Our Location
The Mountain Flying Experience
Flying in the mountainous regions near Trail Lake is the learning experiencing of a lifetime.
Trail Lake in Moose Pass
Alaska Float Ratings is located 90 minutes south of Anchorage, just off the Seward Highway in Moose Pass.
Centrally located on the Kenai Peninsula, in the Chugach National Forest, Trail Lake offers ideal and convenient access to dozens of remote lakes and mountain terrain that feels like it was designed specifically for float plane flying.
Not only is it beautiful, but it comes with a spectacular environment for learning that will leave you a better pilot and decision maker. The closeness of the mountains, encountering the mountain winds and learning where the wind shears occur and how to avoid them is invaluable to mountain flying proficiency.
Lessons of a Lifetime
The lessons you receive here will develop confidence in your future ability to recognize and handle environmental factors associated with mountain flying. These lessons can be applied to all of your flying, not just flying floats. You will leave Alaska Float Ratings as a better pilot.
Our course is designed around safe entry and exit to multiple environments and lakes – all just a few minutes from our base on Upper Trail Lake in Moose Pass.
Each student will have the chance to fly a multiple mountain flight routes with common destinations such as Grant Lake, Johnson Lake, Crescent Lake, Paradise Lakes and many more.
A few examples of topics expected to be learned while flying in the mountains surrounding Trail Lake, Moose Pass:
- Wind! How it will affect flying in the mountainous terrain, how much altitude to have when approaching a ridge or pass and how the winds aloft will affect that number.
- How and when to approach ridges, and canyons.
- Procedures for dealing with severe downdrafts and wind shear.
- Where to expect turbulence and how to read the clouds to anticipate the severity of the turbulence.
- Typical mountain weather patterns.
- Determining “Safety Zones” in the mountains.
- Looking at the “Big Picture” in making go-no-go decisions.
- Given a particular aircraft make, model, and engine and propeller configuration, what kind of mountain flying is safe and what kind to simply avoid?
Two Courses In One
You’re receiving two courses in one – Mountain Flying and your Single Engine Sea Rating!
Surrounded by rugged, steep mountains, glaciers and ice fields you will have the opportunity to fly in tight mountain passes and take off and land in the small remote lakes at the bottom of these canyons.
Simply, there is nowhere else in the world that offers such an immersive and valuable learning experience that will not only teach you to float flying but will also help you develop life saving techniques that apply to all of the flying that you will do for the rest of your life!