Aircraft

On arrival I was shocked to find that the top of the obstacle, an oil-drilling rig, is right on the centerline and glidepath for Runway 35.

I did not know how much longer I was going to be able to fly the airplane, and if the door was going to rip off and cause structural damage to the airplane.

After landing and securing my aircraft, I tracked down the other pilot that passed under me in the pattern. I asked him if he didn’t hear the other aircraft in the pattern announcing they were using Runway X. He seemed unaware of other traffic. I asked if he even saw my plane in front of him, which he indicated “no,” at which point I expressed my concern.

The course the PT-17 was turning towards appeared to put them on course to pass over the top of me as I departed northbound. I assumed they didn’t see me, so I started a turn roughly 30° to the right and made a radio call that I had the PT-17 in sight and we were no longer a factor for each other.

While on the left base leg I heard another aircraft announce left base. I looked all around and was not able to see another aircraft. I announced and made my turn to final for Runway XX. At that point another aircraft reprimanded me over the CTAF for “cutting me off.” There was some unprofessional “back and forth” on the CTAF where, in the heat of the moment, we expressed our differing opinions of who was at fault.

The chain of events began with my inability to locate the runway while already descending, and my commitment to my base to final approach plan.

I was using Foreflight for flight planning and airspace avoidance purposes. I was not aware that on the airspace menu the tab for SUA had been set to the “off” position. I was following a direct path between ZZZ1 and ZZZ, which resulted in flying directly through the restricted area completely unaware of its existence.

Everyone, including Approach, is well aware of this and they are forced to hand off in-bound traffic to New Braunfels Tower way too early and Tower, being non-radar, is blind to that traffic until acquiring them visually.

From now on I will make sure to have a more “big picture” understanding before rolling for takeoff — I was thinking why did I not see him on my ADS-B and I realized because both my GPS units were zoomed in to airport taxi diagrams.