Minuteman's Flying: San Antonio

I've flown to San Antonio only three times now and this was the first time I didn't dread it.

The first time, back in my Private Pilot days, my instructor and I headed that way only to find lots of fluffy clouds covering the area, with an occasional (sucker) hole where we could see a highway leading to the airport, which was not exactly ideal VFR weather.

Flash forward a year to instrument training. As we began descending into SAT in solid IMC, the attitude indicatior slowly began leaning to the left at a rate of only a couple of degrees per minute...just enough to make you chalk up the disagreement with the rate-of-turn indicator to bumpy weather. That one ended up in and approach where we popped-out a hundred feet above minimums.

This time was different. The weather was interesting and the airplane had all its bits and pieces. We borrowed a courtesy car and went into town for lunch. All in all it was a success ... but I still dislike the burg.

	On the way into San Antonio we got a call for an American MD-80 at our six o'clock. Naturally, we dived for the camera as it overtook us.

	Randolph Air Frorce Base is the place to go to become a pilot in the USAF and for basic training. Looks like a nice place.

	We ended up waiting for a while before we could depart. It wasn't totally a bad thing, though, because we saw lots of neat planes fly and taxi by.

	My instructor definitely gets credit for this one, a Midwest 717 at about 30 feet.

	There was a ground hold for somewhere in effect because this Continental MD-80 and an American MD-80 were both being held.

	Just another picture of another airplane. I was enamoured with the whole deal anyway.

	Somewhere down there are good places to go rock climbing and kite-boarding.