiate the pre-rotation as I move past the hold-short line. I feel like it keeps the flow fairly normal. If I don’t do that, then the flow of aircraft kind of has to wait for me. Yeah, that’s too bad and they do have to wait for me, but I try to be thoughtful and keep things flowing.
I’ve done this in the past, and I’ll likely do it again in the future. But this time, I had an issue. The pre-rotator engaged as I left the hold-short line and the rotor started turning, just as I expected. But at some point in the next moment, I must have taken my finger off the button (which you have to hold down to maintain pre-rotation). It was likely momentary because I didn’t even notice it. As my finger pressed the button, the pre-rotator suddenly became disengaged. I could hear it and I could feel it. Right about that time, I was lined up on the very long runway, without the ability to pre-rotate my rotor.
The rotor was rotating, but very slowly. And there were two more things working in our favor: a nice wind more-or-less right down the runway, plus I could see the shadow of my rotor on the ground, thus I had a good sense of its speed. I said aloud to Amy that I lost the pre-rotator so we’d just take off the old-fashioned way… manually! She kept her counsel and I pulled the stick back. Once the rotor was full-back, just the wind alone caused it to increase in speed. That was a good sign. I eased off the brake so that the gyro moved slowly forward and this, too, caused the rotor to increase.
Gradually, over a period of 10-15 seconds, I slowly and deliberately increased my ground speed which caused the rotor to increase in speed. The rotor was well over the minimum of 200 rpm, and I actually felt the gyro trying to hop into the air. In high winds, a gyro can actually lift off vertically, but the winds weren’t quite that high today. So, I urged it forward some more with more engine rpm, and kept working the stick to ensure all the forces involved were balanced and ready for flight. It didn’t take more than a few more seconds to become airborne and we continued flying down the runway just a few feet above the concrete.
Just as I pulled back a bit more on the stick, gaining another 100 feet of altitude, Amy’s door popped open! We’ve had her door pop open before, so we both knew how to handle it. But adding this on top of the pre-rotator — and, I have to admit, the memory of the recent rotor strike at Chamber County airport — had me wondering about gremlins. During my time as a cave diver, we always talked about how a “cascade of small issues” could add up to a real problem, and this too entered my mind as we worked on resolving the open door.
On the Cavalon, having a door open in flight is a minor event. Because of where the hinges are, the door is kept down and close to the body of the aircraft. There is perhaps two or three inches of space, the aerodynamics are affected slightly, there’s some extra noise and a bit of a draft, but generally speaking it’s only a minor problem. We could continue the entire leg of the trip with the door open, but I do like to try to get it closed if possible.
If I’m alone in the aircraft when the passenger door pops open, there’s not a lot I can do about it. If I’m close to an airport, I’ll land, close the door, then continue on my way.
If I’m In flight with a passenger when the door pops open, I first make sure I have plenty of altitude — at least 1000 feet. I slow the gyro down to 45 knots or even less if it isn’t turbulent. I then kick the rudder some so that the passenger door is in the lee, and then the passenger tries to close the door. This method works 9 times out of 10. And in this case, it did work. So, we were then on our way home.
However, due to the pre-rotator issue, I decided to circle the airport once…. just in case I needed to make a precautionary landing. After that circuit, we pointed our nose to the north and headed home.
Overflying the grandkids, and the second event
As with the other legs on this trip, I had flown this route several times before. I have to skirt the Sugarland airport’s airspace to the east, then skirt the Hooks airport’s airspace to the west. Then I steer slightly to the east towards the home airport, but watch out that I don’t enter the Conroe airspace. You can see those slight changes in the map:
The map above doesn’t show the actual airspaces, but you can see Sugarland, and then another adjustment between Cypress and Tomball, which is where the Hooks airspace is. Now, that second adjustment happens to be within a mile or so of where my son and my grandkids live. I will often check to see if the grandkids are home at the time I’ll be overflying the area. If they are, then I’ll let my daughter-in-law know right about when to expect me and she will have the kids outside to wave. Yep, I’ve done this before quite a few times.
After the excitement of the pre-rotator and door issues, I was hoping for no more events, and up until I got to my son’s house, it was a very normal flight. Here are some of the photos I took.
We were was now about 1 hour 15 minutes into the 3rd leg of our trip, and we approached my son’s house. We could see them outside waving, so I did a dramatic bank to the left so that I stayed mostly above them. I did a 360-degree turn in that steep bank, and then — so I could get a photo — I changed direction suddenly and went into a steep bank the other way. I got my picture (see below) but then the engine started to sputter. It had never done that before.
As luck would have it, there is a small, private airport less than a mile away, by car. For us, it was right there, even within easy gliding distance for my gyro (which has a terrible gliding ratio). The engine was still running, so I didn’t need to glide there, but I did make the decision to execute a precautionary landing, something I’ve trained for a hundred times, but never had to do, for real, in my gyro.
