t0r0nad0
Pattern Altitude
So, the girlfriend planned this big baby shower for her best friend at our house this past Saturday, which gave me enough of an excuse to make myself scarce and go do some flying. My original plan was to make it out to 3T5 for the EAA BBQ, but alas, no planes were available... from any FBO in the city... and all of my airplane-owner friends were otherwise occupied. 
So, I decided to fly a bit later in the afternoon to go claim some Houston-area airports for the ConUS Challenge, of which there are plenty available! So, I contacted my friend Blair (from the http://www.houstonspotters.net website - check them out), who is also a pilot, and asked if he wanted to go with me. He readily agreed. So, I reserved a plane from 2pm - 5pm and made the aggressive plan to knock out 5 airports for the ConUS. I spent a good bit of time in the morning printing the A/FD pages, airport diagrams, and AOPA Info Sheets on all of the airports that I wanted to hit, as well as tossing the pdf's on my iPod Touch so I could experiment with using that in-flight.
Well, at 1pm, I got a call from the FBO saying that the plane I reserved was down with a transponder issue, but they had another plane available from 1:30 - 4pm if I could make it down. I hastily kissed the girlfriend goodbye, told her and her out-of-town guests to have a good time at the shower, and left for the airport, calling Blair on the way to inform him of my change in plans. With the more limited time-frame, I changed my plans to just hit 3, maybe 4 of the airports.
I got to SGR and pre-flighted the plane, and I had to wait for the fuel truck to come top it off. I finally launched at about 2:00pm to go up to DWH (a distance of 26.9nm) to pick up Blair. I cruised up there at 1700'MSL, which put me comfortable above the patterns at IWS and EYQ, which I would overfly on the way up, but still below the 2000' Class B shelf near IAH. As I passed over EYQ I picked up the ATIS for DWH, which called for a 5 kt wind straight down the runway. They had me make right traffic for 17R, and I made one of the better landings I've made in a while. I touched down just beyond the numbers and made the high-speed taxiway, then taxied to the transient ramp where Blair was out and waiting for me.
He jumped in, I started the engine and taxied to the runup area to do our runup, while Blair worked the radios for me (we decided to make this flight an exercise in CRM since we were both pilots). We then got clearance to take off from 17R at C with an approval for south departure. After climbing through 1000ft, I let Blair take the controls and I took over the radio and the navigation. Once the Mooney that took off on the parallel after our departure turned westbound behind us, the tower approve our freq. change. We tuned in the IWS CTAF in our Comm1, then monitored the EYQ CTAF in our Comm2 since we were flying right overhead. EYQ's pattern was busy, and there was a Cherokee heading towards downtown at one point that flew about 500ft below us from right to left. Blair and I called out traffic to each other and called the airport in sight as we got closer to IWS, where the pattern was really busy. We stayed to the east of the airport and came around to join the 45 to the left downwind and joined left downwind ahead of a Stinson that was just turning from crosswind to downwind. I looked left to see where we were in relation to the numbers, and saw that we were actually abeam a T-6 Texan making a really tight pattern that neither of us saw before then! We ended up extending our downwind past where he turned base and followed him in. I took over the controls again on base, and as we were turning final a Mooney called that they were going to take off in front of us. I asked him to wait as we were on a 1 mile final. There probably could have been time for him to take off, but with my experience level, I preferred that he wait. I made a very nice landing, if I may say so (and I may, since Blair said so too), and we taxied to the ramp and shut down. We got out, used the "Little Pilot's Room", and snapped the claim picture.
We jumped back in the plane, started up, and taxied out to do a run-up. We got to the run-up area and saw the brand new SkyFox helicopter parked on the ramp over to our left, so Blair took a quick picture of that since nobody was behind us. I briefed Blair on our plan for this flight and on the noise-abatement procedures and pilot-controlled weather for TME (Houston Exec., formerly 78T), which was to be our next stop. I did the runup, noted the time and saw that it was already 3:25p and I was supposed to have the plane back at SGR by 4:00p! We scrapped the plan to go to TME, took off, and departed north to go back to DWH.
