Landing at Philadelphia International Airport

[CFIDave]

Here's a video of us on short final (my wife as pilot flying in left seat) coming into KPHL in our DA42-VI. As a little "bugsmasher" we were assigned the crosswind (literally 11 knots direct crosswind) runway 15, while all of the airliners got to come in on 27L and 27R directly into the wind. Runway 15 doesn't have any VASI/PAPI lights, nor does it have any instrument approaches for guidance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIRkDyLd64U

This was the first time we had ever flown into this Bravo airport, which we chose because our daughter (who shot the video from the backseat) had to be dropped off at U. Penn in downtown Philadelphia.

There's only a single FBO at KPHL, Atlantic Aviation. From researching the airport's policies online, we expected a reasonable $10 landing fee for all aircraft under 5000 lbs, and other GA pilots only mentioned a possible $20 security fee. However, when we got to Atlantic, here's what we got in the way of fees:

$33 landing fee
$20 security fee
$60 facility fee
$30 drop-off fee
------------
$143 total

When I complained, they offered to drop the facility and drop-off fees if we would buy at least 30 gallons of fuel. Despite our best efforts to top off both our aux and main tanks, we could only add 29 gal, which they accepted. So we were only hit with a $53 fee after paying more than $6/gal for JetA. To get our money's worth, we were able to borrow the crew car to take our daughter to U Penn, so we at least saved some cab fare.

The one-hour flight back home to KJYO (Leesburg, VA just west of Washington, DC) was interesting. Despite filing a flight plan that had previously been assigned by ATC to other aircraft and being assigned that as our initial clearance, we got to hear "TwinStar four two delta alpha, I've got a new route for you, are you ready to copy?" FIVE times! In retrospect, we should have just cancelled IFR and gone VFR. The joys of flying the busy northeast corridor...

[HPNAviator]

Dave, nice video. What camera was used?

[CFIDave]

iPhone 6 hand-held from the back seat. My daughter who shot the video did say she braced her hand against the cabin roof to stabilize the video in turbulence.

[Colin]

I landed Logan after a LOT of research. It was a couple hundred bucks, but it was really the best option. Anywhere else and I would have had to rent a car or paid a car service to fetch my family from Logan (they were coming in on a redeye from Los Angeles).

Obviously, New Castle or Trenton would mean a 40 minute drive, but the Philly airport is a 15 minute drive to begin with. I'd had landed at Trenton and rented a car.

[Colin]

I envy your wife's piloting skills. That looked really smooth.

[brandonpalmer]

Wonderful video, thanks for sharing!

I flew into KTEB and "only" had to pay about $55 for my DA-40 -- parked at Merdian.

[Steve]

You would have been better off landing at KPNE. Farther from Penn, to be sure, but you could have rented a car for a day for what you spent on "fees".

[CFIDave]

You would have been better off landing at KPNE. Farther from Penn, to be sure, but you could have rented a car for a day for what you spent on "fees".

KPNE is also an Atlantic Aviation FBO, and the airport is run by the same City of Philadelphia folks who run KPHL. So I'm not sure we'd save much on landing fees; they have the same requirement to buy $6.00/gal JetA.

If we really wanted to save money, my daughter could have taken another AMTRAK train from DC to downtown Philly, which is how she made most of her other trips there. But that wouldn't have given us an excuse to go flying.

[Steve]

Wow! $6.00 for JetA. Last report on AirNav was $4.40 at KPNE. I stay away from Class Bravo airports as much as possible. Last time I landed at one was Dulles (pre-9/11). They turned me right after I departed so that the Concorde could climb out! Too bad that was pre-iPhone - no video of that.

Steve

[carym]

iPhone 6 hand-held from the back seat. My daughter who shot the video did say she braced her hand against the cabin roof to stabilize the video in turbulence.

Dave,
I don't understand. I thought that the -VI was so aerodynamically improved that you could never get turbulence

Cary