Here, on my navigation chart, you can see our path (the cyan line):
I’ve landed at this airport before so I was familiar with it. The landing was fine and the engine was still running. I taxied to a spot where I could turn around, which I did. I then went back to the south end of the runway and sat there for a few minutes, gathering my wits. The first problem I was concerned about was whether my pre-rotator would operate properly. The runway is enclosed on 3 sides by trees, so the actual wind on the runway is only about 5 knots… not enough of a boost to help me with the takeoff. Nor was the runway very long. For a manual pre-rotation, I’d need a long runway.
The second issue was, of course, the engine itself. With pre-rotation and a strong engine, I could — as I had done before — easily take off at this airport. But even if the pre-rotator operated normally, would my engine sputter and lose power as I tried to climb out? I didn’t know. But I did let the engine run, and I watched the gauges carefully, especially when I did another run-up. Everything seemed perfectly normal.
As I had a bit more time to think about it, I decided that the engine didn’t like the maneuvers I had just done immediately prior to the sputtering that I heard and felt. During the entire process of the approach and pre-cautionary landing, and taxiing, there wasn’t a trace of anything wrong, so I decided it had to do with the abrupt and steep maneuvering I had done. If I was correct, then we shouldn’t have any problem, assuming the pre-rotator worked.
Amy suggested getting out and letting me take-off and fly home, then come back in a car to get her. I too had thought about that. I queried whether that was what she wanted to do, or whether it was just a suggestion. I wasn’t going to make her stay in the plane if she had any doubts about our take-off attempt. But she assured me that she didn’t feel it was necessary and that she was good to go.
Ok, so, here we go!
I held the brake and pressed the pre-rotator button and it engaged normally. Yea! I let it come up to idle speed. I then slowly (very slowly) increased the rpm to 200 rpm, then pulled the stick back while releasing the pre-rotator and the brake at the same moment. I then increased the throttle to full over a 1-2 second interval and we were hurtling down the runway. Everything seemed completely normal.
We passed a spot I had previously decided was my make-or-brake spot but we were already in the air. I kept the plane low to the ground until the last moment, then pulled the stick back and we cleared the trees by 20 feet or so. Plenty of room! Just like at KLBX, I didn’t want to leave the area immediately so I started a left bank. But this one was very slight, very gradual. We came back around over the airport and everything seemed to be normal.
I kept my rpm’s as low as I could and still maintain about 60 knots of airspeed, with a slight ascent rate. I kept that up for the next 35 minutes, with our nose pointed to the home airport (carefully avoiding Conroe airspace). We got home a lot slower than if we were going 75 knots — my normal cruise speed — but I didn’t want to stress the engine any more than I had to… but we got home!
Time in the air for this segment: 2 hours, 9 minutes
Distance traveled: 100.1 nm / 115.2 sm / 185.4 km
Summary
Occasionally when a pilot says he had an eventful flight, he means something good happened. Most of the time, though, it’s often not-so-good. There are a large number of elements involved in flying and if something goes wrong, you can’t simply pull over to the side of the road as if you were in a car. (Of course, in the case of my pre-cautionary landing, it almost was that easy! Heh!) Most pilots are trained well enough to know how to deal with some of those elements, should they go awry, but some result in potentially severe consequences, such as an engine-out.
In the case of the pre-rotator, since I know how it works, I knew that, on occasion, they can not engage properly, but resolving it usually means aborting the attempt and giving it at least half-a- minute to recover. I didn’t do that but was able to nevertheless take off successfully. I never thought I’d need it again before getting home! But when I did, and it acted normally, I knew that my understanding of these occasional not-engaging situations was likely correct.
As for the engine sputtering, I can only make an educated guess: the Cavalon has a split gas tank, with a small tube running between the two halves. In the extended and steep left bank, I figure all the fuel in the right tank poured into the left tank, leaving the right tank empty. The sudden bank to the opposing side resulted in the feed tube on the right tank “sucking air.” But since the feed tube on the left tank was still providing fuel, the engine may have sputtered with some air in the flow of fuel. That’s my guess at this point, and all other behaviors of the aircraft after that point certainly support that conjecture.
So, yeah, my flight was eventful! My decisions may not have been the most prudent, yet we did get home safely.
Overall, for this trip, we flew 4 hours and 20 minutes in the air and covered 235.8 nm (271.4 sm / 436.8 km). Despite the issues, it was a great day of flying!
As always, I encourage comments and discussion.
![Grand Rock UL airport [XA52]](https://i0.wp.com/www.texas-flyer.com/newblog/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/4N1A2604.jpg?w=218&h=140&ssl=1 "4N1A2604")
![Frank Toole Memorial Field [57TX]](https://i0.wp.com/www.texas-flyer.com/newblog/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/4N1A2605.jpg?w=656&h=290&ssl=1 "4N1A2605")
