Anyone taken a "Airplane" tour in Kauai

[Ocean Spirit]

I've read numerous reviews from people on boards talk about their Helicopter tours but no one has written anything about taking the small airplane tours.

The airplane tours are about $100 cheaper than the helicopter tour.

Has anyone taken the tour or knows information from other travelers about it?

[kryos]

I've read numerous reviews from people on boards talk about their Helicopter tours but no one has written anything about taking the small airplane tours.

The airplane tours are about $100 cheaper than the helicopter tour.

Has anyone taken the tour or knows information from other travelers about it?

I did an airplane tour on Maui ... but it was quite a few years back ... August 2000 ... and I don't even know if the operator (Pacific Wings) is still in business. 9-11 might have done them in.

 

This tour, however, was not typical. It was what is called a "U-Fly" tour ... in essence, it's a two-hour flight lesson where you get to fly the plane for the tour ... with a licensed pilot right beside you. Talk about awesome fun! Depending on weight of each passenger, you can also bring one or two friends along to sit in the back seat. I brought a guy who was attending the Maui Writer's Conference with me, and in appreciation he sat back there with two digital cameras snapping off hundreds of aerial photographs which he later put on a CD and gave me before the end of the Conference.

 

I had never flown an airplane before, and I found the experience fun and interesting. The pilot did the take-off and then had me take the controls. He would tell me what altitude I should keep the plane at, and point out where he wanted me to fly. We flew off the coast for a while and then came further inland so that he could point out some of the sights. We then landed at Lanai and spent some time there on a "rest stop." Translated for me, this meant a shopping stop. They had a neat little gift store in the small airport there. The pilot asked me if I wanted to try the landing, but I declined.

 

After a short while, we took from from Lanai and this time the pilot offered me no choice. He had me do the take-off. However, he kept me centered on the runway ... or else I would have had us probably in the ocean.

 

The plan was now to fly back to Maui, but things got a bit dicey. The trade winds came up and while I had been doing pretty good maintaining the proper altitudes, I now began running into problems. He wanted me to descend about 500 feet because apparently we were in someone else's traffic pattern. I would push the wheel in to drop altitude, but found that I was actually going up, not down. What the hell? Finally the pilot realized I was in trouble ... we were in a major updraft and nothing I would do would get the plane to come down. At this point, he had to take over the controls from me and get us back to Maui.

 

His initial plan, and thank God he didn't tell me about it beforehand, was to make me do the landing back at Maui. However, the weather had turned bad ... major winds at this point ... so he decided to just do it himself to be safe.

 

I really enjoyed this experience and learned a lot more from it than I could have learned from any other "regular" airplane or helicopter tour. Pacific Wings is the name of this outfit, and I think the instructor I dealt with was Adam. Like I said, I'm not sure if they still offer this "U-fly" tour ... but since it's basically an expanded flight lesson, I am sure you could arrange it if they are still operating out of Maui.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[bobnsandi]

We took a fixed wing tour of Kaua`i many years ago and loved it. We were turned off by the high prices of the helicopter tours and found this one. We flew down into Waimea Canyon, along the Pali coast, and into the rainforest. Can't imagin doing much more in a helicopter.

 

Pacific Wings is still in business on Maui (I have a friend who flies for them.)

[Aloha_Jackie]

we took a fixed wing with a kamikaze paintjob/look to it, out of Kauai in 1996 - gotta get Mister Lucky to remember the name, the couple who ran it were totally cool and the guy really got on well with my mother in law. I would recommend it- but prefer the helicopters these days. I'll check back in and let you know the name soon