In October 2023, me and my wife took a quick day trip to Des Moines. I wanted to make the most of my ability to fly to a different city and explore. We ended up going there with just enough time to explore downtown and grab dinner at a great restaurant.

For this flight, I rented a Cherokee Dakota. The Dakota is a high performance airplane. With my recent instrument training flights, I had gained enough hours (more than 50) to be able to checkout in the Dakota. At a cruise speed of 135 knots per hour, we were able to reach Des Moines in less than 2 hours. The plane is equipped with autopilot for maintaining heading. This really helped me in maintain constant heading without making constant changes. With a proper trim, the plane managed its altitude fairly well with minor changes.

We left Crystal (KMIC) at approximately 4:30pm. Clear blue skies and calm wind really helped make it in a smooth and enjoyable trip. Although Des Moines is straight south of Crystal, I had to detour around to ensure I stayed out of Minneapolis and Flying Cloud airspace. Minneapolis has Class B airspace and Flying Cloud has Class D airspace. Although I would have been able to get permission to transition via the Class D airspace, I just preferred to fly without troubling them since it would only add 1-2 minutes to my flight by making the detour.

Since it was the fall season, we were also witnessing the fall colors during our flight.

Des Moines was my first experience landing in a Class C airspace. A Class C designated airport is one which is busy with commercial traffic. It is not as busy as major airports e.g. O’Hare, Minneapolis, JFK etc. but nonetheless, Class C requires additional clearance entering into their airspace. When coming in to land it was exciting to see a Southwest plane waiting for my small plane to land so they can take off.

After landing, we taxied to Modern Aviation. The tower control on the radio went out of his way to talk me through the taxi instructions. Although I had the taxi diagram open and could have figured it out, since he found out it was my first time here, he guided me all the way through.

Modern Aviation had great customer service and a swanky building. Their fuel rates were reasonable, and landing fee was waived with a 10 gallon fuel purchase. We borrowed a courtesy car for a couple of hours to grab dinner in downtown Des Moines. Since its a small city, two hours was plenty for us to explore and have dinner. We walked around the Pappajohn Sculpture Park and then stopped to eat at Fong’s Pizza. After dinner, we were back to airport to fly home.

By the time we arrived back at Modern Aviation, the plane was already fueled and I just had to clear the bill before heading to the tarmac. After I had done my preflight and started the airplane, I made a call to ATC for departure. That is when I learnt that at a Class C airport, even for departure there are separate frequencies which are in addition to the ones I am used to in Class D airports. After the gentle advisory from tower, I switched to ground clearance frequency and got my departure instructions.

It was a new airport and also a night time departure. With the help from ground and tower control, it was a smooth taxi and takeoff. We took off from Des Moines at approximately 8:45pm and with a favorable wind, we landed at Crystal around 10:30pm. In addition to a long journey, we had to come back to an airport where the control tower had closed for the night.