{"id":2258,"date":"2018-06-30T17:31:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T23:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/?p=2258"},"modified":"2018-08-25T13:10:58","modified_gmt":"2018-08-25T19:10:58","slug":"a-visit-to-bailes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/?p=2258","title":{"rendered":"A Visit to Bailes"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 30, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n

When I started flying ultralights in 1999 my instructor, John Wall, was based at Bailes Airport on the outskirts of Angleton, TX.\u00a0 \u00a0Bailes is also the home of the EAA 347 chapter.\u00a0 In the same time frame as my solo, I purchased a Quicksilver, which gave way to a trike (Rossi), and then a RANS S12-XL, all which were hangared at Bailes.\u00a0 Sometime around February 2003, I sold the RANS and the plane that replaced it — the Aventura II — was to be hangared at Hooks and then West Houston.\u00a0 So I was at Bailes Airport for about three years… three years of a lot of fun, great fellowship, a few minor tragedies, and one major one.<\/p>\n

A week ago, the current EAA 347 president — John Kotke — invited us to visit the airport for their monthly Saturday meeting, so we accepted.\u00a0 It has been over 19 years since I first started visiting Bailes, and probably 5 years since I last visited the airport.\u00a0 Our plan was to fly directly there, then after the meeting pop over to the Runway Cafe at Texas Gulf Coast Regional (< 5 miles away), then fly back to Anahuac.\u00a0 The weather looked great, but a few days prior there was a huge influx of airborne desert sand from the Sahara (yep, the big one, in Africa!), so before we even got to Anahuac it was plain to see: the sky was quite hazy.<\/p>\n

This picture (taken later in the day) gives you an idea of how bad the haze was.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In fact, to the human eye, it was worse than this.\u00a0 (The camera seems to have done a fair job of picking up details that I couldn’t see.)\u00a0 It is potentially dangerous to fly when you can’t see the horizon or anything else that gives you a visual indication of flying “wings level.”\u00a0 (I put that in quotes since my Cavalon doesn’t technically have wings, but it means the same thing even for a gyroplane.)\u00a0 Being in that kind of situation is little different than flying into a cloud… no form of visual reference.\u00a0 So, we were cautious.<\/p>\n

Upon arriving at the Anahuac hangar, the gyro club members were out in full force, very active in flying or working on their gyro’s.\u00a0 After a few conversations we were off.<\/p>\n

At first, we started off by following the coast of Trinity Bay rather than launching ourselves across the open bay.<\/p>\n

\"\"
West Fork Double Bayou, south of Anahuac<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We then climbed above the clouds.\u00a0 The base of the clouds seemed to be at about 2500 feet, so I had to be below that by about 500 feet, or above the clouds.\u00a0 Once we got to about 3500 feet, there was less haze, but it still wasn’t great.\u00a0 In fact, although some clouds were easy to make out, other blended into the haze which made it difficult to tell their boundaries.\u00a0 And if you don’t know the boundaries of a cloud, you\u00a0have<\/em> to assume they are bigger and\/or more spread out than you can see, and that made me uncomfortable.\u00a0 (The photo below — as most of these — have been tweaked to provide WAY better definition and contrast than we saw at the time.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I took the photo (above), the bigger cloud just kind of melted into the haze.\u00a0 I couldn’t see a horizon — or any land, for that matter — but the clouds themselves gave me a visual reference.\u00a0 I decided it would be wiser to fly under the clouds \"\"<\/a>and so descended almost as quickly as I had gotten to 3500 feet.\u00a0 Several minutes later, a break in the clouds and I could see land.\u00a0 Below me, near the transition between Trinity Bay and Galveston Bay, a boat was making circles in the water.\u00a0 The bay is so shallow that the boats’ propellor was stirring up the bottom silt, creating a cool looking palette of wavy browns.<\/p>\n

Ahead of us was League City and we were out of that hazy water area and now flying over solid land, with a nice (if still quite hazy) horizon.<\/p>\n

\"League <\/a>
League City <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A large mall next to Interstate-45 <\/div> <\/div>
\"4N1A2824\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"They <\/a>
They are difficult to make out, but there are two towers > 2000 feet tall that we had to avoid <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"4N1A2827\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

