While working on my Instrument Rating, one of the requirements I had to meet was 50 hours of cross-country flight time. Cross-country is counted if the airport of origin and destination are at least 50 miles apart and the plane makes a full stop landing at the destination airport. With my recent trips, I was still short a few hours. To make up for this time, I decided to make a quick visit to Kansas. Instead of flying into the heart of busy Kansas airspace, I opted for a suburb, specifically Lee’s Summit.

This was a solo trip on the day of the Super Bowl, where the Chiefs were playing the 49ers. In the morning, I departed from Crystal Airport at approximately 11 a.m., and it was a 3.5-hour flight. As with my previous flights, I was on VFR flight following, and had autopilot enabled. With the route I planned, I expected there to be some clouds near the Des Moines area, with the top layer at 6000 feet. Therefore, I planned to fly at 6,500 feet to stay above the clouds. However, as I came closer, I realized the cloud tops might be a bit higher than expected, so I climbed to 7500 feet to maintain separation. This was my first time flying above the clouds and it was an amazing sight.

The cloud layer remained for approximately 100 miles. After crossing it, I had another hour to go before landing at Lee Summit. It is a municipal airport managed by the city boasting long runways with very little traffic. It was an easy entry into the pattern and a smooth landing. I parked at the only FBO, which is also run by the city. For a public facility, it was very impressive on how well-kept both the airport and the FBO were. Since I was only planning to be there for a short while, I had not called ahead. Fortunately, the FBO had a courtesy car available which I used to go into the city to have lunch. On the recommendation of the FBO staff, I decided to go to Third Street Social for lunch. As it turns out, the restaurant was about to close in 15 minutes after I arrived. I assume it was because of the Super Bowl game which was about to start. I ordered Korean Steak Tacos, which were a light snack but delicious.

After a quick lunch, I headed straight back to the airport. I filled up gas in the plane at the self serve, as the full service price difference was significant. From there it was back in the air headed to Crystal. I left around 3.30pm and it took approximately 3.5 hours on the way back as well. During the return trip, I encountered the same cloud layer that was present earlier. By this time, it was covering a smaller area and had thinned out a bit. Overall, the return flight was as smooth as the outbound. I was back home in time to join some friends for dinner!