From: dst+@cs.cmu.edu (Dave Touretzky)
Newsgroups: rec.aviation
Subject: St. Louis trip report
Date: 1 Sep 92 06:18:08 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

I want to thank all the folks who sent me advice about where to land in St.
Louis:  Gregory Ratcliff, Loren Dean, David Gerlach, Greg Travis, Paul
Schoening, Ken Gianino, Robert Lewis, John Crawford, Geoff Peck, and Steve
Fenwick.

As in most cases of asking the net for advice, what I got was a mixed bag.
One person recommended a grass strip (not such a good choice for a Seneca);
another claimed that there was no FBO at one of the major airports I was
considering (there are actually several FBOs there), but for the most part
the information was useful.

Although a slight majority of the recommendations were for Spirit of St.
Louis airport (a major GA facility), I decided to land at St. Louis
Downtown/Parks College (CPS), mostly because the Gateway Arch is inside the
CPS airport traffic area.

The trip out was interesting.  I encountered a bunch of scattered but
embedded thunderstorm cells between Columbus and Dayton.  Although in the
past it seemed that merely turning on the Senceca's thunderstorm detection
equipment (Mr. Radar, if you recall one of my earlier posts) made all nearby
storm cells disappear, this past Thursday was a different story.  I ended up
doing a *LOT* of deviating, in some cases changing heading every few minutes
to squeeze between two cells with only a few miles to spare.  Fortunately
these were only small thunderstorms or heavy rain showers.  There was a
sigmet for severe TRWs with hail; if I had encountered a couple of those, it
would have been very dangerous to try to squeeze between them.  The AIM
recommends staying at least 20 miles from any severe thunderstorm.  But
dodging these small cells was fun; I spent a lot of time flipping between
the 10, 20, and 40 mile ranges on the radar, occasionally changing heading
by 30 degrees to take a peek in the direction I really wanted to go as I
continued to deviate around the cells.  ATC was very accomodating.  I got
moderate rain and only occasionally moderate turbulence, but I could see
some lightning, and I heard some other planes complaining about a hard ride.
I certainly would not have attempted to fly this route without radar.

I planned a fuel/rest stop in Shelbyville Indiana, mostly because I don't
like to fly for more than 2 hours or so without stretching my legs and
taking a breather.  ATC set me up for a VOR approach into Shelbyville.  This
is where positional awareness pays off.  I was cleared to the VOR, then I
was supposed to do a procedure turn and shoot the VOR approach.  About 6
miles from the VOR, I started thinking: where am I right now in relation to
the airport?  I realized that it should be a few miles off my left wing.  I
had ground contact, so I peered through the murk and there it was.  I
reported the field in sight and requested a contact approach from my present
position.  (I wasn't sure the visibility was good enough for a visual, and I
knew ATC cannot suggest a contact approach, only the pilot can.)  Approach
came back with a clearance for a visual, and I entered the pattern and
landed.

Shelbyville is the only air national guard airport in Indiana.  There were a
lot of olive drab helicopters parked on the far side of the field.  I got
some gas, a candy bar, and an update on the weather, and proceeded on my
way.

After doing my runup at Shelbyville I had a couple of minutes left to wait
before my IFR release time, so I decided to set up the approach plate for
St. Louis Downtown.  This is where I discovered that I had made a rather
embarassing flight planning mistake.  You see, not only is CPS not in St.
Louis, it's not even in Missouri.  The St. Louis Downtown Airport is in
Cahokia, Illinois -- in an approach plate book that I wasn't carrying.  I
felt *really* stupid about this because I had been looking up CPS in the
Illinois section of my AOPA guide, my FlightGuide, and my AFD.  I just
forgot that Missouri and Illinois are in different approach plate books.
Sigh.  Talk about bad human engineering.  NOS really ought to duplicate the
CPS plates in the Missouri book.

Well anyway I didn't panic, since if necessary I could ask St. Louis
Approach to read me the plate, but I was hoping that conditions at CPS would
be good enough that I'd get a visual approach and not have to confess my
stupidity.  No such luck.  The controller cleared me for an ILS, and so I
told him I didn't have the plate, and could I have a visual instead, or else
would he read it to me.  He said a visual should work.  I then told him that
what I really wanted to do was shoot the approach to CPS, then proceed
further west to the river and follow it northward to get a look at the arch
before returning to land.  Could he set that up with the tower for me?

The controller did better than that.  He offered to vector me right by the
arch, and then to the airport.  He did a great job, too.  Geoff Peck
recommended that I ask Approach for an arch flyby, and he was right: their
service was superb.  Once I had the arch in sight, they didn't give me a
minimum altitude to fly, they just said "remain east of the arch" (flying
west of it would have put me into a skyscraper) and "maintain your own
terrain clearance."  Yowza!

At CPS, I had planned to park and refuel at Ideal Aviation.  I got their
name from the AOPA guide, and called them up, and they were open for
business, so that was good enough for me.  But when I actually got there, I
found they had a tiny little ramp off in a corner of the airport which I
couldn't get to because there was a 172 parked on the taxiway, and they
didn't answer the Unicom.  So as I'm wondering what to do, this guy jogs up
and tells me he's from Avtek (a competing FBO), and I can park with them.
This turned out to be an incredible stroke of good luck.  Avtek's fuel price
was so low it seemed indecent ($1.64/gallon plus tax), and they actually
rolled out a red carpet for me to step onto.  Then they refused to call me a
cab so I could get to my hotel; instead they insisted on driving me in their
courtesy van, and even carried my bags into the lobby for me.  There were no
landing, ramp, or parking fees, either.  Talk about incredible service!!!

A couple of days later I took some St. Louis friends up for their first ride
in a small plane, and naturally I wanted to fly by the arch so they could
take some pictures.  As mentioned previously, the arch is inside the CPS
ATA, so I "negotiated" this with the tower.  I put "negotiated" in quotes
because the tower was incredibly laid back about it; when I told them I
wanted to fly up and down the river past the arch, they just said "okay".
When I asked them if there was a preferred altitude for this sort of
operation, all they said was "stay beneath the TCA."  So I flew up and down
the river at 800 AGL (pattern altitude for CPS), and a fine time was had by
all.

My return flight to Pittsburgh was uneventful.  I picked MGY (Dayton General
South) for my rest stop because we had used that airport for a rec.aviation
fly-in earlier this year.  I was going to buy fuel there, but the line guys
were so slow (they were hanging out with some Pitts that had just landed)
and the fuel price was so high that when I finished my candy bar I said
"forget it" and took off again.  I had plenty of fuel anyway; refueling at
each stop is just a habit with me.

So anyway, if you're approaching St. Louis from the east and want to do some
sightseeing as part of your flight, I heartily recommend the Downtown
airport.  Avtek is a wonderful FBO.  The St. Louis TCA controllers are very
helpful and laid back; the atmosphere there is nothing like what you find in
New York.

One more observation:  the St. Louis TCA has a huge number of airports under
its wedding cake.  I'm struck by the contrast with Philadelphia, where the
only full-service choices are PHL and PNE.  Looks like STL might be a good
place for pilots to live.  But personally I still prefer Pittsburgh.

-- Dave Touretzky, CFI-AIM,  Seneca N8147E (``The Arch-Buzzing Beast'')