About 65 minutes after we left Anahuac, we were circling the pattern at Bailes.\u00a0 Even my approach to the runway brought back memories of the many times, many planes in which I had done this.\u00a0 Power lines to the left, fence line to the right, and a nice, long strip of grass.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In my Quicksilver, I struggled to get over those power lines in order to stay in the pattern and do touch-n-go’s, but the other planes I owned didn’t have those issues.\u00a0 Now turning base and final were just pleasant turns, then line up for final, put the engine to idle, gentle descent, flair and some bumps before leveling off my rotors and turning back to the hangar.\u00a0 Yep, just like I remember it!\u00a0 Very sweet.<\/p>\n

There were several aircraft already parked, so I sidled between two of them and powered down.\u00a0 There was also a crowd of people welcoming us, which felt pretty good.\u00a0 I turned off everything and got out, then put the sock on the end of the rotor.<\/p>\n

The EAA members then approached and started asking questions.\u00a0 It was fun to be able to share my love of flying gyroplanes with them.\u00a0 A few couldn’t quite believe there was any significant difference in comfort between fixed-wing and gyroplanes, so they turned to another authoritative source… Amy!\u00a0 She just smiled and confirmed what I had said, that there is a\u00a0huge<\/em> difference in comfort, the rotor blades not just cutting through the bumps, but because they are flexible they also soften them.\u00a0 That is one of the primary reasons I switched from fixed-wing… in a very light fixed-wing, if you fly in the middle of the day, the roiling air just beats you up and you have to fight to keep wings level.\u00a0 It’s exhausting.\u00a0 But in the Cavalon and other gyroplanes, we can not only fly comfortably during mid-day, but we can fly in winds that keep most fixed-wing aircraft in their hangars.<\/p>\n

\"4N1A2828\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"4N1A2829\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"4N1A2830\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"4N1A2831\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"4N1A2832\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"4N1A2833\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"4N1A2834\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"4N1A2837\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"4N1A2838\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"4N1A2840\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"4N1A2841\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"4N1A2842\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

I walked through the hangar to see what they had, and there was only one ultralight, a Kolb Firestar that used to be owned by an old flying buddy, Jimmy Young.\u00a0 I had flown alongside him<\/a> when he had the Firestar and I had a Kolb MkIIIC, and taken many pictures of him in that plane.\u00a0 Most of the aircraft in the hangar were older GA planes, and one Hummelbird, a small, kinda funny looking aircraft but very capable.\u00a0 The members were an enthusiastic group and it was fun to be around them.<\/p>\n

After an hour, our stomach’s were rumbling, and Amy had wanted to do a “lunch run” to Texas Gulf Coast Airport (KLBX), to the Runway Cafe, as we have done before<\/a>.\u00a0 So, we bid farewell to everyone, hopped in and took off.\u00a0 Though the distance to KLBX was short, we still had to position ourselves correctly, fly over mid-field, do the 270-degree turn and end up in right-downwind for runway 17.\u00a0 The wind was really blowing which always makes for a very short and soft landing, then we taxied to a spot near the restaurant.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

About an hour later we were climbing back into the Cavalon, with full tummies.\u00a0 (The Runway Cafe does a good job with their meals… recommended!)<\/p>\n

The flight back was uneventful, and with a nice 10 knot tailwind this leg took a lot less time.\u00a0 As we approached Trinity Bay again, we noticed that the haze had improved a little, but not enough to do a bee-line across it to the Anahuac airport.\u00a0 We turned a bit toward the north, keeping land in sight at all times, then as the town of Anahuac came out of the haze, we pointed the Cavalon straight to the airport.\u00a0 \u00a0Soon it was tucked into its hangar, waved goodbye to the gyro club members, and we were driving home.<\/p>\n

Here is a overview of our flight profile:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Overall, 156 miles flown, and about 2 hours 7 minutes of flight time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 If you enjoyed this or any of my other blog entries, I suggest you subscribe to this blog so that you are automatically notified when I make a new entry.\u00a0 Go to the top of this page, and look along the left side for the subscription field.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June 30, 2018 When I started flying ultralights in 1999 my instructor, John Wall, was based at Bailes Airport on the outskirts of Angleton, TX.\u00a0 \u00a0Bailes is also the home of the EAA 347 chapter.\u00a0 In the same time frame as my solo, I purchased a Quicksilver, which gave way to a trike (Rossi), and … Continue reading A Visit to Bailes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cavalon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/4N1A2842.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2258"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2401,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258\/revisions\/2401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}