Trip to Dallas

Went to Dallas IFR from Mobile on Wednesday, my first time to fly there.
It's a 475 nm trip, about 3.5 hours in my C172RG with a little lucky
tailwind.

I filed BFM MCB GGG direct DAL. As expected, when I got near DFW
Regional airspace, I got an amendment to my clearance: direct GGG,
DUMPY2 arrival, which puts you on a left downwind for 13R or 13L at DAL.
The freq's were jammed with all kinds of traffic, and a parade of 737s
passed above me as I flew the arrival to Love Field.

After landing, I was given very careful progressive taxi instructions to
Regal Aviation by the ground controller. By the time I shut down the
engine, a very nice young lady from Regal already had my rent car out on
the ramp next to the airplane, waiting for me. Great service from those
people; thanks to Dave S for the recommendation to park there. My
little Cessna was definitely the ugly duckling on a ramp full of
Gulfstreams and Hawkers, but they treated me like I was buying 800 gal.
of Jet-A. Nice folks.

Leaving DAL is kind of like arriving: you ain't gonna get what you
filed. I called clearance delivery and my clearance came back like
this:
"Cessna 9387D is cleared to the BFM airport via left turn to heading 170
vectors to join the HUBBARD5 departure Longview Transition Gregg County
then as filed maintain two thousand expect niner thousand one zero
minutes after departure departure frequency one two five point two
squawk zero five zero three."

It only took me two extra transmissions to get it copied. The clearance
delivery lady was very patient and friendly.

Taxiing out, I asked for an intersection departure. The ground
controller kindly pointed out that if I went full length behind the 737,
there wouldn't be a wake turbulence delay. I knew I could waive that,
but it was nice of him to tell me, and it wasn't much farther to taxi,
so I went full length.

After takeoff there were a bunch of vectors and step-climbs. I didn't
get cleared to nine thousand until after the TRACON handed me off to Ft.
Worth Center. After that, it was an uneventful flight except for
dodging a thunderstorm in Mississippi. Not so lucky on the winds aloft;
an unlucky headwind cost me an extra 30 minutes coming home.

Nice trip. Nice people at the FBO and great ATC folks in Dallas. I love
flying when it goes like this.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM