Let'sgoflying!
Touchdown! Greaser!
Today was a fairly momentous trip for us, we returned our kidney recipient back to his home. You may remember the post I made about taking S to Houston about 2 months ago at the last minute late one night when S was called to receive a new kidney. There have been a lot of ups, and especially downs for S, I had no idea how serious the risks - but finally the worst appears over (for the time being). Anyway back to the flying: It was hoped to be a morning flight because of the afternoon SE Texas weather is often full of fireworks but schedules conflicted so the flight was moved to the middle of 'the show'.
We departed here around noon and arrived in the SAT area to hear the next controller issuing holds much like I heard yesterday when I was in the Bellanca. First callup we were told to expect a hold on an arrival fix (yipe, how to program that in?!). Well we totally screwed that up and I had to heading bug us around the hold but not for long. We then were told they had started to let into HOU so we got a southerly vector and an expedited descent while maneuvering around the tall TCUs down to I think it was fl200.
His voice sounded kind of urgent on the expedite and we had no passengers so we were happy to give him 4500fpm! Throttles to idle, speed brakes out (very loud rumble) still in the turn so it went down like an anchor. Then we got expect holding at Palacias, PSX. I almost entered PSK, guess I might be joining the presbyopia crowd, will check with the eyedoc next visit. Another hdg-bug hold but also not for long, now direct Kendy (on the original arrival, at least they didn't switch the arrival as I would have been a bit pressed to dump the old star and enter the new one) and down to 10, 'depart Smoak on a 050 heading'. We are watching the buildups and rain beneath them out the window and comparing them to the radar picture on the panel. Amazing how the eye is much more reliable. There were some huge ones that showed little on the radar but I never would have gone into them. (I probably need some radar training too.) The arrival route as displayed was nicely in between the bad stuff, so down and in between we went. Lots of chatter about people reporting in holds, requesting deviations, requesting longer legs in the holds I suspect ICH was much more backed up than HOU and we sailed past a lot of TCAS traffic because of this. Routine vectors around to ILS 12R then 'clrd apprch', arm the autopilot, watch it track the needles, do our checklist and radio work etc. Until the last 10 miles we were in sunshine and as we tracked the localizer we could see the airport was beneath the edge of the storm. I saw the threshold 7 miles out but could not see the far perimeter so I had us double check what we were going to do on the missed just in case. Tower said watch windshear and such but we barely got a burble and I carried more than the usual +ref speed just in case. Felt like we were flying into a wall cloud but the radar showed better, and ground reports were more optimistic.
Rwy braking action was reported good and it was. They gave us a turn and I had the brakes jammed up pretty good in order to slow enough to make it, and as they are supposed to, below 12kts the antiskid released and I skidded the mains a little bit. On the taxiway the rain was pretty heavy and the vis was much poorer, see pics. At the ramp it was pouring, gnd crews had all weather gear on and were holding umbrellas for us, I stepped out in my west Texas dry weather clothing and got soaked pretty quickly. Inside to shake off, order fuel, meet the pax who probably thought we'd never get through the tz that passed recently (we were 20 mins late due to holds etc).
Checked out the cookie bar (sparse), the free drinks (nah, I need to cut back on the sodas) and then the radar and called fss to give a pirep.
They pulled the a/c into a hangar to load bags and fuel (which I thought was a bit unusual). Soon the sun appeared and it became steamy - and we headed out again. Clearance pickup, (why do they always ask where and if atis on CD at HOU?) taxi instructions, checklists, FMS programming, set initial altitude and hdg on eadi, follow progress on taxi chart, hold short then expedite across 12; P&H 17. Bugs set, power dialed up on reminder, checklist complete except for hot runway items (P/S heat, ignition) and wait. Not for long, this is Houston. Soon we were climbing out and cleaning up, more checklists, turning and dialing, up and on our way to join the Industry 2 JCT transition to ELP. No excitement now, just monitoring things, watching tcas traffic and wx radar, a bit of sightseeing as Houston disappears behind, shiny wet and warm.
Nearing cruise altitude we break out our Subways and settle in, the weather is clear for us once again.
Pics of some clouds enroute, our destination, and our return home, things I saw on the way. These are tiring days, I worked from 7-11 today then flew 12-7, then home to take care of business and home things, a 'nap' from which I awoke at 10pm "where am I, what time/day is it", now I can't sleep at 12:30 so you have to suffer with my rambling stories!
How do you type text beneath/above each pic??
