Landing a 172 at DTW, MDW

buzzin77

buzzin77

Well-Known Member
I am a student pilot going for a commercial rating and need to do some night landings and a night XC. I also want to land at a couple big airports, DTW and MDW, and for these to count in the logbook, they need to be to a full stop. Supposing I come in in the middle of the night when there's no departures, what are the chances of getting cleared for a stop and go or a taxi-back? Will I have to go to the FBO to pay a landing fee? The CFIs in my school don't know, because no one does this:) I've been checking flight aware to see when the gaps in arrivals are, so that I can get in and out without much fanfare, and it's probably not a huge deal, but I thought I'd try to be prepared as possible by asking the forum. Thanks!
 
I was a CFI in the DTW area and got in once, after asking nicely in the middle of the night.
 
call the towers at each airport, they should be able to give you a yea or nea and if so, the best times to come in.
 
Thanks for the suggestion. I called and Detroit said it's cool, and Chicago said it depends but is probably ok.
 
buzzin77 said:
Thanks for the suggestion. I called and Detroit said it's cool, and Chicago said it depends but is probably ok.
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I took a 150 into MDW. No problems. I filed IFR though...we were put on 31L and had a Falcon and a 737 pass us on the final for 31C.

Going out was pretty good too. We filed IFR again, and the departure controller was really nice. He said "do you want to go over the lake in that thing or would you rather be over land?" They gave us direct destination about 5 mins after departing.

Also, I saw this comment on Airnav about ORD:

Flew into ORD Sept 2000 in a Saratoga, and I am visiting this site because I am about to do it again. However, what I learned back then might be of value to you today. I telephoned the TRACON commander before flying into ORD single engine during prime time on a holiday weekend Friday. He told me single engine pilots are always welcome. For best handling, he said, arrive IFR and depart VFR with a requested altitude for 1800 feet. His advice worked perfectly. Signature picked up my passengers from the terminal and delivered them to the aircraft. I also learned on this trip that you have to yield for other traffic when taxing. They don't control ground traffic at O'Hare to the granular level were use too at other airports. The controllers were extremely nice, and made the joke "Where are you...Oh, there you are! [I couldn't see you because you are so tiny]"
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I had a friend who took a Cherokee 160 into ORD. No problems.

Regarding landing fees, it's only if you go into the FBO that they will charge you. The flight school might however get a bill in the mail a few months after you go. I don't know how you tell what airports send out those bills though.
 
If you go during non peak times they will along you to do pattern work. They were having us skip around the runways, and it seemed as though the controllers were enjoying it more than we were.
 
Just be sure to sound like you know what you are doing. (As well as KNOWING what you are doing).

Ive done closed traffic at MDW even during peak times without a problem. Also done "options" at ORD a few times. Calling tower or approach a head of time is something that they appreciate and could eliminate the amount of surprises for you and the controllers.
 
I ended up filing IFR from Gary and that took me into MDW and then into ORD. Because I like making things more difficult than they need to be, I declined the ILS. It would have been helpful to find the airport with the localizer. Oh well, at any rate, flying over Chicago solo at night was such a great experience. Thank you Chicago ATCers. It was a learning experience, especially for someone who normally flies in the light traffic areas of Michigan. It was a good idea to do it in the middle of the night.
 
I like how ORD and DTW, which are huge airports, will allow a full stop taxi back but I called SFO last year and asked about doing it in the middle of the night and they said "no way in hell" to anything but a full stop and shut down at signature with a $100 landing fee. For reals?:dunno:
 
ChasenSFO said:
I like how ORD and DTW, which are huge airports, will allow a full stop taxi back but I called SFO last year and asked about doing it in the middle of the night and they said "no way in hell" to anything but a full stop and shut down at signature with a $100 landing fee. For reals?:dunno:
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Apparently there was a fee at ORD, and the tower controller said that even if you stop and go on the runway the city of Chicago might send you a bill. MDW was totally cool with it, though, and didn't mention anything. So, I stopped and went at MDW and bounced ORD.

