Will Kumley
Line Up and Wait
Any advice on where to rent a plane in DC? Looks like I'll be there for 3 weeks of school in June. I'll take my logbook and flightbag if it looks like I'll be able to get away on the weekends to go for some fun flights.
Washington DC plane rental?
- Thread starter Will Kumley
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Brad Z
Final Approach
There are flight schools at Manassas Airport and Montgomery Co. airport. Aviation Adventures would be my recommendation if you goal is to get checked out and fly solo. If you just want to go up with an instructor, GT Aviation at VKX is a good option.
Rgbeard
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Would it be advisable to take SFRA training in advance?
Brad Z
Final Approach
If he plans on getting checked out to solo in the aircraft, yes. But they won’t sign you off until you’ve taken the training course.
Mikey B
Pre-takeoff checklist
Try Chesapeake Sport Pilot at Bay Bridge Airport in Stevensville (Kent Island). They have (at least) an RV-12 and a 172, maybe others, and they're just outside the SFRA.
They have two 172s (180 hp, GNS 750, etc.), two RV-12s (one qualifies as TAA), and a Tecnam Eaglet, with a second one coming online soon. www.chesapeakesportpilot.com.
jayhawk74
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Where in the DC area are you going to be. If the VA side then Manassas and Leesburg would be good options. If in MD then Gaithersburg would be an option as well as Stevensville (which is over an hours drive from DC)
He's got a point about the drive to Stevensville...once the weather gets nice (which it has), Rt 50 is a nightmare, with the Bay Bridge a major bottleneck. Early Saturday/Sunday mornings (before 9) is doable, but forget the rest of the day until about 4-5 in the afternoon. Saturday afternoon westbound is also a mess. Weekdays are fine except from about 2 until 6. Forget Friday afternoons unless you want to sit in traffic and hate humanity.
That being said, Stevensville (W29) is a nice airport.
Frederick Flight Center and Bravo are both at FDK would be a good choice - It's a little further drive than some of the others but outside the hassles of the SFRA.
Adventures is as good as any, I guess. I had bad experiences with them when they were the inconsiderate bully at VKX when they first started, but they got better.
Brad Z
Final Approach
It's been a loooong time since they were at VKX, before 9/11 right? I've only been flying up here since 2005.
Yep, they went running away after 9/11 (not that I blame them). They had Dave boot me out of my tiedown because they wanted all their planes together front and center. They would regularly leave their planes blocking the pumps between lessons, and one of their instructors taxied into a show quality O-2 on the maintenance ramp trying to hot dog it into their tiedown.
elvisAteMySandwich
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I agree with others that it depends where in DC you're going to be. I'd recommend Bravo Flight Training out of KFDK. No need to mess around with the SFRA if you don't want to. They've got RV-12s and 172s that should scratch your itch.
Will Kumley
Line Up and Wait
I'll be at the Navy Yard during the day. Working out the details at work right now but I should have a rental car available while I'm in town.
Will Kumley
Line Up and Wait
A rental RV-12 sounds like a dream. Dangerous in that I may try to convince the wife an RV is the plane for us, but also fun as heck.
An RV-12 is a lot of fun to fly! Great visibility, responsive and comes right up against the max LSA speed. The ones I rent are the factory-built versions with nice avionics, autopilot, etc.
For longer trips, there's room for some luggage, but no bikes are going in there.
Only thing I see people struggle with is landing speed. Should be 55 kts full flaps or 60 partial. Go faster than that and you float forever.
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GeorgeC
VKX or Freeway.
VKX is the absolute closest to the Navy Yard timewise, for sure.
The whole area around the yard has cleaned up quite a bit when they put in the Nationals Park. It used to be kind of dodgy going from the Metro to building 213 dodging the drunks lying in the gutter in front of Normandy liquors.
The whole area around the yard has cleaned up quite a bit when they put in the Nationals Park. It used to be kind of dodgy going from the Metro to building 213 dodging the drunks lying in the gutter in front of Normandy liquors.
Brad Z
Final Approach
Now the 213 drunks are either wearing Nationals jerseys or sipping on carefully curated signature cocktails in their skinny jeans.
I kinda miss the grit.
elvisAteMySandwich
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Definitely the most fun rental plane I've flown - even compared to a Bristell. The area is nice as well, fly west towards west virginia and see some pretty scenery. https://www.bravoflighttraining.com
Randomskylane
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Isn’t Potomac like college park and you need to wait 9 months for clearance?
That's only if you want to fly out of there by yourself, if you want to grab one of their instructors, he can use his code to get the flight plan filed.
AlleyCat67
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Only took me about 3 weeks to get my FRZ PIN. Never heard of 9 months.