Interesting places to earn your seaplane rating

Float flying isn’t cheap, so to keep costs down, the flight schools do their best to get your training covered in as few hours as possible. It helps to be current with your flight skills. If you have to spend a couple of days knocking off rust, you may not be able to learn the new skills required in the allotted time and may blow your checkride, or, at the very least, need to schedule additional days at additional cost. Also, learn how to tie proper knots! You will need to demonstrate that you can tie the airplane up to the dock, so, rather than fumbling around under pressure, learn that at home. Here’s another tip: Buy the FAA book Seaplane, Skiplane, and Float/Ski Equipped Helicopter Operations Handbook, FAA Publication FAA-H-8083-23. This slim volume has all the book learning you need to get your rating. Study this and you’ll be way ahead before you even begin your first lesson. My experience? It was the most fun I ever had flying. What made it even better was the setting—Alaska’s spectacular Chugach Mountains and myriad turquoise glacial lakes.

Summer days in Alaska are long and offer more time for training. This photo of a student landing at Upper Trail Lake was taken just before 9 p.m. Photo by Crista Worthy.

Alaska Float Ratings, Moose Pass, Alaska: Moose Pass is 23 nautical miles north of Seward and about 46 nm southeast of Anchorage; fly to one of these and rent a car or arrange for pick-up via float plane. Owner and DPE Vern Kingsford has been flying for over 52 years. Students usually fly multiple aircraft with different instructors. Incredible, wild scenery: turquoise lakes, massive glaciers, and steep mountains.

Grand Seaplanes, LLC, Grand Lake, Oklahoma: Learn in a flying boat, a Lake Amphibian equipped with a WAAS-certified Garmin 430 that allows IFR training; they also can train you in your Buccaneer or Renegade. Owner/Instructor Steve Robinson is a United Airlines Airbus Captain with over 26,000 logged hours and 5,500 hours of dual instruction. Room and board is available at their cabin, and you’ll enjoy great home-cooking. Fly in to Grove Airport, or, if you airline to Tulsa they’ll pick you up in the airplane and you’ll begin your training on the way back to Grand Lake.

Kenmore Air Harbor, Kenmore, Washington: Want to fly floats as a career? Kenmore Air is an actual airline, with scheduled commercial seaplane flights to over 45 destinations around the San Juan Islands, Victoria, Vancouver, and Alaska. Kenmore Air Harbor flight school offers training in a classic 150-horsepower Piper Super Cub or in a CubCrafters-updated 180-hp Super Cub. Advanced students can continue their training in a Cessna 180 or even a de Havilland Beaver and/or earn a commercial seaplane rating.

Adventure Seaplanes in Minnesota has a variety of float-equipped aircraft: J-3 Cub, Cessna 172, Cessna 185, and deHavilland Beaver. Photo courtesy Adventure Seaplanes.

Chowan River Rats, Winton, North Carolina: Fly a STOL-equipped PA-12 on straight floats from the Chowan River instead of a lake. You can fly in to nearby Tri-County Airport. A nice B&B is nearby.

Adventure Seaplanes, Minnesota: Known as the “Land of 10,000 lakes,” Minnesota is a great place for seaplane training. Adventure Seaplanes offers both private and commercial ratings and a great range of aircraft: J-3 Cub, Cessna 172, Cessna 185, and a de Havilland Beaver. Their new summer location is on beautiful Lake Vermilion, at the Tower Airport and Seaplane Base. Adventure Seaplanes is one of the few companies that rents seaplanes, so you can keep flying after you earn your rating.

After you get your rating, if you don’t put floats on your own airplane, you can now buy renter's insurance for float flying.

Another great resource is the Seaplane Pilots Association, whose slogan is “Putting the Adventure Back in Aviation!” That just about says it all.