Mt.Rushmore / Crazy Horse & "AND" vs "OR"

Sinistar

Sinistar

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Brad
I just did a tour of "The Faces". I have seen reviews of pilots being underwhelmed and I can see why, Mt.Rushmore isn't that big as seen from the plane. Being a flat lander, just flying in that terrain was awesome. Plus Crazy Horse, being larger and how is situated, was our favorite that day.

First, there was some confusion. Ellsworth Approach went out of their way to inform me that the restrictions are to be: "Above 7700msl OR 1/2 mile away". In my research before hand I kept seeing: "Above 7700msl AND 1/2 mile away". I guess the OR makes more sense meaning you can fly over it, but just be 7700msl or greater. Or you could fly lower but make sure you are at least 1/2mile away laterally. Maybe our resident KRAP expert @Z06_Mir can correct me here (sorry I missed you Miranda :()

Update: The regulations do indeed state OR but the parks people prefer AND (see post #6 below).

WARNING: We were fortunate in that there was no other traffic. I could see if there was 3 or 4 planes and a Helicopter Tour or two, I could make for some tense flying.

A mini guide on how it went for me:
  1. I GPS marked the monuments on the gadget beforehand.
  2. I was already on FF with Ellsworth Approach (119.5) and about 30 miles out asked to tour "The Faces"
  3. Ellsworth treated me great and gave me vectors directly at Mt.Rushmore
  4. As I got near they said: "You should see the visitor center at your 12 o'clock and X miles"
  5. Quickly followed with: "Switch to Unicom 123.3 and get back with me when you are done"
  6. They told me to keep my xpdr code since I would be using it back into KRAP.
  7. I switched to the Unicom and announced entering/leaving each monument area.
  8. The Mt.Rushmore visitor center is much more obvious than the faces until up close.
  9. The faces would be best viewed in the morning light.
  10. Crazy Horse is bigger and easier to spot.
  11. Crazy Horse had very good light during the mid/late afternoon.
  12. I flew about 3/4 mile beside each monument and at about 7200msl
  13. On the VFR sectional, Mt.Rushmore has a clearly marked area.
  14. Crazy Horse does not have an area marked around it.
  15. Have your cameras setup right. My go pro was on the wrong side since I was flying and giving the best view to the passenger. But I had no ideal going into it what side I would need to favor.
  16. There will be some terrain above you but the view scenery is awesome.
 
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RAP has a community self serve pump which is much cheaper than the FBO.
 
Sinistar said:
I just did a tour of "The Faces". I have seen reviews of pilots being underwhelmed and I can see why, Mt.Rushmore isn't that big as seen from the plane. Being a flat lander, just flying in that terrain was awesome. Plus Crazy Horse, being larger and how is situated, was our favorite that day.

First, there was some confusion. Ellsworth Approach went out of their way to inform me that the restrictions are to be: "Above 7700msl OR 1/2 mile away". In my research before hand I kept seeing: "Above 7700msl AND 1/2 mile away". I guess the OR makes more sense meaning you can fly over it, but just be 7700msl or greater. Or you could fly lower but make sure you are at least 1/2mile away laterally. Maybe our resident KRAP expert @Z06_Mir can correct me here (sorry I missed you Miranda :()

WARNING: We were fortunate in that there was no other traffic. I could see if there was 3 or 4 planes and a Helicopter Tour or two, I could make for some tense flying.

A mini guide on how it went for me:
  1. I GPS marked the monuments on the gadget beforehand.
  2. I was already on FF with Ellsworth Approach (119.5) and about 30 miles out asked to tour "The Faces"
  3. Ellsworth treated me great and gave me vectors directly at Mt.Rushmore
  4. As I got near they said: "You should see the visitor center at your 12 o'clock and X miles"
  5. Quickly followed with: "Switch to Unicom 123.3 and get back with me when you are done"
  6. They told me to keep my xpdr code since I would be using it back into KRAP.
  7. I switched to the Unicom and announced entering/leaving each monument area.
  8. The Mt.Rushmore visitor center is much more obvious than the faces until up close.
  9. The faces would be best viewed in the morning light.
  10. Crazy Horse is bigger and easier to spot.
  11. Crazy Horse had very good light during the mid/late afternoon.
  12. I flew about 3/4 mile beside each monument and at about 7200msl
  13. On the VFR sectional, Mt.Rushmore has a clearly marked area.
  14. Crazy Horse does not have an area marked around it.
  15. Have your cameras setup right. My go pro was on the wrong side since I was flying and giving the best view to the passenger. But I had no ideal going into it what side I would need to favor.
  16. There will be some terrain above you but the view scenery is awesome.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the post. This is on my Bucket List!!!
 
Sinistar said:
I just did a tour of "The Faces". I have seen reviews of pilots being underwhelmed and I can see why, Mt.Rushmore isn't that big as seen from the plane. Being a flat lander, just flying in that terrain was awesome. Plus Crazy Horse, being larger and how is situated, was our favorite that day.

First, there was some confusion. Ellsworth Approach went out of their way to inform me that the restrictions are to be: "Above 7700msl OR 1/2 mile away". In my research before hand I kept seeing: "Above 7700msl AND 1/2 mile away". I guess the OR makes more sense meaning you can fly over it, but just be 7700msl or greater. Or you could fly lower but make sure you are at least 1/2mile away laterally. Maybe our resident KRAP expert @Z06_Mir can correct me here (sorry I missed you Miranda :()
Click to expand...

It is 7,700 OR 1/2 :) The park prefers AND, but the regulations say an OR.
 
DesertNomad said:
Also be aware that Ellsworth AFB and KRAP airports look similar. Don't land at the wrong one. They might put your plane in a hangar and not give it back. ;)
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Actually I agree with everything but the looking similar part.

For this first timer, arriving from the east you will see a big long runway....it is the wrong one! Unless you're flying the BONE :) It took me awhile to find KRAP. Upon first seeing that big dark runway you might lock on to it being the one you are looking for. So then you start looking north of this first one you see, trying to find the AFB runway. And then, after a minute or so it doesn't compute? So you starting looking south. But the Rapid City regional is out on a flat unpopulated area and the runways are not nearly as dark or contrasty. I didn't have this same problem in Omaha as Eppley(?) is north of the AFB and we arrived from the North.

To make it even more complicated the KRAP Delta airspace isn't quite a perfect circle. Its cut off on the north side. I did notice however that few pilots asked about clipping the Ellsworth airspace and didn't seem to be a huge deal to the KRAP controllers.
 
Pilawt said:
I enjoyed the statues of Presidents and other notables on the sidewalks throughout downtown Rapid City. The one right in front of our hotel was especially poignant -- JFK handing a toy airplane to his toddler son ...

View attachment 69880
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Yeah..this. What a cool thing to put downtown. We walked around in the dark and cold so didn't see that many but thought is was a great city touch!
 
Z06_Mir said:
It is 7,700 OR 1/2 :) The park prefers AND, but the regulations say an OR.
Click to expand...
Thanks for clarifying. I actually filed a NASA report just in case :) Oh yeah, WestJet treated us nice. And wow do you guys get some wind. Saturday morning it was ripping pretty good. The archers seemed like they were just hanging there on final.
 
DesertNomad said:
Also be aware that Ellsworth AFB and KRAP airports look similar. Don't land at the wrong one. They might put your plane in a hangar and not give it back. ;)
Click to expand...
One is north of the interstate, the other south. Now tell me how you can get those mixed up. I’ve flown from both airports.
 
GMascelli said:
We really enjoyed our trip out to Rapid City. We were in Dubuque Iowa for BACFest and figured we should head a bit further west and check off a bucket list item.

From Rapid City we headed to Kansas City, then home to Ocean City, MD.

http://gmflightlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/gone-to-krap.html?m=1
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing this!!! I miss the days with no facebook, no smartphones, email was just fine and people wrote nice travel blogs and you just sat down and read them vs endless scrolling of selfies with something (or nothing) interesting in the back.
 
Sinistar said:
To make it even more complicated the KRAP Delta airspace isn't quite a perfect circle. Its cut off on the north side. I did notice however that few pilots asked about clipping the Ellsworth airspace and didn't seem to be a huge deal to the KRAP controllers.
Click to expand...
99% of the time you can get the transition through (RAP tower will arrange it if you don't wanna fiddle with calling approach). Only if they have a bunch of B1s in the pattern do they usually deny it.
Sinistar said:
Thanks for clarifying. I actually filed a NASA report just in case :) Oh yeah, WestJet treated us nice. And wow do you guys get some wind. Saturday morning it was ripping pretty good. The archers seemed like they were just hanging there on final.
Click to expand...
It does it get windy, haha. If I had to guess I had at least one Archer out, maybe two. If it's sunny we gotta fly :D Glad to hear you had a good experience at Westjet, we appreciate the business!
 
I was first there ... oh man ... more than 50 years ago? :) went to school with many of the Ziolkowski kids. There wasn’t a lot of progress in the 60s through the 80s, maybe the 90s, but a few of the sons really changed the way they worked the sculpture and have made significant progress.
Still a long way to go, but a long way from where they were.
 
Sinistar said:
I just did a tour of "The Faces".
Click to expand...
Got my PPL in Spearfish, SD 1995. Flying past Mt Rushmore and landing at Custer State Park 3VD was the first time I took a passenger as a pivot pilot..:) Gary made a video of the flight. Don't think I have anything to play it on today, will have to work on that or get it converted to DVD..:rolleyes:
 
Flew to Rapid City yesterday to drop my brother off - his turn to sit with mom in the hospital. I had an immediate turnaround to head home and take my wife in for surgery this morning. (All good on both hospitals - mom's improving and wife did well). Anway, I pulled up to Westjet and the line guys are laying on the ground. I asked "What happened?" and they said "The wind quit!" :) was calm and CAVU yesterday afternoon. Not just Rapid City, but Torrington was reporting the same as I crossed over.
 
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