Flight to St. Louis, IL (KCPS)

During Thanksgiving weekend, we decided to take a (relatively) long trip and cover two cities. We started our journey with a flight to St. Louis. Leaving Crystal (KMIC) at approximately 10:30am, we reached St. Louis in 3 hours.

This flight was also my first experience with Visual Flight Rules (VFR) Flight Following. Prior to that, I watched multiple YouTube videos on how and why to use flight following. The benefits are two-fold; ATC knows what I am doing and I have someone else keeping tabs on where I am at any given point. It helps ATC also manage traffic in the vicinity when they are aware. Jason from MzeroA has a great video on how to do VFR Flight Following.

I had planned my flight to avoid an advisory area near St. Louis. When ATC noticed my route not going direct to St. Louis they inquired on what I am planning to do. I informed them that I am avoiding the advisory area. Although they didn’t come back with allowing me to go through, I later realized that I could have taken the direct route if they are aware. They could help manage the traffic and ensure I stay out of trouble.

My route took me near Springfield to avoid the MOA north of St. Louis

Although this was end of November, due to a mild winter we did not see any snow on the ground while flying through Minnesota, Iowa or Illinois. While coming in to land at the St. Louis Downtown airport, we could see the famous Arch nearby.

The airport was in close proximity to the St. Louis International airport, which is in Class B airspace. As I was on VFR flight following, I was in constant communication with the traffic controller. To allow for the smooth operation of air traffic in the vicinity, they allowed me to go through the Class B airspace.

As I had called ahead to the FBO, they arranged a National rental car and had it pulled up to the door after we went inside. The staff was very efficient and courteous. Their prices were reasonable and as we requested, filled up the plane with fuel while I went in to the city for a couple of days.

We stayed at the Hyatt Regency near the Arch. It was less than 10 minutes from the airport and in the heart of downtown. We visited the Arch a couple of times while we were there and also enjoyed some really good restaurants.

We also visited the beautiful Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.

After a couple of days in St. Louis, we went on to Indianapolis. Since it was a Thanksgiving weekend, we wanted to utilize the days off and visit multiple cities during the time.