Amarillo next week….

[hubcap]

I will be flying to Amarillo KAMA next week for business. Anything I should know? Looks like Signature is the only option for an FBO…..Would H81 be a better option than KAMA?

[N201MKTurbo]

I was there a month ago and stopped at H81. They were wonderful. Let me use a courtesy car to get some lunch. 

[NickG]

Go to the Big Texan Steakhouse!

[Vance Harral]

While I've heard good things about stays at KAMA, I always go to Tradewind, KTDW.  It's closer to downtown, and the current self-serve fuel price is considerably cheaper than Signature full service at KAMA.  Haven't stayed overnight in a while, but I was there for fuel stops twice earlier this year.  Good service from Tradewind FBO, comfortable pilot's lounge, and a good lunch at the airport cafe, Shelby's.

[hubcap]

1 hour ago, Vance Harral said:

While I've heard good things about stays at KAMA, I always go to Tradewind, KTDW.  It's closer to downtown, and the current self-serve fuel price is considerably cheaper than Signature full service at KAMA.  Haven't stayed overnight in a while, but I was there for fuel stops twice earlier this year.  Good service from Tradewind FBO, comfortable pilot's lounge, and a good lunch at the airport cafe, Shelby's.

So would you recommend KTDW over H81? It looks like KTDW is closer to town.

[Marc_B]

Agree, TDW is an easy location to fly into.  Last time I was there there were signs leaving TDW about flying into H81 for cheap fuel...I think someone was trying to drum up business; although I'm not sure what facilities and services they have at H81.  TDW has a full service FBO with a solid restaurant.

If I were flying into Amarillo I think TDW makes sense.  My father lives up there and so I've flown into BGD a couple times.  Fun tidbit is that the Philips refinery is right across the field from BGD and it's one of the only places that have 100LL piped into the airport rather than tankered.  Also at the end of the month if BGD is running a profit, they'll turn it over to balance the books with cheaper fuel since they're nonprofit.  So sometimes you can find really cheap fuel there.  (looks like currently its all around $4.30-4.70/gal down in the area)

[midlifeflyer]

It's been a long time, but I once did an Angel Flight connection in Amarillo. I wanted to go into AMA, but the other pilot wanted to go into Tradewinds. I asked why, and he said it was because he wanted to avoid the busy Class Charlie airspace and prefer red the non-towered Tradewinds. I insisted on Amarillo because it had a restaurant, (TDW didn't have one then) so that if he was late, we would have a place to sit down and have some coffee. So we ended up at AMA where he and I were the only airplanes taking off or landing during the hour and a half we were there.

Edited Monday at 02:46 PM by midlifeflyer

[Vance Harral]

18 hours ago, hubcap said:

So would you recommend KTDW over H81?

Can't say, I've never been to H81.  I just know that KTDW has treated us well, many times.

@midlifeflyer's story about KAMA being quiet makes sense to me, and I wouldn't avoid it because it's "busy", I just think KTDW has cheaper gas, is closer to town, and now has the restaurant.

Getting a bit off topic here, but in my experience, Class C towered airports are a lot more pleasant to fly into than Class D towered airports.  I think a lot of pilots get introduced to towered airport ops at a busy Class D, and conclude that flying into a Class C must be even crazier, but it's often the opposite.  Here in the Denver Metro area, I'd take a flight into KCOS over one to KBJC or KAPA, any day, and any time of day.

[hubcap]

4 hours ago, Vance Harral said:

Getting a bit off topic here, but in my experience, Class C towered airports are a lot more pleasant to fly into than Class D towered airports.  I think a lot of pilots get introduced to towered airport ops at a busy Class D, and conclude that flying into a Class C must be even crazier, but it's often the opposite.  Here in the Denver Metro area, I'd take a flight into KCOS over one to KBJC or KAPA, any day, and any time of day.

I couldn’t agree with you more on that. I fly regularly into both Class C and Class D and more often than not the only reason it is a Class C is that a regional carrier flies out of there.  I flew out of a Class D that had busy flight school activities and it was far more demanding than any Class C that I have experienced.

[midlifeflyer]

14 hours ago, Vance Harral said:

Can't say, I've never been to H81.  I just know that KTDW has treated us well, many times.

@midlifeflyer's story about KAMA being quiet makes sense to me, and I wouldn't avoid it because it's "busy", I just think KTDW has cheaper gas, is closer to town, and now has the restaurant.

Getting a bit off topic here, but in my experience, Class C towered airports are a lot more pleasant to fly into than Class D towered airports.  I think a lot of pilots get introduced to towered airport ops at a busy Class D, and conclude that flying into a Class C must be even crazier, but it's often the opposite.  Here in the Denver Metro area, I'd take a flight into KCOS over one to KBJC or KAPA, any day, and any time of day.

