Wheres the best place you have flown into?!

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MidwestBob1389

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MidwestBob1389
Just curious as to what was your favorite place to go? Where had the best food? Where would you go over and over again?!
 
USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70).

Good: Great food. Movies were free. Nice gym. Scenery always changing. The “catapult” amusement park ride ROCKED! FREE gas, maintenance, hangar. Valet parking.

Bad: 6 month minimum stay. Kind of a sausage fest. Dry county.
 
Marcy Field, NY (1I1) Great BBQ truck at the farmer's market after hiking in the surrounding mountains.

Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome (NY94) The concession food is, well, concession food but that's not why you go there.
 
MidwestBob1389 said:
Just curious as to what was your favorite place to go? Where had the best food? Where would you go over and over again?!
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I had to think about this one for a while. It's really hard to say. I've flown into a good number of different places (the map leaves out Hawaii, Alaska, and Europe).

But ultimately, it has to be Santa Fe, NM when I lived in Denver. Because it's Santa Fe.

Logbook indicates 8 times in the 20 years I was in the area. Double that if we include Albuquerque and leave out Taos, and Angel Fire. The almost 250 NM straight line distance (which one did not fly straight line ;) ) was so familiar my wife and I came to think of it as a local trip.

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Hard to pick just one. I’ll go with Lindbergh SAN in San Diego. Coupla block walk to the Water Front. It’s like one museum after another. Went in two submarines, one a Soviet one. The Star of India, a tall ship. Couple other old boats. Then the USS Midway.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I had to think about this one for a while. It's really hard to say. I've flown into a good number of different places (the map leaves out Hawaii, Alaska, and Europe).

But ultimately, it has to be Santa Fe, NM when I lived in Denver. Because it's Santa Fe.

Logbook indicates 8 times in the 20 years I was in the area. Double that if we include Albuquerque and leave out Taos, and Angel Fire. The almost 250 NM straight line distance (which one did not fly straight line ;) ) was so familiar my wife and I came to think of it as a local trip.

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Can't beat that green chili either!!
 
Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, Washington. Short walk to town. Great restaurants and pubs too numerous to count. Plus, some amazing AirBnB and VRBO cabins available for extended stays.
 
Hard to say without a definition of what you mean by "Best".

Sedona KSEZ has both spectacular scenery and good food on the field.

Best run is 3D2 Ephraim-Gibraltar in Door County, WI (the "thumb" in Lake Michigan). They worked with a bunch of local businesses to equip the airport with a courtesy car and eight courtesy bikes. Peninsula State Park is right across the street, lots of great little shops and restaurants nearby, and the sponsor businesses will come and give you a ride from the airport if the courtesy car isn't available. Getting aviation and the local economy to benefit each other is exactly how it should work! My favorite is the Wild Tomato wood-fired pizzeria, followed by a walk across the street to Not Licked Yet frozen custard for dessert.

Best unknown museum: Fagen Fighters at KGDB Granite Falls, MN. They're not particularly big or well-known, but they have some things I haven't seen anywhere else and they way they present things is really cool. It's a great place to stop and stretch the legs on a long cross country. They have a Waco CG-4A troop transport glider, they have a control tower with period radios and manuals that you can climb up into. They also have a quonset hut briefing room and a victory garden. In the hangars, they have a combination of paintings and sculptures on the walls so you can look at an airplane in the hangar and then look up and see a depiction of it flying. They have a landing craft from D-Day along with actual sand from the beach in Normandy.

Best "known" museums: National Museum of the USAF in Dayton, OH; National Air and Space Museum and its Udvar-Hazy annex at KIAD in DC, and the Evergreen Air & Space Museum in McMinnville, OR.

Best food: Perfect Landing at KAPA Denver Centennial, Pilot Pete's at 06C Schaumburg IL, Hard Eight BBQ a short walk from KSEP Stephenville TX, Bessie's Diner at KJVL Janesville WI, Rick's Boathouse across the street from KEYE Eagle Creek, and I'll probably edit this post when I remember more.

Best oasis in the middle of nowhere: Wall Drug in Wall, SD 6V4. Another good place to stretch the legs and get food, about a 6-block walk from the airport and another frequent stop on our long journeys to the northwest.

Best random fun thing to do in town when you'd be stuck at the airport otherwise: 1984 in Springfield, MO. You pay a reasonable fee and play all of the old-school video games you'd like, with a big console TV playing old MTV videos, decorated with other ancient artifacts from the 80s. And it's owned by a couple of brothers who are GA pilots.

Best grass strip: 40D Three Lakes, WI. It may be grass but it's a rare *lit* grass strip, and so smooth you'll see all kinds of birds there like you'll never see at another grass strip. I've seen King Airs (90 and 200), Aerostar, Cirrus, T-6, and others that normally stick to paved places. There's camping on the field here, a restaurant right across the street, boat rentals right next door to that to go out on the lakes, and this would be a great weekend getaway if you like to camp with your plane.

Best "is this an airport or a boat" field: KBKL Burke Lakefront, Cleveland OH. Right on Lake Erie, and within walking distance of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a cool-looking submarine museum.

Best aviation-themed playground on the field: KGMU Greenville Downtown, SC. Great lunch stop with a restaurant on the field too. The restaurant is... Adequate. The playground is really cool.
 
Renting a Cessna and flying between dirt strips around N/NW Sao Paulo state in Brazilian farm country (w/local CFI). It was fun as all hell just bouncing between different farms with short, narrow, unimproved runways.

