{"id":2454,"date":"2018-10-14T15:09:23","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T21:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/?p=2454"},"modified":"2018-10-22T21:37:07","modified_gmt":"2018-10-23T03:37:07","slug":"back-on-the-horse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/?p=2454","title":{"rendered":"Back on the horse"},"content":{"rendered":"

October 14, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n

The wind is now again from the south, and the temp’s are in the high 80’s… quite different from just 3 days ago.\u00a0 (And, with a strong cold-front punching through the Texas mid-section as I write this, we’ll be getting cold weather again, probably within 24 hours.\u00a0 Part of the reason I flew so soon was because of the stormy weather that will accompany that cold-front.)\u00a0 It was 81 even at altitude, so, a very comfortable flight temp.<\/p>\n

The other issue from 3 days ago, was my very wild take-off.\u00a0 After it happened, I was too rattled to do anything other than normal flight, but today I decided to “get back on the horse” and convince myself it was a fluke.\u00a0 The goal was to take off from Anahuac, then do a stop-and-go at Winnie-Stowell, RWJ, Baytown, La Porte, and then back to Anahuac.\u00a0 And that’s what I did:<\/p>\n

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

The light green arrows show my direction of travel.<\/p>\n

I’m very happy to say that I didn’t have a single issue and that each of my take-off’s and landing’s were quite good, even if I do say so myself!\u00a0 It’s the first time I’ve landed at any of these airports (except, of course, for my home airport, Anahuac), so that was kind of fun.\u00a0 I’m very surprised how little traffic there is on a Sunday… way less than even on a weekday.<\/p>\n

Two interesting things I discovered:\u00a0 Baytown has a dramatic displaced threshold, and the runway at RWJ is very skinny.\u00a0 \u00a0But I didn’t have any issues with those, or any of the other runways.\u00a0 The best part — and the principle reason I did these stop-n-go’s — was that except for La Porte, they all had runways pointed in different directions.\u00a0 That means that the wind was hitting me from different angles and I was able to successfully adjust for each of them.\u00a0 I think the issue I had on my previous flight boils down to: I just didn’t think about wind direction and made an assumption.\u00a0 Or, more simply: I wasn’t thinking.<\/p>\n

What made me feel more stupid was: I have a yaw string on my windshield, and a simple glance at that will clearly tell me which direction the wind is blowing.\u00a0 So, I…. Just.\u00a0 Wasn’t.\u00a0 Thinking.<\/p>\n

As usual, I took my camera along, but I didn’t get any shots of the airports because I was too involved in making sure everything was good… but between the airports (and after I figured out, for each up-coming airport, which runway to use based on the wind, the frequency on my radio, check for traffic, etc., etc.) I was able to get some nice shots.\u00a0 This adventure took me once again to slightly different spots than I’ve been to before, so although some of the shots are of familiar things (e.g., Baytown Bridge), they are from new angles!<\/p>\n

\"A <\/a>
A nice day overall… <\/div> <\/div>
\"After <\/a>
After I left Winnie-Stowell, I saw this tractor and couldn’t resist a shot <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Fish <\/a>
Fish camp houses along a bayou at the northern edige of Trinity Bay <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rail <\/a>
Rail Logix rail yard <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Jindal <\/a>
Jindal Saw USA pipe yard <\/div> <\/div>
\"San <\/a>
San Jacinto Monument with downtown Houston in the far background <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"I <\/a>
I think this massive display of petrochemical industry belongs to Exxon <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A nice shot straight down the Houston Ship Channel, alongside Galveston Bay <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A cute tugboat, right below me <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A different angle of the Baytown Bridge, looking south <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A container ship being loaded (or, er, maybe unloaded) <\/div> <\/div>
\"Another <\/a>
Another angle of the Baytown Bridge, looking north <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"I <\/a>
I spotted this (what I thought was) lone oil derrick (rocking horse)… <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"But <\/a>
But then I looked to my left and saw all of these, in Tabbs Bay <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Vertical <\/a>
Vertical lift railroad bridge over Cedar Bayou <\/div> <\/div>
\"Another <\/a>
Another rail yard <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Sand <\/a>
Sand mining (Smart Material Inc., I think) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"These <\/a>
These are (I think) empty spools (FlexSteel pipe yard) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Just <\/a>
Just before crossing Trinity Bay, I see (again) the RWJ airport community. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

After arriving back at my home airport, I put my plane away and was about to leave, but then I realized with the cold front coming in, my next flight might be a cold one.\u00a0 Referring to a weather app I was able to confirm that next Friday (the most likely time I can fly next) will be quite cool.\u00a0 So, I decided to go ahead and put my doors back on:<\/p>\n

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

1.64 hrs on the Hobbs, 1:33 in the air, and 101.7 miles covered.<\/p>\n

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

October 14, 2018 The wind is now again from the south, and the temp’s are in the high 80’s… quite different from just 3 days ago.\u00a0 (And, with a strong cold-front punching through the Texas mid-section as I write this, we’ll be getting cold weather again, probably within 24 hours.\u00a0 Part of the reason I … Continue reading Back on the horse<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2478,"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-2454","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\/10\/map3.jpg?fit=1629%2C585&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454","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=2454"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2537,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454\/revisions\/2537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}