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A post shared by Michael Castellon (@mcastellon) on Feb 24, 2019 at 3:49pm PST

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Training toward my instrument rating has been time consuming and challenging. Flying hasn’t been either fun or casual for a number of months. To remedy this, Lauren and I went to the airport on a cool, sunny Sunday morning and departed west for Fredericksburg, Texas.

The Gillespie County Municipal Airport in Fredericksburg is a popular destination for many pilots. The airport is home to an onsite diner and World War II-themed hotel. I’ve been flying out here since I was a student pilot; its still one of my favorite flying destinations.

The flight from Austin, which takes about an hour, tracks over downtown Austin. The corridor between Austin and Fredericksburg can be hectic. I always request flight following on this route, and today it pays off. Our en route altitude of 6,500 MLS puts us between eastbound aircraft that are cruising or transitioning between altitudes in our area. On this trip an air traffic controller would clear me to climb, then moments later would issue a traffic alert and tell me to descend as an eastbound aircraft would pass about 1,000 feet overhead.

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Our route tracks along the Pedernales River and over the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Park and “Texas White House.” The LBJ Ranch house and private airstrip is highly visible from above and indicated on VFR sectional charts. I like to make note of the ranch when I’m in the vicinity as it would make for an appealing option during an emergency around otherwise unforgiving terrain.

I navigate using the Stonewall VOR, and the onboard GPS and Foreflight serve as secondary reference. Arriving into Fredericksburg is an unpredictable adventure. Because Gillespie County is a destination airport, I often find myself sharing airspace with a variety of aircraft and pilots of all experience levels. I give frequent and specific position reports beginning about 12 miles out. Today, a flight of four Beechcraft Barons overtakes me near the airport. Meanwhile, two other aircraft are maneuvering in the pattern. I do a 360 turn a few miles east of the airport to create some distance between myself and other aircraft then proceed toward the airport for a solid landing on Runway 32.

We take an Uber from the airport to downtown Fredericksburg and spend a few hours for lunch and shopping. We walk through the Japanese Garden of Peace at the National Museum of Pacific War and catch a ride back to the airport. Gentle winds prevail as we arrive back at Austin.

I attended an FAA safety seminar last weekend about engine failures, and it has me thinking about my personal experiences.

I experienced my only engine failure to date shortly after a night takeoff, which in my opinion is the absolute the worst time to lose confidence in your engine.

I was a relatively new student pilot and still several months away from my checkride. My instructor and I had just departed on a night cross-country flight. I was at the controls, climbing out of 1,500 feet AGL just a few miles from the airport when the engine stuttered. My instructor didn’t notice the engine’s hesitation. My attention went to the tachometer. It slid downward a second time. The plane pulled. This time she noticed. I was keenly aware that we were engulfed in a black, night sky. A highway below contained considerable traffic so wasn’t an option. If we had to put the plane down into the blackness, there would be no telling where we’d end up. There was no way to know what was inside that abyss –– farm equipment, livestock, fences, water. All were dismal landing environments.

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It’s been a long, hot summer here in Austin. We’ve had more than 50 days of temperatures hitting 100 degrees or higher. As I’m not particularly fond of flying in excessive heat, I grounded myself for much of the summer. But today’s high of (only) 90+ degrees seemed like a good time to go flying and reset my currency in preparation for the upcoming cooler flying season.

After a methodical preflight, however, I did one final check of Foreflight radar just before starting the engine and was dismayed to see brand new thunderstorm cells popping up throughout the area. These new cells were tracking directly toward my planned route.

It would have been easy to go. It’s easy to feel pressured to make a go decision after so much time has been invested in the flight. I certainly felt that mental tug toward a poor decision today. I found myself trying to justify a go decision. Maybe I could beat the storms? Or I could route between them? Both were poor decisions, I concluded, and I started the humbling process of shutting down the airplane, packing my headset and sectional chart and securing the plane before driving home.

I’m grateful for the instructors over the years who stressed to me the importance of always being willing to walk away from a flight. One mental trick I use is to assume the flight will be a no-go all the way up to the completion of the Before Takeoff checklist. This way, both the airplane and the conditions need to convince me of their airworthiness. NTSB accident and incident reports are full of pilots who became too invested in their flight and continued on into poor weather or with unairworthy equipment. Mature pilots will resist that powerful temptation to fly when conditions or aircraft tell them to go home.

I’ve been flying more to build time and prepare for instrument training. This week we flew to Llano and met some guys who were waiting as a mechanic replaced a magneto on their Maule. We also met Larry Snyder of the Ercoupe Owners Club, who had flown in from Arkansas for lunch. After a stop in Fredericksburg, we headed back to Austin and encountered some moderate turbulence west of the city, resulting in a PIREP. Foreflight continues to be an amazing tool for managing flight plans and other details.