Louise was in town for the three day weekend (both of us being Federal Employees…), and it turned out that the Kestrel airpark (our future home) Runway Owners association was having their semi-annual meeting on Saturday afternoon, so it looked like it would be a good time to fly over and see what kind of nuts we might be casting our die with. (Turns out they’re the best kind….airplane nuts!). The weather has been pretty good recently, and I figured that we could leave here at noon, be there in an hour, meet folks, attend the meeting, and be back before sunset, which is occurring about 1730 these days.
The moisture and instability in the local atmosphere has been slowly increasing the last few days, so I was a little wary when I checked the forecast map and saw that they were calling for an area of scattered rain showers in the southeast Texas area, while the Terminal Forecasts weren’t’ saying anything about it. Hmmm….once hand not talking to the other? When we got up Saturday morning, there were low clouds in the San Antonio area, but it was nice where we were. About 1000, we were working in the garage when I looked out and saw rain falling. Hmmmm (again) ….I went and checked the TAF’s and sure enough they were amended to include a good chance of showers with MVFR or IFR between 1600 and 1800 for our area. Not really being a fan of night IFR in my RV, I said those words that I try to fly by, “well, it doesn’t’ hurt to go to the airport and have a look – but we might not get there today!”
(Why not just file IFR? Well, Kestrel has no instrument approach, which means you have to shoot an approach to one of the fields down out of the hills (SAT, New Braunfels, or San Marcos) and then hope you have VFR conditions to run up into the hill country. No, I really don’t like the way that sentence reads either….
)
We piled ourselves and a little lunch into the truck, and as we were driving to the airport, we had a big area of dark stuff ahead of us. “What direction is Kestrel from here?” Louise asked. “Ahh….right through those rain showers!” was my response. A quick check of the radar on my Blackberry confirmed that there were scattered light showers popping up where the forecast map had predicted, but the ceilings were good (3500’ or better), and the visibilities nice as well. Nevertheless, as we pulled up in front of the Val’s hangar, there were sheets of rain pouring off of the tin roof, so we sat there with the A/C on and ate our cheese, sausage and crackers. I figured there was little point in getting wet to check the XM in the airplane – we already KNEW it was raining here! But when it did let up after fifteen minutes, I rolled out the plane, and sure enough the track out there looked good.
Now local knowledge is important. I’ve been flying out of the Houston areas for 25 years now, and experience told me that with eh many clear areas, good vis, and high ceilings, that things weren't going to get much worse as the afternoon went on. There wasn’t enough vertical development. So off we went, got one nice airplane wash in a translucent rain shower out south of Sugarland, and by the time we got to Kestrel, I had looked at enough XM data to confirm that while showers were coming and going, there was no worsening trend.
We enjoyed the afternoon, and I set a hard limit for our return – off the ground by 1600 to make sure we got back before sunset. And, of course, I knew where we’d stop along the way if, indeed we ran into something I didn’t like. But the speed of the RV makes this trip about 55 minutes of air time, so you can pretty much count on things staying the same from take-off to landing. There was one area of rain up by College Station as we slid into Houston, but other than that, we had nothing to look at but clearing skies and nice temp/dewpoint spreads.
I have long espoused the philosophy of “going to have a look”. Is it good enough to drive to the airport? OK, go ahead and do that! Is it good enough to pull out the airplane and start it up? Sure, no harm in that! Is it safe to taxi to the end of the runway? Is it safe to make a “once around the pattern” should you get airborne and decide you’d rather be on the ground? And so on and so forth….always have a back-out plan, but don’t give up while still at home – unless a tornado has just carried off you car and the lawn furniture. Develop a cautious eye towards weather – nut not so cautious that you never use the airplane. In this case, we bopped out from Houston to San Antonio for a meeting, enjoyed meeting a bunch of great people, and were back just four hours after we left. Pretty neat stuff – you’d be hard to make a meeting on the far side of Houston in the same period of time if you drove it by car!
Paul
The moisture and instability in the local atmosphere has been slowly increasing the last few days, so I was a little wary when I checked the forecast map and saw that they were calling for an area of scattered rain showers in the southeast Texas area, while the Terminal Forecasts weren’t’ saying anything about it. Hmmm….once hand not talking to the other? When we got up Saturday morning, there were low clouds in the San Antonio area, but it was nice where we were. About 1000, we were working in the garage when I looked out and saw rain falling. Hmmmm (again) ….I went and checked the TAF’s and sure enough they were amended to include a good chance of showers with MVFR or IFR between 1600 and 1800 for our area. Not really being a fan of night IFR in my RV, I said those words that I try to fly by, “well, it doesn’t’ hurt to go to the airport and have a look – but we might not get there today!”
(Why not just file IFR? Well, Kestrel has no instrument approach, which means you have to shoot an approach to one of the fields down out of the hills (SAT, New Braunfels, or San Marcos) and then hope you have VFR conditions to run up into the hill country. No, I really don’t like the way that sentence reads either….
)We piled ourselves and a little lunch into the truck, and as we were driving to the airport, we had a big area of dark stuff ahead of us. “What direction is Kestrel from here?” Louise asked. “Ahh….right through those rain showers!” was my response. A quick check of the radar on my Blackberry confirmed that there were scattered light showers popping up where the forecast map had predicted, but the ceilings were good (3500’ or better), and the visibilities nice as well. Nevertheless, as we pulled up in front of the Val’s hangar, there were sheets of rain pouring off of the tin roof, so we sat there with the A/C on and ate our cheese, sausage and crackers. I figured there was little point in getting wet to check the XM in the airplane – we already KNEW it was raining here! But when it did let up after fifteen minutes, I rolled out the plane, and sure enough the track out there looked good.
Now local knowledge is important. I’ve been flying out of the Houston areas for 25 years now, and experience told me that with eh many clear areas, good vis, and high ceilings, that things weren't going to get much worse as the afternoon went on. There wasn’t enough vertical development. So off we went, got one nice airplane wash in a translucent rain shower out south of Sugarland, and by the time we got to Kestrel, I had looked at enough XM data to confirm that while showers were coming and going, there was no worsening trend.
We enjoyed the afternoon, and I set a hard limit for our return – off the ground by 1600 to make sure we got back before sunset. And, of course, I knew where we’d stop along the way if, indeed we ran into something I didn’t like. But the speed of the RV makes this trip about 55 minutes of air time, so you can pretty much count on things staying the same from take-off to landing. There was one area of rain up by College Station as we slid into Houston, but other than that, we had nothing to look at but clearing skies and nice temp/dewpoint spreads.
I have long espoused the philosophy of “going to have a look”. Is it good enough to drive to the airport? OK, go ahead and do that! Is it good enough to pull out the airplane and start it up? Sure, no harm in that! Is it safe to taxi to the end of the runway? Is it safe to make a “once around the pattern” should you get airborne and decide you’d rather be on the ground? And so on and so forth….always have a back-out plan, but don’t give up while still at home – unless a tornado has just carried off you car and the lawn furniture. Develop a cautious eye towards weather – nut not so cautious that you never use the airplane. In this case, we bopped out from Houston to San Antonio for a meeting, enjoyed meeting a bunch of great people, and were back just four hours after we left. Pretty neat stuff – you’d be hard to make a meeting on the far side of Houston in the same period of time if you drove it by car!
Paul
Last edited:
