Flying VFR into BWI?

[gms5002]

Hi Folks - I have been looking into flying VFR (a Cherokee) into BWI in order to pick up a friend from a commercial flight. I searched online and found some posts from several years ago asking the same question. It seems like the place is/was very GA friendly - and they even have a separate GA runway. Does anyone have any recent experience with this - is it still the case? Are there any gotchas with doing this (I know I am going to have to shell out $50-$75 in landing fees). If the weather is no good, my friend is going to take the train..but I thought this sounded like it would be quite a fun flight if it is possible.

 

[flyingron]

Call Signature, they'll be glad to give you the current story.
If I recall the last time I inquired, the landing fee is something like $15. The state gets a parking fee of something like $20 if you stay there more than a trivial amount of time (you may dodge this). The biggest issue is that Signature will assess you a lack of competition fee of $40-50 for the privilege of walking through their building unless you can buy sufficient fuel.

 

[wsuffa]

It is almost as close, and it is much cheaper, to fly into KFME and get a rental car. Or have your friend take a cab down to FME.

$ignature is on the other side of the field from the terminals at BWI, meaning you'd have to get transportation over and back.

FME is a nice little airport, but be very careful to not bust the FRZ on the way in.

 

[catmandu]

You probably know, but since we hate silly mistakes around here, make sure you take the DC SFRA online course at faasafety.gov, if you have not already.

 

[poadeleted20]

At BWI, you pay the state a landing fee of about $18, plus Signature's ramp and handling fees totaling about $40, although you can get a break on the ramp fee if you by 7 gallons or more of fuel for $9.30/gallon (today's price) for a light single like a Cherokee, but don't feel bad -- they charge the jets $8.55/gallon). Good news is they'll run the courtesy van around to the airline terminal to help get your friends.

Fuel at FME is $5.67 with no fees, and I didn't know they had rental cars -- call ahead for sure (410-222-6815) if you're going to try to pick someone up that way.

 

[Chip Sylverne]

Fuel at FME is $5.67 with no fees, and I didn't know they had rental cars -- call ahead for sure (410-222-6815) if you're going to try to pick someone up that way.

Not anymore. $10 landing fee regardless of fuel or length of stay.

Oops! Sorry, i was thinking of MTN. I haven't been to FME in quite a while.

 

[gms5002]

Thanks everyone. Sounds like this is feasible so I'm going to do it as long as the weather cooperates! I'll give the FBO a call when it gets closer to arrange everything. I should have looked at the sat photo on google sooner, there are a bunch of small single engine planes parked at the FBO.

The only concern I have is that my planned route would take me right in between the WOOLY and PALEO gates. I'll alter my course a bit to put me squarely through the PALEO gate and I should be good. I don't need any F-16s pulling up next to me

I'm coming from the North so it should be fairly easy to get into the pattern for 15L/33R without being in the way of any jet arrivals.

 

[poadeleted20]

The only concern I have is that my planned route would take me right in between the WOOLY and PALEO gates. I'll alter my course a bit to put me squarely through the PALEO gate and I should be good. I don't need any F-16s pulling up next to me

Don't worry -- you don't have to overfly the VFR gates precisely, or even imprecisely. Same county is close enough.

 

[flyingron]

The instructions for the SFRA even tell you that the gates are just an approximation (primarily there to make sure the strip gets routed to the right controller).

 

[poadeleted20]

The main reason for entering the gate on the flight plan is to make sure the strip pops up in front of the right controller. Since the sectors are pretty big, you'd have to be pretty far from the gate before the strip wouldn't be there, but all that would happen is the controller would have to dig it out instead of having it pop up automatically.

 

[flyingron]

The main reason for entering the gate on the flight plan is to make sure the strip pops up in front of the right controller. Since the sectors are pretty big, you'd have to be pretty far from the gate before the strip wouldn't be there, but all that would happen is the controller would have to dig it out instead of having it pop up automatically.

I was there at the meetings when the FAA rolled out the ADIZ rules. It was actually me who gave them the ammunition to go get the thing charted (they asserted that there was never charted Temporary airspace, and I pointed out that there was a special purple dot issue of the DC TAC and SECTIONAL to mark out the restricted areas over the prelim olympic or world cup soccer (I don't remember which now).

The FAA even tried to make a video of the ADIZ procedures and screwed it up because they filed EMI as their initial point and the computers route those strips to NY center.