Tell me about Fort Worth Area!

SkyHog

SkyHog

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Everything Offends Me
Ok guys. It’s been almost 6 years since my last thread like this....

Tell me about the area northwest of Fort Worth (Westlake, Roanoke, etc area). What to avoid, what to do, where to fly, etc.

I think there’s a lot of folk in the DFW area but not sure how “local” it feels when out in the NW burbs of Fort Worth. Do y’all get together much?
 
Roanoke: home of Northwest Regional / AeroValley Airport (52F). Nice field.

Lotsa good places to live there. Growing like a weed.

West lake: big money, honey!
 
There are so very many places to fly!
 
Not much info....I thought there were a bunch of POAers near DFW
 
it's crowded. At some point that density has to create a negative QOL impact. I suppose that number is different for everyone.
 
SCCutler said:
Roanoke: home of Northwest Regional / AeroValley Airport (52F). Nice field.
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Except for some craziness going on over there currently.

As for the original question, the area N of FW is nice. Expensive tho since everyone is trying to get out of the city and you have to be 40 miles north to BE out of the city.
 
Lindberg said:
The best thing in the Fort Worth area is Dallas. :D
Click to expand...
"Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find:
one forty-five caliber automatic;
two boxes of ammunition;
four days' concentrated emergency rations;
one drug issue containing antibiotics,
morphine,
vitamin pills,
pep pills,
sleeping pills,
tranquilizer pills;
one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible;
one hundred dollars in rubles;
one hundred dollars in gold;
nine packs of chewing gum;
one issue of prophylactics;
three lipsticks;
three pair of nylon stockings.
Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff. "
Major T.J."King" Kong

This was re-recorded and the city was changed to "Vegas" after the Kennedy assassination.
 
SCCutler said:
Roanoke: home of Northwest Regional / AeroValley Airport (52F). Nice field.
Click to expand...
As John said, some of the squabbling going on there between the property owners and a former airport manager are interesting to observe. But if your a hangar tenant there, you just make the funny video or two and fly on.

The area along I-35W has been seeing a construction boom. So more folks, from residential to corporate are moving in.

Local highlights.
  • Bryan, John, and myself live not far away from that sector.
  • Texas Motor Speedway is 4 miles from 52F
  • So is Fort Worth Alliance airport (KAFW). A fun activity when flying there is to ask for the "pattern drill". And let's not forget "Information Bubba"
  • T67, Hicks Airfield, is a very active airport community with one of the best on field restaurants in the area.
Any other things you'd want to know?
 
Are you coming to visit soon?
 
Regarding the "Pattern Drill" at Alliance:

A popular service offered by Alliance Tower to students, pilots, and flight schools alike is the Alliance Pattern Drill.

The drill comprises a series of common procedures and associated ATC phraseology used for spacing and sequencing aircraft in the runway pattern. The Pattern Drill is available at anytime on request as current air traffic conditions permit.

It's a nice change of pace from the standard "Bugmasher 123; Runway 16R, cleared for the option." What you will get is the controller doing all sorts instructions from switching to the other runway on final, switching runways on downwind by having you go from your established left pattern on one runway, crossing midfield and establish right pattern for the other runway, turning you outward 270 to a base leg and more.

I also suggest doing a round with light gun signals, which they are also happy to accommodate. We've read about it, been tested on it, but until you actually see it in real life, you don't quite know what to be looking for.
 
AggieMike88 said:
Are you coming to visit soon?
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Coming to live soon.

This is all great info people thank you! Right now we are thinking it will be sometime around February or March depending on how long it takes for the house to sell. My office is still being built in Westlake anyway so there’s not a huge rush.

Stoked about Texas Motor Speedway. Also to finally be a fan of the local football team. First time.
 
Now the question is, how much do you want to spend for housing and how long of a commute time will you stand for...
 
Head to Babe's in Roanoke and decrease your PIC influenced useful load from time to time.
 
SkyHog said:
Coming to live soon.
Click to expand...

Good luck. Lets just say me and Dallas/Ft. Worth didn't get along too well. I hated that place. It probably didn't help that I was there during a multiple-month long heatwave of 110+ degrees everyday.

Hopefully you end up as one of the many people that love the area.
 
Interestingly, the last 4 years have switched from multi month high summer temps to multi month monsoons.

This year we did have record high temps for 2.5 weeks in July. But August was fairly tame. And we have had another wetter than normal year. September and October this year were some of the wettest in recent history.

https://www.weather.gov/fwd/dmoprecip
 
Can't say much for the Fort Worth side of the Metroplex, but the Dallas side hasn't been too bad to me, or maybe I'm just not too picky!
 
