{"id":4952,"date":"2001-05-19T11:26:01","date_gmt":"2001-05-19T17:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/?p=4952"},"modified":"2023-11-23T11:27:21","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T17:27:21","slug":"flying-in-my-quicksilver_","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/?p=4952","title":{"rendered":"Flying in my Quicksilver_"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 19, 2001<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday<\/strong><\/p>\n

I woke at 4:30am so that I could drive to the airport and be flying as the sun\u00a0came up… it was tough getting up that early — as I am not by nature a\u00a0morning-person — but I’d say it was worth it.<\/p>\n

This photo is taken only minutes after sunrise.\u00a0 I’m about 4 miles from the
\nsouthern tip of Galveston Island, with the Gulf of Mexico in the distance…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The photos don’t really do the scene justice… there was a ground fog that was
\nstunningly beautiful.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As I approached San Luis Pass (the very southern tip of Galveston Island, where
\nthere is a toll bridge), the sun was shining like a jewel against the Gulf of Mexico:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here is a pretty good look at the full length of the bridge at San Luis Pass. From the air,\u00a0it seems hardly substantial enough for car traffic, much less withstanding the full\u00a0force of a hurricane, but it has survived quite a few major storms.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At this point, I make a 90-degree turn to the right so that I’m heading
\nsouth-west along the beach…<\/p>\n

As I turned to fly above the beach, the clouds obscured the sun so there wasn’t
\nmuch in the sky to see but haze.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As I approached the town of Freeport, I started to turn back toward
\nthe airport.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The ever-present Intracoastal Waterway…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here is a side channel branching away from the main Waterway channel.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here’s a good “close-up” of the ship and a speed-boat as they ply
\nthrough the Waterway.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here I am above the Waterway.\u00a0 You can see the airspeed indicator showing
\nabout 45mph IAS, which is normal cruise speed for me in the Quicksilver.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Off to my right — as I return to Bailes — the sun is trying to break through the clouds\u00a0and haze above the Gulf.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sunday<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Sunday, the 20th, I took off a bit later in the morning… In fact, Jim had
\nreplaced the sparkplugs, and it started on the first pull (it’s NEVER done
\nthat! \ud83d\ude42 He flew for about an hour, so I didn’t get in the air until about 8:40am.
\nThe air was fairly turbulent.<\/p>\n

The bad news about the photos (as you can easily see) is that I forgot to
\nturn my camera around during takeoff, so all the dew on the runway
\nsplattered on to my lens and the result is, well, terrible!<\/p>\n

Despite my mistake, parts of the flight were spectacular.\u00a0I had not yet flown above the clouds, and decided to try to\u00a0fly to the Alvin Airpark.\u00a0 One of the pilots who had just landed told me\u00a0that it was smooth at 1500 feet.\u00a0 Off I went, climbing to 1500 feet, where I found\u00a0myself above the puffy-whites.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Looking off to my right, just over my radio, are more of the fleecy clouds.\u00a0 It was almost smooth flying above the clouds.\u00a0 Soon enough, though, I had to begin\u00a0my descent as I was only about 5 miles out.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This next photo was probably the best of the lot, inasmuch as the spots weren’t too\u00a0obvious.\u00a0 It was also a rare moment when the haze seemed to be at a minimum.\u00a0 Off\u00a0in the distance is Alvin Airpark.\u00a0 You can see that this area is a bit more built-up\u00a0than the empty fields around Bailes.\u00a0 By this time I was below the\u00a0clouds again, and it was much bumpier.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here, I tried to zoom in on the Airpark…\u00a0 the turbulence made it difficult to get a steady shot, so this image suffered.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I attempted a landing and got down to about 20 feet AGL, but the wind was
\nreally tossing me around, and I was a little worried about my fuel level. Consequently I just did a fly-by, then powered up and headed back for Bailes. The picture\u00a0below shows the haze is still evident.\u00a0 The clouds had increased their altitude\u00a0so much that there was no way I could climb above them.\u00a0 Plus I had a headwind and\u00a0my ground-speed was down to about 32 mph.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I did, of course, make it back to Bailes, but it was slo-o-o-w going. The photo below\u00a0is about 2 miles out.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Well, that is pretty much a normal weekend of flying for me! The afternoons are
\nusually way too windy and\/or bumpy to go up, so I am left with the morning… but
\nthey can be glorious! Flying an open ultralight is the _only_ way to fly!<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 19, 2001 Saturday I woke at 4:30am so that I could drive to the airport and be flying as the sun\u00a0came up… it was tough getting up that early — as I am not by nature a\u00a0morning-person — but I’d say it was worth it. This photo is taken only minutes after sunrise.\u00a0 I’m … Continue reading Flying in my Quicksilver_<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":233,"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":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-quicksilver"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Quicksilver-featured.jpg?fit=720%2C480&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4952","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=4952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4953,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4952\/revisions\/4953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}