Hot Springs, Arkansas over Memorial Day

flying, thoughts

This year  we used the Tiger to escape the already hot weather in Austin and flew to Hot Springs, Arkansas over the three day Memorial Day week-end.

The weather was less than ideal but we completed the trip. Thanks to XM weather and internet (fore flight) I was able to pick a time and line to fly this 350NM trip with a mesoscale disturbance in the area. On the flight out on Sat we departed in MVFR conditions out of Austin, flying in 2000ft AGL in light rain.After about 30 min, the weather improved and I could climb through a scattered Cu to 9500ft on top. The rest of the flight was mostly uneventful. I only had to maneuver out of the way of some Cu towers that were building. The KHOT FBO was helping us to tie down the airplane, refuel and had the rental car waiting at the plane. Impressive service and very nice line men!

We enjoyed two days of lush green nature and excellent food with pleasant temperatures (80ies) before heading back on Monday. Monday we departed at 10am from KHOT, climbed to 8500 on top of scattered Cu. But a line of thunderstorms was already moving in on Austin, still 2 hours flight time away, which prevented us from going direct. So we diverted to Waco where we landed to wait out the storm. It gave us options to drive home, should the bad weather last longer than expected. We touched down in light rain, with a massively dark sky south of us. When I parked, another airplane a Pilatus PC-12 headed for KAUS taxied in to wait out the storm. I felt reassured in my decision making.

The friendly guys from Texas Aero FBO gave us a complimentary crew car and hangared our plane in the storm for free. After a 2 hour break, now well fed, the FBO guys pulled up our plane in front of the building and we departed in light rain. We headed for Georgetown to refuel and then to KAUS, where we were some of the first VFR traffic to arrive after the storm. It’s beautiful how technology helps to conduct safe VFR operations.

Happy, with another family flying trip in the books we headed home for a cold beer.

 

Slow Down to Speed Up

thoughts

To complete a task efficiently with high quality results I’ve found that slowing myself down and concentrating on it to then execute it purposefully is faster in the end than rushing through it just to complete it quickest. When I don’t slow myself down, I find that I’m not satisfied with the quality of execution and the final result and have to do it all over again. Or I make mistakes and have accidents that require more work to clean up. All result in slower execution than doing it slightly slower in first place. So I tell myself: “Slow down to speed up”. But this works only if you’ve already mastered the skill of fast execution. Procrastination shouldn’t be slowed down ;-).  You should always challenge yourself to complete a task in an aggressive time frame with the risk of not achieving it. That way you discover optimizations unknown to you before.

 

 

A painful month of April in the year of 2014

thoughts

Two people dear to my heart have passed away last month. First my aunt Karin passed away and shortly after my flying friend, mentor and role model Willi.

It’s hard to see you go. I’ll keep you in my thoughts. It helps a little to think about the circle of life, and the joy I experience from watching my son grow up. But death has been pushed aside in our hectic, result driven society. And when death strikes in our social circle – too close to ignore – we find ourselves dumbfounded. Currently I just feel sad and numb and empty.