Headed to SE Michigan, which airport?

gismo

Touchdown! Greaser!
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iGismo
Weather permitting I'm headed to the Pontiac area tomorrow afternoon to visit my BIL who lives in Rochester. Airnav says Romeo's (D98) fuel price is nearly $7/gallon which is a bit outrageous IMO. 57D (Macomb?) is a bit better at $6.06 and PTK has fuel for $5.77. Romeo is slightly more convenient to Rochester but for the potential $70 in fuel saving I'm leaning towards PTK.

And WRT PTK, Barnstormer has the best price but Michigan Aviation and Royal aren't much worse. I haven't been to Pontiac for a few years and don't remember any of these FBOs, any recommendations from the locals?
 
Stop at Oceana (C04) on the way. $5.45
 
I used to fly in and out of the Romeo Airport back in the 80's when they were converting the Ford plant to make the new at the time V8's. Used to walk to the plant from there, I was young then.
 
I used to fly in and out of the Romeo Airport back in the 80's when they were converting the Ford plant to make the new at the time V8's. Used to walk to the plant from there, I was young then.

Those Model B's were a beaut weren't they? :D Oh, you meant 1980s. :p
 
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Weather permitting I'm headed to the Pontiac area tomorrow afternoon to visit my BIL who lives in Rochester. Airnav says Romeo's (D98) fuel price is nearly $7/gallon which is a bit outrageous IMO. 57D (Macomb?) is a bit better at $6.06 and PTK has fuel for $5.77. Romeo is slightly more convenient to Rochester but for the potential $70 in fuel saving I'm leaning towards PTK.

And WRT PTK, Barnstormer has the best price but Michigan Aviation and Royal aren't much worse. I haven't been to Pontiac for a few years and don't remember any of these FBOs, any recommendations from the locals?

PTK. Rental cars also available. Short drive to Rochester.

Then again, I'm biased.:yes:
 
I think the toilet water is messing with his brain. Maybe it is the tidy bowl doin it.
 
KVLL (Oakland Troy) is closest to Rochester. I live in Rochester Hills and teach at VLL. Stop at PTK for cheap fuel (PAC), or Ray (57D).
 
I ended up at PAC, partly because it's in the facility I used to frequent (IFL East) and that's where my BIL was likely to go to pick us up.

It was an "interesting" flight from a weather perspective. The trip involved flying to Purdue (KLAF) to pick up my daughter and then running up to Pontiac. Looking at the storm tracks a couple hours before I departed it looked like the best option was to head south to Moline to get around the storms but by the time I got in the air things had changed. To clear the mess on the south side would have required flying almost to St Louis and there was some possibility that more severe weather would develop further south or east of there.

The area of TRW had developed into two distinct lines, both lying along a SW to NE line with a 20-40 mile gap between the lines. I considered heading for Muskegon or Holland and flying down the east side of the area of convective weather but that was even further out of the way. It appeared on Nexrad that the more nasty weather on the northern end of the west line in the Rockford-Janesville area was losing it's punch so I headed there with plans to land and wait if it got too bad. But the weather at the north end of the was indeed diminishing in intensity and I was able to get through there with nothing worse than occasional moderate turbulence and light to moderate rain.

After that I flew southeast for a while and slipped through a 20 mile gap in the east line where there was no rain or lightning although the bumps were a bit worse. Once I popped out into VMC on the east side of the weather I headed northeast and landed at LAF. But by the time I got there the advancing squall line was about to engulf the airport.

A jet landing just ahead of me reported 10 knots of wind shear and I hit one bump on final that popped my head into the cabin roof. The gust front ahead of the storms had obviously already gotten east of the airport as the wind increased substantially. I landed, and my wife texted my daughter to be "ready to go immediately" as we turned off the runway. I shut down, my daughter climbed in, and I fired up and departed VFR just in time to stay ahead of the clouds. A few minutes later we were under clear skies in smooth air on our way to Michigan.

If I'd gotten to LAF 10 minutes later, landing probably wouldn't have been an option and if I'd wasted a minute or two more on the ground I would have had to wait for the weather to pass and then find a way around it into Michigan. When I got to Pontiac I learned that a 172 had crashed earlier killing all four on board (threads already exist about that here). I wonder if that's why 28 left was closed?


FCM-LAF:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight_...parturetime=1371844080&arrivaltime=1371852275

LAF-PTK (shows FKR as the departure because I airfiled):
http://flightaware.com/live/flight_...parturetime=1371853140&arrivaltime=1371855854
 
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