Anchorage CFIs

qbynewbie

qbynewbie

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Qbynewbie
I'm going to be in Anchorage for most of a week, starting later this week. I'll be looking to do some flying (with a CFI, since I'm still a month or so short of a PPL). I'm mainly interested in flightseeing, hopefully getting some opportunities to take some photos and just have fun.

This trip is really unplanned by design but I'm thinking that I'll want to do something most days. One of the people accompanying me is another guy who has had only a few hours of lessons but also wants to go along. My thought is that we'd probably do a couple of hours at a time, switching pilots in the middle someplace.

I may drive up to Mt. McKinley on one day because our DPE has a friend who is a DPE up there and it would be cool to fly with him. But the other days will be in and around Anchorage, with day trips outside the city by plane and by car and by foot.

It would also be neat to get up in a float plane at least once.

I've seen information on Take Flight, which seems well organized. There's also Arctic Flyers, which has the advantage of having a float plane. We'll be at the Marriott, so both are close by.

Does anyone have any recommendation for one over the other?

Thanks!
 
Is Merril field (PAMR) close enough?

I can recommend a sea plane training facility close by, and an excellent CFI.

Joe
 
Areeda said:
Is Merril field (PAMR) close enough?

I can recommend a sea plane training facility close by, and an excellent CFI.

Joe
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Joe,

Merrill Field is a very short distance from our hotel.
 
I just discovered that the only Dunkin Donuts in all of Alaska (at least according to their website) is one block from the hotel. No matter what else happens on the trip, I will be happy. :D
 
I was going to do some training with Andrew Haig of http://www.abovealaska.com/. Richard (Alaskaflyer) has flown with him and spoke highly of him in [thread]20791[/thread]. He's in Talkeetna, which is about an hour's flight north of Anchorage, and a natural stopping off point for Denali (Mt. McKinley). If you call him, tell him I said "Hi!"
 
Areeda said:
The place I'm taking about is reasonably close to Merril it's actually in Moose Pass. See http://www.alaskafloatratings.com/ Darlene Kellog is an instructor in our flying club during the winter. I can highly recommend her.

Joe
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Thanks, Joe!

I'm at ORD, en route to ANC right now. I don't know how the next several days will go but will see if I can get in touch with Darlene.

I appreciate the reference very much!
 
Areeda said:
The place I'm taking about is reasonably close to Merril it's actually in Moose Pass. See http://www.alaskafloatratings.com/ Darlene Kellog is an instructor in our flying club during the winter. I can highly recommend her.

Joe
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Joe,

We met Darlene today. We drove south from Anchorage slowly, eventually getting to Moose Pass at the end of the afternoon. She was out flying, so we stuck around until 6:15 pm, when she got in. It was quite fun watching the float planes, so I enjoyed the time.

I passed on your greetings and she said to be sure to say hello back. The winds were picking up today, so it wasn't great for flying but it looks like we'll drive down (100 miles south of Anchorage) on Saturday morning and do some flights in the Supercubs on floats.

I enjoyed talking to her today very much. Her husband was there and also fun to meet, as was her boss Vern and his wife, who runs the office. I'm thinking seriously of coming back up here later in the summer to do an ASES.

Thanks again for the recommendation!
 
Joe,

We went back to Alaska Float Ratings in Moose Pass today. Darlene is flying the SuperCubs, so Kyler and I each went up for an hour separately.

All I can say is "Wow!" He went first, so I had a chance to study their procedures manual for an hour, which helped a lot. I'd never been in a Cub before, much less flown one. She had him set in the back seat, since he's had so little experience. But I flew front seat, did some step taxiing and then did the actual take-off.

The float flying included training in mountain flying, which I hadn't expected. Flying so CLOSE to the edges of the mountains was unnerving at first but then really fun.

Flying with a stick instead of a yoke, right hand instead of left hand, no AI, no six pack -- it was all interesting and fun but took a few minutes to get to where I looked in the right place for something the first time.

I found the Cub to be a blast to fly and was holding course and altitude pretty well by the end of the hour, even as we were flying in and around the mountains. The scenery was so amazing that she'd take the controls at times while I took photos.

Coming in, I flew the approach and she did the actual landing while I followed on the controls. It was a great experience and one I'll remember for a long time. When she signed the logbook, she remarked that "not many student pilots get ASES time in their logbook." B)

Thanks very much for recommending her. She's a terrific CFI, loads of fun in general and a blast to fly with. Her passion is so contagious. Vern, who she works for, is a DE and also instructs and does tours, etc. I had a chance to talk with him for a quite a while and learned quite a bit from him.

If I finish up the PPL in time, I'll go back in August for the ASES.
 
Brian,

I'm glad you and Kyler enjoyed it. I agree about Darlene.

I have hoping to fly up and get the ASES rating with Darlene last year and this year but didn't work out early enough to fly myself. Seems like doing the rating in a place like that would be an adventure .

