October 11, 2018
Fall (in the sense of cooler weather) doesn’t hit SE Texas until early-to-mid October, but it finally arrived and I was raring to go. Keep in mind that if the high temperature for the day is below 90°F/32°C, then we in SE Texas think that is “cool”. When I woke up this morning, it was a blissful 65°F/18°C, but by the time I arrived at the airport, it was a bit warmer at 75°F/24°C. Combined with the much lower humidity than normal, it was heaven!
My goal for this flight wasn’t just to enjoy the clear blue and cool skies, but I wanted to get an aerial shot of an airport: Pearland Regional (KLVJ). Pearland is often busy, especially with helicopter traffic, but the trick to photographing an airport is simply to fly much higher than the pattern altitude. (You can also, of courses, take pictures while you’re in the pattern, but that means distracted flying in a potentially busy, close-to-the-ground situation and not something I wanted to do today.) In the case of Pearland, though, flying higher than the pattern is easier said than done. Sitting oppressively above the Pearland runways at 2,000 feet is the Class Bravo airspace for Hobby Airport, one of Houston’s two large and busy commercial airports. Combined with that, I know that Pearland sometimes has small-jet traffic.
Normal pattern altitude specified in the A/FD info (sorry, I’m dating myself with that reference, but that’s the FAA official data, formerly in a handbook called the Airport Facility Directory, or A/FD) is 644 feet, or, 600 feet above the runway (which is at 44 feet). But jet traffic often flies a wider pattern 500 feet above that, or 1,144. That left me with exactly 856 feet to work with before I violated Class Bravo airport, a definite no-no. Consequently, when I was closest to the airport, I kept my altitude between 1800 and 1900 feet. But I’ll admit that I’m a bit timid when it comes to being around a lot of traffic. Too many faster planes, not all of them (yet!) have ADS-B, and it doesn’t take much distraction to miss the target pattern altitude. So I got as close as I was comfortable with.
Here is the overall map of the flight, with my home airport in Anahuac TX in the upper-right corner.
What brought all this cooler, dryer air was a cold-front which also brings winds from the north. Our normal wind direction is from the south and, because of the promity of Trinity Bay and on-shore winds, from the south-west. When there is a cross-wind on the asphalt runway (12-30), I’m used to it coming from my right (if I’m taking off to the south, which is “normal”). Today, the windsock showed a cross-wind but it was from the north. Unfortunately, complacency and “what is usual” almost bit me in the butt.
I was about to learn a valuable lesson.
Despite a part of me knowing the wind was from the north (hitting the left side), my “sight picture” of the wind-sock didn’t look all that different from what I’m used to and since the vast majority of the time I’m dealing with a right-crosswind, for this take-off I did not think hard enough about the wind coming from the left. So, because I wasn’t thinking, the “automatic” muscle memory kicked it and as I started my roll down the runway, I un-thinkingly adjusted my controls to counter a right-crosswind. That was a bad move.
As my front wheel lifted off, I was expecting to hold it in place just above the ground like I always do, but that’s not what happened. The plane started pitching/rolling/yawing to the right. If that is what I wanted to do, then that behavior would makes sense since I’m subtly adjusting my controls to the right with a crosswind from the left. When the left-crosswind started pushing on the front of the plane without the proper countering adjustments, it was easy for it to tilt the plane somewhat to the right. I, of course, knew immediately that something was wrong, but I hadn’t quite figured it out. From moment-to-moment, things weren’t happening as I thought they should have been. We’re talking fractions-of-a-second.
The engine was at full throttle and since the nose-wheel was up, that means the plane was getting ready to fly. What I did know was that the plane was in a very poor configuration/attitude for landing. I knew that the worst thing I could do would be to pull back on the power. I left it at full power and continued trying to correct the unusual attitude. I was very lucky. I managed to straighten things out and as soon as I did and my two rear wheels lifted off, I saw the plane’s nose yawing to the left, I only then fully realized the wind was coming from my left. Duh!
All the things I had done wrong suddenly became clear and I felt foolish. And I felt very lucky that I recovered. I had not ever done that before — improper setting of controls for a take-off — so I wasn’t at all familiar with what it would look like/feel like. I learned a valuable lesson and was lucky to have gotten away without any serious consequences. Whew!
I did start to wonder if I should go do a few touch-n-go’s with the left-crosswind, but I was too rattled to do it just then. I continued on with my flight.
Soon enough, I was calmed down and now over Trinity Bay. The air was cool and smooth. Maybe a bit too cool… I had not put my doors back on. I guess I wasn’t convinced it would stay cool. At 1800 feet, it was about 69°F/21°C but felt even cooler with the wind whipping around. Looking to my right (north), I could see the Baytown Bridge…
… and the view to my left, I could just barely make out some buildings on Galveston Island, at the southern end of Galveston Bay…
… finally across Trinity Bay, the first notable thing I see as I cross over land is this gigantic house…
… then ahead and below me is the small airport community of Polly Ranch…
This means I’m quite close to Pearland Regional. I had already switched my radio to its frequency, and I could hear a couple of planes in the pattern. They are landing to the north and making left traffic, so they would be west of the airport… I was south-east, so well away from them. Still, I wasn’t anxious to get too close, approaching to within 2 miles before making a sharp 180-degree turn.
The angle that I was at wasn’t perfect… I would have much preferred being at the end of the runway, but I was close enough for some good shots.
Keeping in mind the Ellington Field airspace immediately to my east, I steered around it then ended up following the coast back to my home airport. The track I selected was a bit further north than my normal track back to Anahuac so I saw a few things that had previously been further away.
Maybe this wasn’t a great Texas-Flyer story, but I accomplished my mission, got to fly on a great flying day and saw some new things. For me, it was good! Oh, and I got a valuable lesson at the beginning of the flight…. and luckily I survived the lesson.
1.42 hrs on the Hobbs, 1:23 in the air, and 83.8 miles covered.