Search efforts continued Tuesday morning for a missing Central Texas pilot whose aircraft was last tracked to an area near Giddings.

The Civil Air Patrol says five aircrews and five ground teams would renew the search for Mark Ritter, 71, after first light Tuesday. Officials said the search command post also moved Tuesday to the Giddings/Lee County Airport, from where all operations would be directed.

"At this point in time we're discouraging people from trying to overfly the area and join in on the search because we have tightly scheduled patterened grids that we're sarching, and for the safety of all concerned we need to keep those areas pristine," said Cima Brooks, Civil Air Patrol.

Three planes flew for three hours Monday from 10 miles east of Giddings to two miles south of 290 in an arc to Lockhart in the search for Ritter. They later moved further south to Fayette County, where someone had filed a report of hearing an aircraft in trouble in that area.

Ritter was in an RV-10 experimental plane he helped build. He took off from the Brenham Municipal Airport about 12:30 p.m. Sunday along with another plane. Both were headed to Lockhart.

Ritter never arrived, and his plane transponder was tracked to an area about 10 miles east of Giddings. The terrain there is full of thick brush and undeveloped land.

Ritter told friends before he left he wasn't feeling well and wanted to get home.

The Civil Air Patrol reports that Ritter's emergency locator transmitter has not gone off -- which it would have in the event of either a crash or bumpy landing. They are hoping he safely landed the plane and is waiting for help.