Joe
 
Wow Brian, it sounds like you're having a blast up there! :yes:


qbynewbie said:
Flying with a stick instead of a yoke, right hand instead of left hand, no AI, no six pack -- it was all interesting and fun but took a few minutes to get to where I looked in the right place for something the first time.
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After awhile, that starts to seem like the more natural way to fly. Flying with a stick just feels so right somehow.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of your pictures. :yes:
 
Areeda said:
Brian,

I'm glad you and Kyler enjoyed it. I agree about Darlene.

I have hoping to fly up and get the ASES rating with Darlene last year and this year but didn't work out early enough to fly myself. Seems like doing the rating in a place like that would be an adventure .

Joe
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Absolutely. In all honesty, Anchorage seems kind of boring so far but it's easy to get out of it and the stuff outside of it is amazing. Moose Pass is about an hour and 45 minutes south of Anchorage, with fairly amazing views all the way.

Here's a pic of Darlene and Kyler coming in to the dock:
 

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Sorry! I thought most people just went back and forth! :redface:

Here's a copy of the post from the PB, with the pics. More pics will come as soon as I get some time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Had the first hour of ASES training at Moose Pass, AK yesterday, in a Supercub on floats. Fun!!

We started off on the water, of course, so I needed to know how to taxi (slowly!), step taxi (where you use power to get up on the surface of the water but don't actually take off), and take off. One of the friends I'm traveling with went up first (only two people in a Supercub!), for an hour. That gave me time to study their procedures, which was very helpful. It's different enough from a 172 that you need to think it through and you can't let go of the stick and you are moving all the time you are on the water. Consequently, you really need to memorize the procedures rather than relying on checklists.

For example, pre-start: WFMMM (water rudder down, fuel to fullest tank, mixture rich, mags on, master on, all followed by actual start using the starter button). Step-taxi or take off are FFCARS (fuel on fullest tank, flaps zero for step taxi or 1 notch for take off, carb heat cold, area clear of traffic and obstructions, water rudder up, stick back). It was a blast. I did the actual take off and managed to get us off the water successfully. :)

Since we were almost immediately in the middle of the mountains, the lesson also necessarily included training on mountain flying. Wow -- really cool and I hadn't expected that. Darlene, the CFI, kept saying "get closer to that mountain!" :eek:

My inclination is to avoid mountains. :rolleyes: It turns out that you want to be really close -- really close!!! -- to the sides of these very tall mountains, rather than out in the middle of the valleys. That way, if something happens you make a turn away from the mountain and have the whole width of the valley to turn around in rather than being in the middle and not having enough room to make a turn. Also, you get updrafts (and downdrafts) off the mountains.

We flew around the area between 1500' and 3000' AGL. The Supercub was loads of fun but everything was in a different position: stick instead of a rudder, right hand instead of left, throttle up on the side under the left window, trim on the left side, low and almost behind you, no six pack, no AI, instruments in different spots than normal... for about 5 minutes, I kept looking in the wrong spots for everything but then I got the important stuff figured out and started doing most of the flying.

We flew over a glacier, over beautiful rivers, by tons of mountains, down low enough to spot a grizzly trying to catch salmon by a river, wonderfully blue glacier-fed lakes -- it was amazingly beautiful. When we got back, I flew the approach (70 mph) and Darlene did the actual landing on floats with me following on the controls. Neat!

Total time on the Hobbs was 1.3 hours. When Darlene signed my lookbook, she laughed and said "Not too many student pilots get ASES in their logbook!". Cool! :)

Here are a couple of pics. The first is a pic of the lake we were flying on. The second shows on Cub taxiing and another on very high approach. The third is looking down on the bottom of the glacier, where it meets the ice lake at the bottom. I had envisioned glaciers as these very neat, snowy landscapes. Evidently, some are snow-covered but, as you can see, landing on this one would be fatal!

The fourth pic is looking up as we flew up the glacier. And the last one shows the stream where we saw the grizzly a few minutes later. It was really fun flying the Cub around the stream looking for bears but my desire to fly the plane overcame my desire to hold the camera. So no actual picture of the bear! :rolleyes:
 

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Brian, I just love your pictures, especially that first one. :yes: It sounds like you are having an incredible time. :yes:

qbynewbie said:
Here's a copy of the post from the PB, with the pics. More pics will come as soon as I get some time.
Click to expand...

I went over there tonight to read more of your posts about Alaska but the PB is down for some reason. I had just posted something about the Denver trip and then it broke...hope I didn't break it. :eek:
 
Diana said:
Brian, I just love your pictures, especially that first one. :yes: It sounds like you are having an incredible time. :yes:

I went over there tonight to read more of your posts about Alaska but the PB is down for some reason. I had just posted something about the Denver trip and then it broke...hope I didn't break it. :eek:
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Thanks, Diana!

I think the PB is back up and running... guess you didn't break it after all. :D
 
qbynewbie said:
I think the PB is back up and running... guess you didn't break it after all. :D
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:D Yep, it's up and running again. ;)

I loved all your photos over there. National Geographic quality! :yes: What kind of camera do you have?
 
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