We got the ATIS for DWH and called the tower just before reaching EYQ. Tower assigned us a squawk and informed us of an IFR Cessna descending from 2400' and overtaking us. We looked and didn't see him, but I told tower we did have several planes off of EYQ in sight. Tower told us to take up a heading of 350 from our current position and make that a wide right downwind for 17R. It was wide - about 5 miles wide! Blair held the heading until they called our base turn - about 7 miles out. We followed a Bonanza in to the runway. Once again, I took the controls back over while we were on base. As there was other traffic behind us, I kept the speed up at 105 kias until about 1 nm out. Then, when we were about 1.5 out, tower cleared another plane for immediate takeoff in front of us. This elicited a "WTF?!" from Blair, but I was already slowing the plane down and I figured it wouldn't be a factor. I pulled on the carb heat, dropped the throttle to 1500rpm, applied some back-pressure and trim to slow down, and incrementally dropped in all 40 deg of flaps. I greased a short-field touchdown, raised the flaps, pulled the yoke all the way back, and braked heavily so I could make the high-speed and get out of the way of the approaching traffic behind me. I then taxied right up to the door of the FBO and Blair hopped out.
I started up, taxied to the run-up area, did a quick run-up, and had to wait about 5 mins for landing traffic. I got cleared for an immediate takeoff behind a landing SabreLiner, so I quickly did my lights, camera, action! and took off. I cruised back to SGR at 1800', and had an uneventful flight. I nailed a short-field landing on 17 at SGR, and turned off at the first taxiway so that I'd have a shorter taxi back to the FBO, which is at the approach end of 17. I ended up parking at 4:15pm, but my tardiness wasn't a big deal after all as the student and instructor who had it after me had some ground briefing stuff to do before flying anyway. Still, I hated being late and doing that to them.
All in all, I did 1.9 hours of flying, and got one claim:
http://www.goflyamerica.org/airport_detail.asp?a=16051
Blair and I are planning on hitting a few more airports in the area, but next time he's going to come get me (mainly so he can claim SGR since I can't, as I'm based there). The few pictures we took (since we were both pretty busy flying) are posted at http://www.houstonspotters.net/cpg/thumbnails.php?album=307, but you probably need to register at http://www.houstonspotters.net to view them. That's okay, registration is free, and it's a great site!
Enjoy!
So, I decided to fly a bit later in the afternoon to go claim some Houston-area airports for the ConUS Challenge, of which there are plenty available! So, I contacted my friend Blair (from the http://www.houstonspotters.net website - check them out), who is also a pilot, and asked if he wanted to go with me. He readily agreed. So, I reserved a plane from 2pm - 5pm and made the aggressive plan to knock out 5 airports for the ConUS. I spent a good bit of time in the morning printing the A/FD pages, airport diagrams, and AOPA Info Sheets on all of the airports that I wanted to hit, as well as tossing the pdf's on my iPod Touch so I could experiment with using that in-flight.
Well, at 1pm, I got a call from the FBO saying that the plane I reserved was down with a transponder issue, but they had another plane available from 1:30 - 4pm if I could make it down. I hastily kissed the girlfriend goodbye, told her and her out-of-town guests to have a good time at the shower, and left for the airport, calling Blair on the way to inform him of my change in plans. With the more limited time-frame, I changed my plans to just hit 3, maybe 4 of the airports.
I got to SGR and pre-flighted the plane, and I had to wait for the fuel truck to come top it off. I finally launched at about 2:00pm to go up to DWH (a distance of 26.9nm) to pick up Blair. I cruised up there at 1700'MSL, which put me comfortable above the patterns at IWS and EYQ, which I would overfly on the way up, but still below the 2000' Class B shelf near IAH. As I passed over EYQ I picked up the ATIS for DWH, which called for a 5 kt wind straight down the runway. They had me make right traffic for 17R, and I made one of the better landings I've made in a while. I touched down just beyond the numbers and made the high-speed taxiway, then taxied to the transient ramp where Blair was out and waiting for me.
