Hi there,
I’m moving to Prince Rupert in a few weeks for work, and was thinking I’d like to take up flying as a hobby. Are there any places in town that offer flight lessons?
I’m also interested in the looking at renting somewhere interesting to live some time in the next few months (getting put up somewhere for the first bit) and likely buying in a year or so. I’ll probably start another thread for that though.
There are no flight clubs, schools, aircraft rentals, or even hangars at Prince Rupert airport. There isn’t even 100 LL gasoline for piston engine aircraft available; only JetA. The airport is on an island which is only serviced by ferry during the three daily commercial flights and staff changes. Even if you arranged a $140 water taxi or other marine transportation after hours it is still a 4 kilometer walk from the airport to the dock. This limits any startups or aircraft owners. Terrace airport is your best option but is almost a 2 hour drive from Rupert. Good Luck, I hope you find a solution.
Er, not to sound stupid but, what about float planes Dex? Or helicopters?
Is the orginal poster yanking our PR chain or really not researched town that much before arrival??
Not a stupid question/thought at all. Float planes and helicopters are considerably more expensive to train on and hard to find for casual rental without considerable experience; insurance is the devil. I do not believe anyone in Rupert has a helicopter or float plane suitable for private pilot training and/or casual rental.
Not yanking chains, I was just having a hard time locating the info on the net and thought some locals would be able to help.
I was just sort of wondering out loud about the flight school, it’s something I’ve been tossing around for a while, but am in no rush to begin. I’ll probably start with kayaking : )
There used to be an outfit in Terrace (charter company, I think) that would do private flight training.
Illissus, Sorry i misunderstood you. Welcome to PR and I hope you find yourself happy with your choice of moving here. This is a good forum and you can get some pretty accurate information on it regarding anything. Any forum is made better by new voices so I will be looking forward to hearing more from you!
You will hear from me, as of now i know one person in town and met some of his friends once. I’ll be looking for advice on the ins and outs of this city by the sea.
I also understand there is some recreational hockey in town, will definitely be signing up next winter.
From what I’ve heard on CBC recently, Vanderhoof will be starting up a flight school and apparently it’s the only one in the north. Expensive but that seems to be the only option that is even somewhat local. And, in reality, for the time and effort to travel that far you’d probably do just as well down south.
Vanderhoof.
Yeah, if I was going to go that far, I’d just go to vancouver.
Relegating that to pipe dream status for a whiiiiiile.
If your looking for flight training then Kelowna is your best bet.
I have a friend in rupert that went to Kelowna for flight school, he said they did a great job.
He also got to take his float endorsment, which you need to fly a floatplane .
I did my flight instruction at Victoria Airport (YYJ) and would give that place a big thumbs up. Most of your air exercises are in the Cowichan Valley and Duncan area and sometimes around Discovery/Chatam islands. The backdrop of Mount Baker just to your left, Vancouver city at your 8 o clock, Olympic mountains and Victoria at 2, as you are on long final for runway 09 on a beautiful summer early evening…mind blowing. Awesome area to fly. I wouldn’t suggest Boundary Bay in Vancouver for training as the traffic in the circuit can be enormous and can eat up flight training time after you feel comfortable in circuits and you just want to expedite your landing after your exercises to save money. Getting stuck in a circuit with 8 or more aircraft eats up the flight time = money. Especially when your instructor is sitting next to you @ $40 + /hour. Great airport though. Vancouver airspace can have some nasty restrictions sometimes as well. You can get stuck behind a couple planes in Victoria but it is not near as busy as Boundary Bay and sometimes you share a cicuit with WestJet (737) and/or Jazz (Dash 
; which is cool and good experience . I even got to share a circuit with SnowBirds; actually tower told me to turn right just after take off and they flew past me like I was standing still and I could feel the vibration and noise of their jet engines over the vibration of the Cessna engine…what a rush. Anyhow, Victoria (YYJ) is Class C airspace with two tower (inner, outer) frequencies, ground, and clearance delivery, which provides good experience for training. By the time you reach 2500 feet you will have talked with 5 different controllers. If I had to do it over again my second choice would be Courtenay Airpark. One of my favorite landing strips and a great airport close to town and along the river and ocean. The flight school there is pretty good as well. Well I got carried away and am late to pick up the wife, now I miss flying even more 
A picture of Courtenay Airpark - on final. If you look closely you will see a Boeing 737 on stilts before the runway on the right. That is the Xihwu Reef
(Boeing 737 Artificial Reef) which is now near Chemainus B.C. under water.
