— August 31, 2020
The previous Texas-Flyer entry was about our trip to Rockport, Texas on February 14, 2020… a Valentines Day flight. It was a happy day and a lot of fun. While that day’s weather was quite good with few clouds to speak of, what we couldn’t see were the very dark storm clouds of a worldwide pandemic on the horizon.
On that same day there were over 14,000 cases of Covid-19 in China, but only a handful of cases in the U.S. It wasn’t until 15 days later, on February 29th, that the US saw its first death from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As the days progressed, things only got worse. Finally, on March 11, the World Health Organization declared that Covid-19 was a pandemic. On March 24, Harris County (where I live) declared that everyone was to stay-at-home except for going to the grocery store, unless you were considered an essential worker, and several other exclusions. I won’t go into all the details inasmuch as it’s widely available information. But the question remained: could I go fly?
My home airport, first of all, was in a different county — a rural county — which did not (yet) have such a restriction. Even after it was put in place in Chambers County (where my gyroplane resides) on March 25th, it was still a question in my mind. There was a lot of discussion among pilots, pro and con, but ultimately there was no one authoritative declaration that anyone could point to that would establish whether it was ok or not for a general aviation pilot to fly.
The only real argument against flying is certainly valid: requiring assistance in the event of a crash or off-airport landing. Yes, you could maintain social distancing from everyone throughout the process of driving from your home to the airport, getting the airplane ready to fly, and then putting the airplane away and driving home from the airport. However, if you had a car wreck on your journey to/from the airport, or if you had a problem while flying that required a forced landing, then you could be responsible for pulling public service responders away from much more critical needs.
So, it is a valid argument but the chances of either of those situations happening and requiring important resources are very small. You could get into a car wreck on the way to/from a grocery store, an allowed personal task. And if you are flying an aircraft that you felt might result in landing out, then you shouldn’t be flying it even in the best of circumstances. (There’s a difference between having a mind-set that is ready for a forced landing, and having an aircraft that has a moderate to high chance of it happening. With the latter, then, yeah, you shouldn’t be flying it, and definitely not if it requires precious resources during a pandemic.)
In my situation, I have a long, one-hour drive to the hangar near Anahuac so that is certainly a factor. Yet if I have to stop for gas, there are plenty of gas stations where refueling is a solitary process. No help necessary. Once I get to the airport, I drive directly to the hangar. There’s no need to go through the FBO or see other people. Once at the hangar, I can unlock the hangar, open my door, and roll out the gyroplane, all without needing help from anyone.
Most of the time when I go to the hangar, there isn’t anyone there. There’s often a crowd on Saturday, and sometimes on Wednesday, so I avoid those days. Even if there is someone there, we can easily keep our distance. The reverse process — putting the plane away and driving home — is the same, with nothing requiring that I interface with anyone. So to me the bottom line is, if the primary purpose of the stay-at-home order is to dramatically reduce close interactions with other people then going to fly my plane seems to work within that purpose. I.e., going to fly my plane would not put me near anyone any more than if I had stayed home. And since it’s not good for a plane to sit for long periods of time, it seemed the right decision to go fly.
Since the Valentines Day flight until today, I’ve flown 14 times. So where are the stories, you may ask! The simple answer is that this entry is the story of those flights. The more complicated answer has to do with my wife and I building a new home.
Our “Dream” Home
We decided well over a year ago to find a nice aviation community, away from the city and close to a more hilly area, so my wife can have roads more challenging to her cycling than the flat roads and trails in Houston. Ideally, she will get to ride more interesting territory and I will get to fly more frequently inasmuch as we’ll have a hangar and a runway. A large part of last year was spent planning and designing the house, and then finding a good builder to execute those plans. And as you likely know there are thousands of decisions that go into building a new house not the least of which are countertops, cabinets, tile, fixtures, interior and exterior paint colors, wood stains, etc., etc. We were very busy doing all of that last year.
The actual build process began on January 24, 2020. We’ve gone from an empty lot to a well-formed house structure and mostly complete hangar, and we’ve got another six weeks to go before we can move in. Here is a collage of aerial photos I took of the house site as they built it. It’s not complete, and I didn’t really have a plan to do this, but of the pictures I did take, I selected these to represent a series:
You can see that by mid-June, most of the outside of both structures appear to be complete. But the house will not be ready for move-in until mid-October. After that, there’ll be a couple of months of moving in, dealing with punch lists, adding window coverings, etc., If you are a pilot and would like to drop in for a visit, you are certainly welcome but try to make it after, say, Thanksgiving. Drop me a line when you think you’ve got a date to drop in. Because it’s a private airport, they don’t want just anyone landing or doing touch-n-go’s, but if I know you’re coming then that’s totally different. ([popup url=”http://www.texas-flyer.com/files/Waverly Acres airport diagram.pdf” scrollbars=”yes” alt=”popup”]Here’s the airport diagram[/popup], with a red “X” where my house is.)
Of the 14 flights…
Of the 14 flights I’ve done since February, below are some of my better photos. I’ll spare you the (additional) endless shots of the house/hangar, though.
This distillation of images from the last six months is, I hope, a good summary of my flights around Texas for this time period.
Flying around the pandemic
There is no way to conclude this post simply because the pandemic persists and is likely to continue for another year or so. I’m hopeful there will be a vaccine at some point in the next 6 to 12 months, but it may take longer for them to “dial it in,” with the result of a truly effective vaccine. In the meantime, I will continue to wash my hands, socially distance as best as I can, stay home when I’m not flying (or checking on my house build), wear a mask when in public, and all the other behaviors that should keep myself safe from the public, and the public safe from me.
This behavior will have to be modified due to everything that needs to be done with moving into the new house, ordering new furniture, etc., as well as the additional flying I plan to do. And because I will now live with a runway in my backyard, I hope to fly much more often!
BTW, I encourage you to leave comments to let me know how you are doing, and how I’m doing!
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