Well, in the case of APA, it’s busier than many if not most Class C airports but is not radar controlled. When I moved to a nontowered airport in North Carolina, pilots told me they avoided RDU because it was “too busy.” I would laugh and point out that if you added RDU and GSO and added 100,000 annual ops, you’d have the APA numbers,

[midlifeflyer]

9 hours ago, hubcap said:

I couldn’t agree with you more on that. I fly regularly into both Class C and Class D and more often than not the only reason it is a Class C is that a regional carrier flies out of there.  I flew out of a Class D that had busy flight school activities and it was far more demanding than any Class C that I have experienced

That’s true of Class B primaries as well.

[Vance Harral]

13 hours ago, hubcap said:

I flew out of a Class D that had busy flight school activities and it was far more demanding than any Class C that I have experienced.

That's my experience as well.  The heavy flight training activity at some class D airports creates a particular kind of demand that just isn't found at "larger" airports.

ATC staffing shortages are making the Class D situation worse, and not just in the obvious way.  The nearest Class D to me (KBJC) increasingly refuses pattern work due to "staffing issues", but that doesn't stop the pattern work, of course - it just ships it out to nearby untowered airports.  This (1) floods the suburban airports that used to have fairly easygoing patterns with demand they are not really designed to handle; (2) generates a ton of inbound/outbound traffic to KBJC itself which has now spawned local procedures that aren't published in official sources ("Cleared for takeoff, fly to Costco", I kid you not); and (3) generally results in angry flying.  To that last point, we have instructors and students from KBJC who resent having to add 30-60 minutes of transition movement to what would ideally be a flight focused on approach and landing work, and furious locals at the nearby airports who sit on the ground waiting for the 5-6 flight school airplanes in the pattern to figure out that someone needs to make a hole for departures.  Flying angry is counter to flying safely.

I teach out of multiple airports in the area, so I see both sides of this, and don't blame any particular flight school or ATC organization for it.  But it's frustrating.  I try to be understanding, but every time I tune the ATIS at KBJC and hear, "Pattern work is limited/unavailable due to staffing issues", my brain mentally translates it to, "F**K YOU OTHER NEARBY AIRPORTS - YOU'LL TAKE OUR OVERFLOW AND LIKE IT!"  The prankster in me wants to record a message on the AWOS at the nearby airports that says, "Due to staffing issues, pattern work by KBJC flight schools is unavailable.  Go back home."

The huge demand for flight training is good for "the industry", I guess.  But in these days of waning supply of airline jobs, it feels like a pyramid scheme to me.  I understand that occasionally the "forthcoming pilot shortage" is real.  But I also run across a lot of defeated kids with a fresh CFI, mountains of debt, and no job prospects.

[hubcap]

3 hours ago, Vance Harral said:

That's my experience as well.  The heavy flight training activity at some class D airports creates a particular kind of demand that just isn't found at "larger" airports.

ATC staffing shortages are making the Class D situation worse, and not just in the obvious way.  The nearest Class D to me (KBJC) increasingly refuses pattern work due to "staffing issues", but that doesn't stop the pattern work, of course - it just ships it out to nearby untowered airports.  This (1) floods the suburban airports that used to have fairly easygoing patterns with demand they are not really designed to handle; (2) generates a ton of inbound/outbound traffic to KBJC itself which has now spawned local procedures that aren't published in official sources ("Cleared for takeoff, fly to Costco", I kid you not); and (3) generally results in angry flying.  To that last point, we have instructors and students from KBJC who resent having to add 30-60 minutes of transition movement to what would ideally be a flight focused on approach and landing work, and furious locals at the nearby airports who sit on the ground waiting for the 5-6 flight school airplanes in the pattern to figure out that someone needs to make a hole for departures.  Flying angry is counter to flying safely.

I teach out of multiple airports in the area, so I see both sides of this, and don't blame any particular flight school or ATC organization for it.  But it's frustrating.  I try to be understanding, but every time I tune the ATIS at KBJC and hear, "Pattern work is limited/unavailable due to staffing issues", my brain mentally translates it to, "F**K YOU OTHER NEARBY AIRPORTS - YOU'LL TAKE OUR OVERFLOW AND LIKE IT!"  The prankster in me wants to record a message on the AWOS at the nearby airports that says, "Due to staffing issues, pattern work by KBJC flight schools is unavailable.  Go back home."

The huge demand for flight training is good for "the industry", I guess.  But in these days of waning supply of airline jobs, it feels like a pyramid scheme to me.  I understand that occasionally the "forthcoming pilot shortage" is real.  But I also run across a lot of defeated kids with a fresh CFI, mountains of debt, and no job prospects.

I see the exact same thing at my home airport which is uncontrolled. We have a 2 flight schools at our airport and we seem to be a feeder airport for nearby flight schools to send their students to for pattern work. We are the busiest "uncontrolled" airport in Missouri. We are a suburb of Kansas City. It provides for some interesting times when you are coming in from a cross country and there are already 4 planes in the pattern and one more is shooting a practice VOR-A approach inbound. More than once I have had to fly a couple of 360's waiting for the show to end.