Flight school in Alaska? Instrument, tailwheel, bush?

[German guy]

Hi,

My wife and I think of spending next year 2 - 3 weeks in Alaska for flying and hiking (the other option would be the western part of the lower 48 states).

When we think of 'Alaska' we of course think 'bush flying' .

What makes the planning a little bit more complicated is, that we will probably also need a flight school which provides instrument training and which has an FAA examiner on hand. We are currently working on the FAA instrument rating here in Germany and there is only one examiner in whole Europe. Therefore if would make sense to take the last few training hours in the US and do the checkride right afterwards.

So - I'm looking for recommendations of flight schools anywhere in Alaska which provide instrument training, bush flying training (or at least general mountain flying training) or both.

I just had a friendly conversation with Andrew from Above Alaska Aviation. They provide tailwheel training as well as bush flying training, but no instrument training.

Cheers,

Oliver

 

[alaskaflyer]

You would have enjoyed Drew.

That being said, where do you want to visit?

Only one in Fairbanks doing instrument training (I think) is Warbelows. Warbelows is also a part 121 airline but if you Google the website you will see a link for flight training. They have 160hp and 180hp Cessna 172s.

Couple of outfits in Anchorage. Take Flight Alaska and Aerotech are the two I am familiar with, at Merrill Field.

I've flown with Warbelows for my biennial flight review and one instrument proficiency check and they do an OK job. Never flown with the places in Anchorage.

I'm sure there are others whom I am leaving out of the list above.

You might consider a float rating while you are here. The places I recommend would combine a lot of mountain flying wisdom and instruction with the float training.

Edit:

Mountain flying on floats: www.dragonflyaero.com, www.alaskafloatratings.com There are others but these are of known quality, and they stay legal in their flying which is more than I can say about a certain other float operator up here near me who is often recommended. 'nuff said.

 

[gprellwitz]

I was going to use Above Alaska Aviation in Talkeetna on my aborted trip to Alaska. They seemed like good folks, and alaskaflyer here has used them (http://alaskaflyer.blogspot.com/).

I wouldn't expect to find much instrument training going on in Alaska. I think IFR there means I Fly Roads. The MEAs make it challenging, at best.

(Okay, he posted while I was typing. Darn! )

 

[German guy]

Uups - I just saw that I did not respond to your replies.
I must have forgotten about that. Please excuse me. Thank you very much for your helpful answers.
It currently looks like if we will have to delay the trip to Alaska by one or two years, as we figured that it would be too complicated to combine it with the completion of our instrument rating...

Cheers,

Oliver

 

[PittsDriver]

During my time in Alaska, I got the impression that pilots there don't have much use for instrument flying or even weather briefings for that matter. They just go fly what they see and don't fly any place where they can't. Anywho, it wouldn't occur to me to spend my time in Alaska working on something you can get anywhere. If you're going there in the summer, I'd strongly recommend a float course combined with some mountain/bush flying. It's been about 5 years since I was there but I'd give a resounding endorsement of Scenic Mountain Air in Moose Pass down near the Kenai. The hiking and fishing there is awesome as well if you don't mind the occasional bear encounter.

Why in the world would you want to go to one of the most beautiful places left on earth and spend it under a hood?

 

[German guy]

[...] Why in the world would you want to go to one of the most beautiful places left on earth and spend it under a hood?

You're absolutely right - we were tending to force everything into one vacation, which turned out to be a not too practical idea.
The idea was to get most of the instrument training done here in Germany and just to finish it up in the Alaska. But then again, as you're saying, it's just a shame to spend a couple of days under the hood, while we are there...
We also figured that it would be impossible to set up a schedule with two flight schools, as we don't know in advance how long it will actually take us to get the IR check ride done.

So - we will first focus on getting the instrument rating and afterwards spend a separate vacation on bush flying and fishing in Alaska!

Cheers,

Oliver

 

[PittsDriver]

So - we will first focus on getting the instrument rating and afterwards spend a separate vacation on bush flying and fishing in Alaska!

Cheers,

Oliver

Ya know, there are some pretty good accelerated courses here in the US that can finish up your instrument rating in as little as a few days depending on where you are in your training. I did one with Professional Instrument Courses (PIC) and finished in 4 days with my check ride on the morning of the 5th day.

Give some serious thought to that float rating too! It's a total blast!

 

[German guy]

[...] I did one with Professional Instrument Courses (PIC) and finished in 4 days with my check ride on the morning of the 5th day.

Give some serious thought to that float rating too! It's a total blast!

I didn't know of PIC - I just sent them a mail.
A float rating would be really cool. However, I couldn't make much use of it here in Germany, as there are only 3 or 4 spots in whole Germany, where landing with float planes is allowed...

 

[PittsDriver]

I didn't know of PIC - I just sent them a mail.
A float rating would be really cool. However, I couldn't make much use of it here in Germany, as there are only 3 or 4 spots in whole Germany, where landing with float planes is allowed...

I got my float rating several years ago and haven't flown a float plane since. I keep thinking that someday I'll have something on floats that I can use around the Chesapeake Bay but that hasn't worked it's way into my plans yet. I still don't regret putting in a dozen or so hours with the guys down in Moose Pass. That was one of the aviation experiences of my lifetime. Every day we would see eagles, bears, moose, and sheep while they taught me to fly in/out of some of the most impossibly small ponds and tight canyon passes. And when we weren't flying, we were fly fishing for the steel head trout that were chasing the spawning salmon for their eggs. Just do it!