Also, I filed IFR only as far as ORD and with the idea to fly out VFR like the guy did on airnav, so I could follow the shoreline back to Gary, but ATC kept me IFR. If ORD is the IFR clearance limit, then the tower thinks that's where you want to stop. So ATC had to help me out there, per usual. Without ATC, I would probably be lying facedown in a ditch in Juarez. It was a challenging 7 hour solo flight, for someone of my experience, from TVC-LAF-GYY-MDW-ORD-GYY-TVC but it went smoothly thanks to lots of planning and help from ATC (and JC forum!).
 
A tactic I use for going into a Class B airport is to get vectors such that I'm perpedicular with the runways (more importantly...the approach/departure paths). I then either turn downwind short of the field for the closest runway, or cross the field to enter a downwind to what was the furthest runway from my vector. This way, I always land on the outrigger runways and spend less time taxiing to the FBO.
 
I've been into DTW a few times. We train out of YIP (just a few miles west of DTW). It really depends on the satellite controller on 118.95 and how their flows are looking. Sometimes we've gone in during the middle of the day and done pattern work on the 21s (which included a nice turn out over the Mac terminal) other times it was 11pm and they gave us the big negatory. From working on the ramp at DTW, in the evening, watch out for 6-8pm, 9:30-10:30pm and you'll be fine.
 
Back when I was a newly certificated private pilot I had a friend who sold a 172 he owned to some guy in St Louis, so I flew another plane in to pick him up while he delivered the 172 to its buyer. I thought it was super cool to fly into the main STL airport in the middle of the day with the 'big jets' but when I got on the ground the other guy didn't show up for like another 40 minutes, but we had been in loose formation all the way up to hitting Bravo.

He finally taxied in and said he hadn't read back a LAHSO clearance properly and the controller spun him out into never never land as punishment. I thought it was hilarious, him... not so much.
 
rframe said:
Back when I was a newly certificated private pilot I had a friend who sold a 172 he owned to some guy in St Louis, so I flew another plane in to pick him up while he delivered the 172 to its buyer. I thought it was super cool to fly into the main STL airport in the middle of the day with the 'big jets' but when I got on the ground the other guy didn't show up for like another 40 minutes, but we had been in loose formation all the way up to hitting Bravo.

He finally taxied in and said he hadn't read back a LAHSO clearance properly and the controller spun him out into never never land as punishment. I thought it was hilarious, him... not so much.
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STL will totally do that. I take SIU students there all the time and we get the scenic tour every once in a while if they mess something up.
 
Good luck trying to get the hand-off from FNT to DTW... They will never do it VFR. No problem IFR, obviously, but for some reason FNT is terrified of handing VFR traffic to DTW.
 
N519AT said:
Regarding landing fees, it's only if you go into the FBO that they will charge you. The flight school might however get a bill in the mail a few months after you go. I don't know how you tell what airports send out those bills though.
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I believe that the bill goes to the A/C owner. The reason I say that is because I lease back my 172 and got a bill in the mail because someone took it to NJ. The bill was for like $20 for a landing fee.
 
Duksrule said:
I believe that the bill goes to the A/C owner. The reason I say that is because I lease back my 172 and got a bill in the mail because someone took it to NJ. The bill was for like $20 for a landing fee.
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Did you just forward the bill to the school? I know our students are responsible for any landing/parking fees at airports they venture out to.

No landing fees at DTW for touch-and-go's, or rather, none that we've seen sent back to us from our leaseback owners. WCAA is typically pretty friendly with us... we pad their operations-per-day numbers at YIP pretty good.
 
On the flight to Detroit, we started in Traverse City and filed IFR to Ann Arbor via DTW. When we got to Flint approach, they told us we were cleared to Ann Arbor.

I said, "Wait a minute, what about Detroit? We can't stop there?"
And Flint said, "Nope."
"But we filed to DTW to do a practice approach."
"So."
"Can you give us a practice approach then? Or we can do one in Lansing on the way back."
"You can do one here."
"What approach should we expect?"
"We got ILSs, GPSs, RNAVs, VORs..."
"We'll take the ILS..."

Later, after switching from FNT tower on climbout...

"Do you still wanna go to Detroit?"
"WTF? Da-doy, we wanna go to Detroit."
"Direct POLAR when able. Contact Detroit approach on blah blah blah point blah blah."

I don't know what Rick-rolled means, but I'm pretty sure Flint approach Rick-rolled us. Or Flint-rolled us. Anyway.
 
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