Flying over the St. Louis arch question

tuwood

tuwood

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tuwood
My wife and I are flying into KSUS Friday morning and of course the first thing she tells me tonight is that she wants to fly by the arch and take a picture from the air. o_O

From an airspace standpoint it seems pretty simple to just stay under the 80/30 bravo shelf and fly a lap around St. Louis prior to landing. However, being a pretty new pilot I'm always concerned there's something I don't know about that will bite me in the behind.
With larger cities are there any special requirements such as contacting approach or requesting a city tour? I will be flying from Ames, IA (KAMW) with flight following already so can I just request a city tour or a loop around downtown prior to heading to KSUS?
Any other tips are always welcome. :)
 
Just tell the approach controller what you want to do. If there are restrictions, that is when you will find out about them. With the exception of cities that have Special Flight Rule Areas that works just about everywhere. In the case of STL, make sure that the Cardinals are not playing....that triggers a TFR over Busch Field.

Bob Gardner
 
tuwood said:
My wife and I are flying into KSUS Friday morning and of course the first thing she tells me tonight is that she wants to fly by the arch and take a picture from the air. o_O

From an airspace standpoint it seems pretty simple to just stay under the 80/30 bravo shelf and fly a lap around St. Louis prior to landing. However, being a pretty new pilot I'm always concerned there's something I don't know about that will bite me in the behind.
With larger cities are there any special requirements such as contacting approach or requesting a city tour? I will be flying from Ames, IA (KAMW) with flight following already so can I just request a city tour or a loop around downtown prior to heading to KSUS?
Any other tips are always welcome. :)
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Try googling it or call over to a local FBO and ask. There is an arch flyover request or something to that effect that you can ask for, but I dont really remember the details. I'm sure some local area pilots would be familiar with it.
 
bobmrg said:
Just tell the approach controller what you want to do. If there are restrictions, that is when you will find out about them. With the exception of cities that have Special Flight Rule Areas that works just about everywhere. In the case of STL, make sure that the Cardinals are not playing....that triggers a TFR over Busch Field.

Bob Gardner
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I thought one could enter those TFRs while following the instructions of ATC? We often have those TFRs in the fall in Lincoln, NE and I haven't had an issue yet, but the stadium is within the Class C airspace too.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I thought one could enter those TFRs while following the instructions of ATC? We often have those TFRs in the fall in Lincoln, NE and I haven't had an issue yet, but the stadium is within the Class C airspace too.
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Go Big Red!!! :cool:
 
You can ask for "the riverfront tour."

This is St. Louis Downtown's airspace (KCPS). They're used to the request. Coming from either the north or south, you can fly low over the water, following the river, and get a wonderful view of Busch Stadium, The Arch, and all of downtown. I typically fly it about 600' above the water, just below the top of the arch. It's great fun but heaven forbid an engine failure.
 
When I do sightseeing tours near the arch, I usually stay on the west side at 1800'. You'd be under the Bravo and technically don't even need to talk to ATC. However, being unfamiliar with the area I'd recommend you give them a call and they'll call out traffic for you - just tell them what you're going to do. Periodically, medical helicopters are buzzing around the hospital district so it's good to have somebody watching out for you. If you're not comfortable flying that low over the city you could ask for clearance into the Bravo...more than likely they'll let you go up a few hundred feet higher. Watch the various Bravo altitudes - they vary all over the place & you have to be careful you don't enter one that happens to be lower.

They're usually pretty friendly...if they have a lot of arrivals/departures at Lambert at the time you're going, they may not be as chatty :)

If you'd prefer to see the St. Louis city side you'll need to fly on the east side of the arch...and then you'll need to talk to the tower at KCPS (St Louis Downtown). Although, if you're talking to Approach they may just coordinate with the tower for you.

All in all, it's pretty easy...just call up approach, tell 'em what you want to do, and follow any instructions they give you - they pretty much leave you alone unless the arrivals into Lambert are coming in from the east, in which case they won't let you get too high.

The St Louis controllers are a great bunch. One night on the 4th of July we were flying around the arch watching the fireworks display, and they kept calling out 2 or three other planes that were doing the same thing. They also asked how the fireworks looked from above :)
 
timwinters said:
You can ask for "the riverfront tour."