The DC3 happened to be taxiing out so I couldn't restrain my picture finger.
The contrail pic, look closely at the bottom for the airliner that made it as he passed through the moisture, he is still making one but less.
The Capped Cloud had a kind of viel over the top of it you can still see the edges of it.
We departed here around noon and arrived in the SAT area to hear the next controller issuing holds much like I heard yesterday when I was in the Bellanca. First callup we were told to expect a hold on an arrival fix (yipe, how to program that in?!). Well we totally screwed that up and I had to heading bug us around the hold but not for long. We then were told they had started to let into HOU so we got a southerly vector and an expedited descent while maneuvering around the tall TCUs down to I think it was fl200.
His voice sounded kind of urgent on the expedite and we had no passengers so we were happy to give him 4500fpm! Throttles to idle, speed brakes out (very loud rumble) still in the turn so it went down like an anchor. Then we got expect holding at Palacias, PSX. I almost entered PSK, guess I might be joining the presbyopia crowd, will check with the eyedoc next visit. Another hdg-bug hold but also not for long, now direct Kendy (on the original arrival, at least they didn't switch the arrival as I would have been a bit pressed to dump the old star and enter the new one) and down to 10, 'depart Smoak on a 050 heading'. We are watching the buildups and rain beneath them out the window and comparing them to the radar picture on the panel. Amazing how the eye is much more reliable. There were some huge ones that showed little on the radar but I never would have gone into them. (I probably need some radar training too.) The arrival route as displayed was nicely in between the bad stuff, so down and in between we went. Lots of chatter about people reporting in holds, requesting deviations, requesting longer legs in the holds I suspect ICH was much more backed up than HOU and we sailed past a lot of TCAS traffic because of this. Routine vectors around to ILS 12R then 'clrd apprch', arm the autopilot, watch it track the needles, do our checklist and radio work etc. Until the last 10 miles we were in sunshine and as we tracked the localizer we could see the airport was beneath the edge of the storm. I saw the threshold 7 miles out but could not see the far perimeter so I had us double check what we were going to do on the missed just in case. Tower said watch windshear and such but we barely got a burble and I carried more than the usual +ref speed just in case. Felt like we were flying into a wall cloud but the radar showed better, and ground reports were more optimistic.
Rwy braking action was reported good and it was. They gave us a turn and I had the brakes jammed up pretty good in order to slow enough to make it, and as they are supposed to, below 12kts the antiskid released and I skidded the mains a little bit. On the taxiway the rain was pretty heavy and the vis was much poorer, see pics. At the ramp it was pouring, gnd crews had all weather gear on and were holding umbrellas for us, I stepped out in my west Texas dry weather clothing and got soaked pretty quickly. Inside to shake off, order fuel, meet the pax who probably thought we'd never get through the tz that passed recently (we were 20 mins late due to holds etc).
Checked out the cookie bar (sparse), the free drinks (nah, I need to cut back on the sodas) and then the radar and called fss to give a pirep.
They pulled the a/c into a hangar to load bags and fuel (which I thought was a bit unusual). Soon the sun appeared and it became steamy - and we headed out again. Clearance pickup, (why do they always ask where and if atis on CD at HOU?) taxi instructions, checklists, FMS programming, set initial altitude and hdg on eadi, follow progress on taxi chart, hold short then expedite across 12; P&H 17. Bugs set, power dialed up on reminder, checklist complete except for hot runway items (P/S heat, ignition) and wait. Not for long, this is Houston. Soon we were climbing out and cleaning up, more checklists, turning and dialing, up and on our way to join the Industry 2 JCT transition to ELP. No excitement now, just monitoring things, watching tcas traffic and wx radar, a bit of sightseeing as Houston disappears behind, shiny wet and warm.
Nearing cruise altitude we break out our Subways and settle in, the weather is clear for us once again.
Pics of some clouds enroute, our destination, and our return home, things I saw on the way. These are tiring days, I worked from 7-11 today then flew 12-7, then home to take care of business and home things, a 'nap' from which I awoke at 10pm "where am I, what time/day is it", now I can't sleep at 12:30 so you have to suffer with my rambling stories!
How do you type text beneath/above each pic??
The DC3 happened to be taxiing out so I couldn't restrain my picture finger.
The contrail pic, look closely at the bottom for the airliner that made it as he passed through the moisture, he is still making one but less.
The Capped Cloud had a kind of viel over the top of it you can still see the edges of it.