What is there to know? It gets blazing hot and freezing cold. You get sunshine, rain, ice and snow. You’ll bring a tee shirt and a winter coat everywhere you go.

Tomorrow, it will be more of the same.

Aviation wise, Ft Worth isn’t Dallas. It is one of the little class-D towns under the class B shelf. There’s is a lot of CAF around and if I recall, Fifi was moved to KAFW.

The stockyards are worth a look and a smell at least once, for the history if nothing else. Second, third or fourth recommendation for Babes. It slightly touristy, but who cares.
 
AggieMike88 said:
Interestingly, the last 4 years have switched from multi month high summer temps to multi month monsoons.
Click to expand...

Interesting. That was another part of my complaint. Between the heat and the dryness, even the cacti were shriveling up from dehydration.
 
AggieMike88 said:
Interestingly, the last 4 years have switched from multi month high summer temps to multi month monsoons.

This year we did have record high temps for 2.5 weeks in July. But August was fairly tame.
Click to expand...

I guess if 106 is tame. I did not enjoy your August. But I did enjoy meeting you guys for dinner.
 
I'm about 5 minutes from T67. [Not sure if that's a plus or minus]
Marina is 10 minutes in the other direction.

Many homes on acre + lots in the $450 range. Downtown FW is 15 miles South (which ranges between 25 mins and 2 hours ;()
 
Lindberg said:
The best thing in the Fort Worth area is Dallas. :D
Click to expand...

I used to say the best thing in the DFW area was the airport, to get the hell out of here!

That was when I lived in Richardson/Plano.

Now I guess I like Fort Worth since I can leave anytime I want and haven't for 8 years. (evidence of how much I hate moving)
 
AggieMike88 said:
Regarding the "Pattern Drill" at Alliance:

A popular service offered by Alliance Tower to students, pilots, and flight schools alike is the Alliance Pattern Drill.

The drill comprises a series of common procedures and associated ATC phraseology used for spacing and sequencing aircraft in the runway pattern. The Pattern Drill is available at anytime on request as current air traffic conditions permit.

It's a nice change of pace from the standard "Bugmasher 123; Runway 16R, cleared for the option." What you will get is the controller doing all sorts instructions from switching to the other runway on final, switching runways on downwind by having you go from your established left pattern on one runway, crossing midfield and establish right pattern for the other runway, turning you outward 270 to a base leg and more.

I also suggest doing a round with light gun signals, which they are also happy to accommodate. We've read about it, been tested on it, but until you actually see it in real life, you don't quite know what to be looking for.
Click to expand...

This is sounds friggin awesome
 
Another "fun" exercise is to shoot consecutive approaches to KDTO, KAFW, KFTW, and KFWS.

It's around 10-15 nm between them, so a great way to get behind the plane. If you shoot 'em all without feeling like you were worked over a bit you're in good shape.

I did it once when I was close to finishing my IFR, before my written expired, and it was a workout.
 
SkyHog said:
I think there’s a lot of folk in the DFW area but not sure how “local” it feels when out in the NW burbs of Fort Worth. Do y’all get together much?
Click to expand...

Yeah, every time I'm down there! :D

Seriously, I don't know what it is about there, but I have an awful lot of pilot friends from that area, mostly people I've met through PoA at some point or another, and they're some of my favorite people. Last time I was in town (2 years ago now I think), I had a great time going out to dinner with Spike (and Tommy), Bryan, Wayne, Troy... And I think I'm missing one or two. Dave Siciliano was out of town, but he's been part of the crowd there other times.

They also have the most heavenly combination of food items known to man: The brisket taco. And their BBQ is pretty damn good too, even when it's not in taco form. When you said "Roanoke" I thought of the Twisted Root, which looks like it's been expanding faster than my waistline after eating there. (19 locations now?!?!!)
 
It's a very large and dense flying community out here.
 
Bringing this one back to the surface as the wife and I are planning to come down next week, look around, and decide if the DFW- or Houston areas are worth considering settling down to in a couple of years. Hoping to be commuting, if not based out of DFW, eventually.

Recommendations for which sides of town/areas are worth looking at or avoiding? Good airports with possibly enough space for our Twinkie (4000’ +)? Haven’t quite decided whether suburb or rural, good schools are a must, but we’ve found a pretty decent website (niche.com) that rates schools and Dallas seems to have plenty to choose from.
 
You won't find any fields with an elevation above 4000' to operate your twinkie in the Jethroplex.
 
@Banjo33 - Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston are 3 distinct cities. The first two share an airport, and not much more.
 
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