St. Louis to Billings, Montana in a PA28-140

[geoffeg]

Last year I asked for some advice on flying a PA28-140 from Buffalo, NY to St. Louis, MO. That flight went smoothly and was a big learning experience for two low-time pilots. Now those same two slightly higher time pilots will be flying that same plane to Billings, Montana at the end of the month. This will be a strictly VFR flight with two pilots who'd like to split the time as evenly as possible.

Route (SkyVector Link), Day #1 (645nm, 6.5 hours with no wind).
* KSET, Leave as early possible on the first day of good VFR to KRAP. Full tanks right at max gross weight.
* KBTA, First stop on day #1 for fuel, bio break, lunch and to switch pilots. KOMA and surrounding airports as alternates.
* KRAP, Day #1 overnight, possibly longer if WX doesn't permit leaving the next day.

Day #2 (271nm, 2.75 hours with no wind):
* Depart KRAP as early as possible, possibly half tanks for better climb performance at 3000ft. Departure to the south before turning west to avoid the terrain to the immediate west of KRAP and avoid the MOA to the north.
* KGCC optional stop for fuel and to switch pilots.
* 6S8 hopefully in the afternoon. Drop the plane off and head to KBIL to catch a commercial flight back to KSTL. Looks like the commercial flight back to KSTL will cost more than the flight to Billings. Anyone wanna fly us back to St. Louis?

I'm generally more confident in my flight planning skills for this trip. Foreflight shows the highest elevation along this route to be 5450ft, easily within a 140's capabilities but we'll be checking density altitude, runway distances, etc regardless.

So, any suggestions to this planned route? Good airport restaurants or FBOs? Better routes?

 

[poadeleted21]

Looks like a good plan. I flew a PA28-150B for 5 years out of Missoula, been all over the state in that thing.

The more into summer we get, the chances of afternoon Thunderstorms goes up exponentially. Fly early.

 

[frfly172]

Plan looks good,fly early ,and it should be a good trip.

 

[eb87f]

I have stopped at both KRAP and KGCC for fuel/break stops several times flying from SE S. Dak. to Billings or Helena. Departing KRAP and going to direct to next stop is not a problem. I fly a warrior, not much more performance than a 140. The Black Hills are not that high of terrain. I usually cross them 8500 or 9500. That leaves some room to spare.

If you do self-serve gas both Gillette and Rapid have good prices usually.

It is hard to get flight following all the way between Rapid and Billings. Ellsworth approach drops you before you are across the Black hills going west and unless you fly pretty high, center won't get you on radar for a ways there. Billings approach has friendly controllers and have always accepted me for advisories in that area, even when I just fly by when I'm going to Helena.

Leaving Rapid you might want to fly by/over Mt. Rushmore. Ellsworth approach/departure will give you the alt./dist. restrictions and switch you to the freq. for traffic in that area for position reporting.

And don't land at Ellsworth instead of Rapid. They look a lot alike other than the size of the runway. I hear they don't like it for you to land at the AF Base. I have landed there but it was with permission for a fly-in/air show.

Have a fun trip!