Float Plane Flying - Kenmore Air

Last week, when I was in Seattle for the week, I decided to take a lesson.  I did a little bit of online research and found Kenmore Air.  Kenmore, dubbed as "The Seaplane Airline", operates a fleet of de Havilland Beavers and Otters (DHC-2 and DHC-3) to locations all around the Puget Sound.  They also have a small flight instruction fleet with 2 PA18 Super Cubs, 2 Cessna 180s and at least one more Beaver.  I called the flight instruction desk about 2 months before I actually was planning on going out to Seattle.  One, because I wanted to make sure they had availability on this busy pre-4th of July week, and two, because I was super excited.  I got a lesson at 8:00 am on Wednesday the 30th.

My travel to Kenmore was an adventure because I didn't have a car and had to walk for 1.5 miles to the Ferry, then sit on the Ferry for 35 minutes, then take a bus to Kenmore.  I left the hotel at 6:10 and arrived at 8:10.  Oops, a little late! The sign was a beautiful site to see.

I walked into the main office and said I was there for a flight lesson.  The other customers in the office were probably a little confused because they were probably there for a flight to the San Juan islands.  My instructors name was Nile, not Niles, but Nile.  That took some getting used to.  He gave me a quick review of all of the A/C systems and where all the switches were that I would need.  This was the first aircraft that I have flown that had a stick instead of a yoke.  It was pretty neat, i think I like it better.  We casted off from the dock and headed out.  We did a run up and then followed the west shore of lake Washington until we could head out to the Puget Sound.  I've made a very very rough sketch of our flight below.

The orange circle is where we did some take off and landings.  We did quite a few of them, including confined space take offs, crosswind and normal landings.  Step taxiing was pretty fun.  I ended up logging 1.6 hours.  Here are some more photos of the day.

I highly recommend taking seaplane lessons.  It's great to do a different type of flying.  I'd like to get my rating some day, but I'll try to do it somewhere less expensive.... hehe