This is St. Louis Downtown's airspace (KCPS). They're used to the request. Coming from either the north or south, you can fly low over the water, following the river, and get a wonderful view of Busch Stadium, The Arch, and all of downtown. I typically fly it about 600' above the water, just below the top of the arch. It's great fun but heaven forbid an engine failure.
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And I wouldn't rule out trying this during a Cardinals game. On the radio I've heard a VFR pilot, sightseeing along the river, during a Cards game, talking to approach. I heard approach tell him that it's okay to get near the stadium "as long you're talking to me."
 
Cooter143 said:
Try googling it or call over to a local FBO and ask. There is an arch flyover request or something to that effect that you can ask for, but I dont really remember the details. I'm sure some local area pilots would be familiar with it.
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Don't call the FBO. The girl at the desk is rarely a pilot and doesn't possess the knowledge required to give useful info.

Source: years of line service where a CSR would ask line guys flying questions over the radio and they usually didn't have any good info either.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I thought one could enter those TFRs while following the instructions of ATC? We often have those TFRs in the fall in Lincoln, NE and I haven't had an issue yet, but the stadium is within the Class C airspace too.
Click to expand...

You're right...but he was asking about things to consider when carrying out his plan, and asking ATC about the status makes sense to me.

Bob
 
Just talk to KCPS and you are good to go.
 

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Thanks for all the great info guys, I feel a lot more comfortable now and will definitely be talking to approach the whole way around.
 
Send pictures. We had a lot of rain blast through here the last couple days, I wonder how high the river will be in St Louis tomorrow.
 
No problem for me either, as a newer pilot at the time. I spoke to approach and went from the JB bridge along the east bank all the way around to Smartt field. Very accommodating ATC.

Also accommodating at Jeff City for going by the State Capitol and along the Missouri River.
 
Thanks all for the help on this one. The flight went great and I had no problems at all flying by the Arch. As soon as I was handed off to St. Louis approach I requested a city tour by the Arch and he said no problem. He didn't give me any altitudes, I just flew around and made sure I stayed under the Bravo shelf the whole way and that was about it. He also cleared me through the Delta airspace without prompting so that made things easier.
Due to the arch being 1075 MSL I figured I'd play it safe and just did 1900' MSL ~1300 AGL vs trying to get down real low.
Here's the path I flew. I knew I'd be bumping up next to the 2k shelf so I figured 1900' would be safer and I did go under it once or twice.
map.png

Here's a few pictures my wife took while we flew by.
IMG_0704.JPG IMG_0633.JPG IMG_0639.JPG IMG_0658.JPG IMG_0684.JPG

And of course a few hours later.
IMG_0724.JPG
 
See, we told you it wasn't so hard :)

Hope you enjoyed your visit...and apologies for the mess around the Arch while the grounds are being redone. Come back next year when everything's finished :)
 
Very nice, and thanks for the photos.

The only part of this airspace that worries me are the thousand-foot towers. They were the focus of my attention, the one time I flew VFR, low over south St. Louis, on the way to the Cahokia IL airport.
 
NoHeat said:
Very nice, and thanks for the photos.

The only part of this airspace that worries me are the thousand-foot towers. They were the focus of my attention, the one time I flew VFR, low over south St. Louis, on the way to the Cahokia IL airport.
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I saw those too and it's the reason I hugged the edge of the 2k shelf on the south side. I left it at 1900' MSL until I was past the towers and then started my descent to pattern altitude at KSUS.
 
NoHeat said:
Very nice, and thanks for the photos.

The only part of this airspace that worries me are the thousand-foot towers. They were the focus of my attention, the one time I flew VFR, low over south St. Louis, on the way to the Cahokia IL airport.
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Stay over the river. No towers come out of the water! ;)
 
Under would be much more interesting.
 
James331 said:
Under would be much more interesting.
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I wonder if this has been done before....

There are a video and a few pictures out there of a few planes flying under the eiffel tower, which lucky for them, is outside the reach of the FAA.
 
Think a ballon did it
 
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