May 26-28, 2018 KSUS Spirit of St Louis (Chesterfield), MO

Origin: KMIC
Destination: KSUS
Total Logged Time: 8.8 hours
Approximately 4.0-4.4 hours in air each way

Yay. Our first multi-stop, multi-day cross country flight! What a great experience! Highlights include:

Great VFR weather for both legs, no delays.
Watching a F-18 land in front of us. Wow!
While the F-18 was landing, a vintage Stearman getting ready to take-off
Taking the niece and nephews flying for the first time
VFR Flight Following the entire trip, working with ATC in busy airspaces and getting Bravo transitions.
It isn’t scary to take a longish cross country, just a series of smaller cross-countries.
Amazing co-pilot to share the trip! We are a good team!

PIREPS:
KAWG (Washington, IA): This was our mid-way fuel stop. Sleepy airport, saw two other small airplanes in or around the area. Cheap fuel, good pumps, spacious ramp. Mediocre FBO ramp, but served it purpose.
KSUS (Chesterfield, MO): Spirit of St Louis. This was a typical large, full-service airport/FBO. There was several vintage airplanes around and I think it might be normal per the A/FD descriptions. We utilized TACAir and had no complaints. There was self-service fuel on the field which was about as expensive as full service at home.
KFYG (Washington, MO): This is the airport we flew to and took the family for rides. We choose this because it was more low-key and easier more “friendly” for our needs and multiple start/stops.
55Y (Rushford, MN): We choose this as our “past mid-way” fuel stop. Super cheap fuel and nice facilities for a rural airport. Very unique approach too, we didn’t expect to see the rolling cliffs in MN around this airport. We want to go back and explore the area in the future.

VFR Proposed routing, navigating VORs enroute.

Pre-trip tradition… selfies, haha

I like this shot, just off the end of Cedar Rapids airport

First fuel stop, KAWG (Washington, IA).

Flat land!

I had to take this shot, all alone on the ramp.

Start of many F-18 shots. Apparently TAC Air at KSUS has a nice agreement with different governments. This particular plane was from Canada. Something like 2100 gallons of fuel! So. Cool. Playing with the big planes. 2657