Seeking advice on Houston area airports

Yeti Niner Five

Yeti Niner Five

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Yeti Niner Five
I'm based in Addison, TX and have a Friday afternoon meeting in downtown Houston in a few weeks. For those that are familiar with the area, where would you recommend landing a PA-28R? Hobby seems unecessarily large. I see a couple of strips west of town and the Sugarland airport seems reasonable and has the advantage of rental car facilities on site.

Thoughts?
 
Either Hobby or Sugar Land work good for downtown. Easy cab or sedan ride from any of the FBOs at Hobby to downtown and able to use the HOV lane outbound late in the afternoon to avoid the rush. More of a drive from Sugar Land, but not bad if you want to stay away from Hobby. West Houston (KIWS) is another good alternative for getting into downtown.

Your biggest challenge should be outbound freeway traffic in the afternoon, depending when your meeting is over and you head back to the airport.

If you choose Hobby, just know where you want to go when you land and have the airport diagram handy. Not too big at all.
 
For downtown, I use Hobby most of the time. It is not bad at all, very GA-friendly controllers in my experience.

Print a big copy of the taxi diagram, mark where you are parking in advance. Foreflight taxi diagrams with your plane depicted help a lot.

West Houston (KIWS) and Sugar Land (KSGR, and yes, it is Two Words!) are both great fields, as well.
 
I visit Katy regularly and go into the new Exec airport out west. KTME, it's a long way out on I-10 for downtown Houston. KIWS is ok, but they are not the best for low cost. I like Weiser for the low cost and ease of access. It's sitting right on hwy 290 which gets right into 610 loop or 8 loop. Ellington is a nice place, but you have to fly around from the N to get there. Not a fan of Hobby, but they do the job. I will never go to Sugarland again after they damaged my plane while parked.

No matter where you fly, when you leave on Friday it's going to be crap getting out, so might as well get to Hobby, and deal with the traffic. There's a shuttle from Hobby right downtown that runs every hour I think. Don't recall the name of it, but it's pretty easy to find.
 
docmirror said:
I visit Katy regularly and go into the new Exec airport out west. KTME, it's a long way out on I-10 for downtown Houston. KIWS is ok, but they are not the best for low cost. I like Weiser for the low cost and ease of access. It's sitting right on hwy 290 which gets right into 610 loop or 8 loop. Ellington is a nice place, but you have to fly around from the N to get there. Not a fan of Hobby, but they do the job. I will never go to Sugarland again after they damaged my plane while parked.

No matter where you fly, when you leave on Friday it's going to be crap getting out, so might as well get to Hobby, and deal with the traffic. There's a shuttle from Hobby right downtown that runs every hour I think. Don't recall the name of it, but it's pretty easy to find.
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I'm not so sure I agree with everything... Pricing around where to keep my aircraft, IWS was extremely competitive. And while even TME has lower 100LL prices during the week, the weekend discount at IWS tends to beat everything. And not that it's a big deal, but remember that TME now has a tower and comm requirements with their moon-shaped non-airspace-airspace.

And Weiser is just so run down I don't like it... to me, it appears that there's a reason it's so cheap.
 
Thanks, guys. I'll likely try my luck at Hobby or Sugar Land (thanks for the correction!). Both of those look like reasonable options. Really appreciate the advice.
 
mkosmo said:
I'm not so sure I agree with everything...
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Gosh - how will I sleep tonight?

Some folks like run down. Some folks don't. Whatev.

Did you miss that part where I advised on Hobby?

No snark left over? ;)
 
May I recommend Ellington? It has one of the best fbo's I've been too. Not much further than hobby. Usually some cool military aviation there too.
 
tfitch03 said:
May I recommend Ellington? It has one of the best fbo's I've been too. Not much further than hobby. Usually some cool military aviation there too.
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That's why I use Ellington. That and good approaches with little traffic on IMC days. I imagine IMC into hobby would be not so good.

Good avionics guy next door to the FBO also, damn good.
 
Back when my dad was fighting cancer and I flew down there for trips to MD Anderson, , I used both West Houston and Conroe to the north. Both took good care of us and were easy to get in and out.
 
docmirror said:
Gosh - how will I sleep tonight?

Some folks like run down. Some folks don't. Whatev.

Did you miss that part where I advised on Hobby?

No snark left over? ;)
Click to expand...

I also didn't say I disagreed with everything ;)

I haven't flown in to Hobby yet... I've thought about it, but I'm not sure how much I want to pay Signature to park for a local flight :)
 
I would give KTME more thought. Extremely nice airport with car rental onsite (call ahead one day for reservation and to have car onsite ready). If considering Hobby I don't see where new tower at TME would make any difference? Although a little farther from downtown than others, travel to and from is very easy with HOV/toll lanes in both directions entire way to help with traffice. Also save a little time not flying south of Houston to Hobby or Sugar Land and then driving north into town.

Just my $.02.
 
mkosmo said:
I also didn't say I disagreed with everything ;)

I haven't flown in to Hobby yet... I've thought about it, but I'm not sure how much I want to pay Signature to park for a local flight :)
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FWIW, I have flown into Hobby a number of times, parking at both Wilson Air and Signature, neither of which charged me a ramp fee; could well have changed, but I have always found Hobby to be a friendly place. Busy, yes, but friendly.
 
SCCutler said:
FWIW, I have flown into Hobby a number of times, parking at both Wilson Air and Signature, neither of which charged me a ramp fee; could well have changed, but I have always found Hobby to be a friendly place. Busy, yes, but friendly.
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Hmm... sounds like I may give it a try then just for grins.
 
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