He jumped in, I started the engine and taxied to the runup area to do our runup, while Blair worked the radios for me (we decided to make this flight an exercise in CRM since we were both pilots). We then got clearance to take off from 17R at C with an approval for south departure. After climbing through 1000ft, I let Blair take the controls and I took over the radio and the navigation. Once the Mooney that took off on the parallel after our departure turned westbound behind us, the tower approve our freq. change. We tuned in the IWS CTAF in our Comm1, then monitored the EYQ CTAF in our Comm2 since we were flying right overhead. EYQ's pattern was busy, and there was a Cherokee heading towards downtown at one point that flew about 500ft below us from right to left. Blair and I called out traffic to each other and called the airport in sight as we got closer to IWS, where the pattern was really busy. We stayed to the east of the airport and came around to join the 45 to the left downwind and joined left downwind ahead of a Stinson that was just turning from crosswind to downwind. I looked left to see where we were in relation to the numbers, and saw that we were actually abeam a T-6 Texan making a really tight pattern that neither of us saw before then! We ended up extending our downwind past where he turned base and followed him in. I took over the controls again on base, and as we were turning final a Mooney called that they were going to take off in front of us. I asked him to wait as we were on a 1 mile final. There probably could have been time for him to take off, but with my experience level, I preferred that he wait. I made a very nice landing, if I may say so (and I may, since Blair said so too), and we taxied to the ramp and shut down. We got out, used the "Little Pilot's Room", and snapped the claim picture.
We jumped back in the plane, started up, and taxied out to do a run-up. We got to the run-up area and saw the brand new SkyFox helicopter parked on the ramp over to our left, so Blair took a quick picture of that since nobody was behind us. I briefed Blair on our plan for this flight and on the noise-abatement procedures and pilot-controlled weather for TME (Houston Exec., formerly 78T), which was to be our next stop. I did the runup, noted the time and saw that it was already 3:25p and I was supposed to have the plane back at SGR by 4:00p! We scrapped the plan to go to TME, took off, and departed north to go back to DWH.
We got the ATIS for DWH and called the tower just before reaching EYQ. Tower assigned us a squawk and informed us of an IFR Cessna descending from 2400' and overtaking us. We looked and didn't see him, but I told tower we did have several planes off of EYQ in sight. Tower told us to take up a heading of 350 from our current position and make that a wide right downwind for 17R. It was wide - about 5 miles wide! Blair held the heading until they called our base turn - about 7 miles out. We followed a Bonanza in to the runway. Once again, I took the controls back over while we were on base. As there was other traffic behind us, I kept the speed up at 105 kias until about 1 nm out. Then, when we were about 1.5 out, tower cleared another plane for immediate takeoff in front of us. This elicited a "WTF?!" from Blair, but I was already slowing the plane down and I figured it wouldn't be a factor. I pulled on the carb heat, dropped the throttle to 1500rpm, applied some back-pressure and trim to slow down, and incrementally dropped in all 40 deg of flaps. I greased a short-field touchdown, raised the flaps, pulled the yoke all the way back, and braked heavily so I could make the high-speed and get out of the way of the approaching traffic behind me. I then taxied right up to the door of the FBO and Blair hopped out.
I started up, taxied to the run-up area, did a quick run-up, and had to wait about 5 mins for landing traffic. I got cleared for an immediate takeoff behind a landing SabreLiner, so I quickly did my lights, camera, action! and took off. I cruised back to SGR at 1800', and had an uneventful flight. I nailed a short-field landing on 17 at SGR, and turned off at the first taxiway so that I'd have a shorter taxi back to the FBO, which is at the approach end of 17. I ended up parking at 4:15pm, but my tardiness wasn't a big deal after all as the student and instructor who had it after me had some ground briefing stuff to do before flying anyway. Still, I hated being late and doing that to them.
All in all, I did 1.9 hours of flying, and got one claim:
http://www.goflyamerica.org/airport_detail.asp?a=16051
Blair and I are planning on hitting a few more airports in the area, but next time he's going to come get me (mainly so he can claim SGR since I can't, as I'm based there). The few pictures we took (since we were both pretty busy flying) are posted at http://www.houstonspotters.net/cpg/thumbnails.php?album=307, but you probably need to register at http://www.houstonspotters.net to view them. That's okay, registration is free, and it's a great site!
Enjoy!
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