Another favorite would be landing at KNEW in New Orleans. I love how the runway juts out into the lake (a lake I very, very much don't want to have an engine-out scenario over).
There's probably some good-mood bias, too, b/c when I touch down in NOLA I know I'm less than T-Minus 60 minutes from having amazing food and a fun night! :cool:
 
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St. Petersburg Florida (KSPG).
It's about an hour flight from the East Coast of Florida to the West Coast of Florida. IFR takes a lot of the hassle out of all the MOAs, Restricted areas and Bravo airspace.

It's a really nice flight and beautiful scenic approach. You just have to make sure you are not too high and fast landing on 07. It has never been a problem for us, but if you can't get stopped in 3,700 feet your plane will be taking a salt water bath.

They have a really good restaurant on site, but we like to make the short walk to the Farmer's market (On Saturdays) and then eat lunch at one of the fabulous local restaurants.
 
KDTS (Destin) and 2P2 (Washington Island, Green Bay). Although the approach to 3T0 (Cedar Mills, Lake Texoma) was pretty cool and the line crew can't be beat!
 
X01 Everglades Airpark in SW Florida. Runway is surrounded by water on 3 sides and short walk into town for a fresh from the boat Stone Crab lunch.
 
Not my video, fun spot, good wash when you get home though

 
My data points are old and my data set is small (only 64 airports logged, but of course I've visited several other GA fields), but I had to think about this for a while.

I have to say that my old home base where I did my training and flew when I was most active would be the best from my logbook. KJGG Williamsburg.

It was back in the 1990's, which I suspect was the airport's hey-day. I visited there for lunch a couple years back and it was still good but didn't live up to my memory. Less active, seemed a little less alive and certainly not as fresh. Anyway, it had a great little sandwich shop and an almost perfect patio for watching the runway. Seemed like there was always a decent airport bum crowd there, as well as folks coming and going. In all my travels and moves I never found another place that compared.

My most noteworthy "glad I did it" airport though (not best place to visit)...hard to decide if it's KFFA or KDCA
 
I've got a bunch of favorites depending on my mood. If food is the focus, I like to fly to W10, the Whidbey Island Airpark for breakfast/lunch at Coffee at Dawn. It's only 8 minutes by plane from my home base, but feels like heading into the boondocks. Here's what the approach and the coffee shop look like:
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This coffee shop is closed on Wednesday and Thursday. On those days, I'll second the previous poster and vote for Friday Harbor, or one of several other airports in the San Juan Islands. Here's a video of flying to Orcas Island for breakfast. Hard to beat views.

Sometimes it isn't about the food, it's about finding solitude in this chaotic, busy world we live in. The best destination for that kind of escape is the Alvord Desert in SE Oregon. Nothing around for miles and miles. No light pollution, no cell signals, no overhead jet routes. Just lots of peace and quiet.
Lonely-Plane.jpeg

And of course, AirVenture, Oshkosh is the only destination if you want to immerse yourself in aviation for a full week!
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ArrowFlyer86 said:
Renting a Cessna and flying between dirt strips around N/NW Sao Paulo state in Brazilian farm country (w/local CFI). It was fun as all hell just bouncing between different farms with short, narrow, unimproved runways.
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Do you still hav the contact for Brazil?
 
I'm cheating a little here. It's a place that neither I, nor anyone else, has flown to for over 72 years. And I wouldn't actually want to fly there, just from there . . . Shangri-La.
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I've done Oshkosh, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Niagara, Hudson River, and many other cool places in the US. Also flew Tony Ryan's (founder of RyanAir) Stearman over Dublin, P-51 in Kissimmee, and Extra 330's over Las Vegas several times. And I've flown commercial to over 75 countries all around the world. My personal best is flying over an active volcano in Iceland. My wife is half Icelandic and I have rented up there a half a dozen times - every flight has been incredible. Please forgive the terrible video quality, I didn't bring any of my GoPro's or mounts on this trip:

Volcano Flight
 
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Flyhound said:
I've got a bunch of favorites depending on my mood. If food is the focus, I like to fly to W10, the Whidbey Island Airpark for breakfast/lunch at Coffee at Dawn. It's only 8 minutes by plane from my home base, but feels like heading into the boondocks. Here's what the approach and the coffee shop look like:
View attachment 137782View attachment 137783

This coffee shop is closed on Wednesday and Thursday. On those days, I'll second the previous poster and vote for Friday Harbor, or one of several other airports in the San Juan Islands. Here's a video of flying to Orcas Island for breakfast. Hard to beat views.

Sometimes it isn't about the food, it's about finding solitude in this chaotic, busy world we live in. The best destination for that kind of escape is the Alvord Desert in SE Oregon. Nothing around for miles and miles. No light pollution, no cell signals, no overhead jet routes. Just lots of peace and quiet.
View attachment 137784

And of course, AirVenture, Oshkosh is the only destination if you want to immerse yourself in aviation for a full week!
View attachment 137785
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I think you posted the W10 coffee/breakfast place before maybe a year or two ago in another thread?
And like I think I commented back then: that's exactly the kind of place I wish I had by me! Cozy, buried in the trees. Looks amazing. Jealous.
 
Flying over Niagara Falls with my 86 yr old aunt as pax.
Tour of Sydney, Australia including the opera house and Olympic venues
Edwards AFB on the flats where the shuttle landed.
 
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