I'm a member of the Columbia Seaplane Pilots Association, based here in the Portland area. I attended the annual BBQ at Lenhardt airpark the other day because I'd like to learn to fly floats close to home and on the Willamette and Columbia rivers (haven't been able to stop thinking about it since flying with Rhyppa a few years back), so I figured it was a good group to meet with. A few of the members are even on BCP.

One thing that we universally acknowledged is that there is a major lack of training resources. Dave Wiley was an SPA cornerstone, and lived not 2 miles from my house, teaching floats on the Willamette. Unfortunately, Dave passed away a few years back in an accident when the strut attach bolt on his Taylorcraft failed during a training flight. He was the instructor and the examiner, and his loss pretty much dried up any local training. There was another examiner in the area for a while, but it sounds like he's moved.

We have a lot of float pilots in the area, even some instructors, but no DPE who can give checkrides. I know Zpilot on here has recently started a float training business, but he's operating somewhere north in Washington. Maybe he will chime in.

Anyway, I was asked to try and birddog some info about finding/getting a DPE for our area. Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks.

The weekend SES in a CC180 (not close but it's a short stay):

Kenmore Air Harbor, Inc.
6321 NE 175th Street
Kenmore, WA 98028-0064
Flight Instruction
Tel: 425.482.2250 (Seattle area)
Toll-free: 800.543.9595 x2250 (US & Canada)
Fax: 425.485.4774
[email protected]

Seaplanes.org just printed an extensive training guide which I can mail to you?

8GCBC wrote:The weekend SES in a CC180 (not close but it's a short stay):
Seaplanes.org just printed an extensive training guide which I can mail to you?

I already have it, thanks though. The state of Oregon is completely omitted. Finding a local DPE is more a mission to bolster the local resources for everyone, not just my personal SES aspirations.

I hope to set up a little operation in Portland, to include training, amongst other things in 2 or 3 years.

In the meantime, I can refer you to two sources.

My current airplane is leased to http://www.rainierflightservice.com/ up at Renton. Great school. They have not gone public with the float ratings yet, but they will soon. Expect to see a big media blitz from them in a couple of weeks. By the way, we will have the most affordable rates in the PNW.

Second reccomendation: Howard Smolin, PDX based AS Captain, has a little operation up there on a creek close to Lake Vancouver. In addition, he is soon to be checked out as a DPE for seaplanes. As a matter of fact, I just flew a trip with him last month and he was studying for the DPE test. If you decide to contact him, please tell him I referred you. [email protected]

Finally, there is "Ryan's Float Flying" that is (was?) located on the water in Oregon City. He had a Super Cruiser. Yeah, I am using past-tense language because I am really not sure if he is flying anymore. His contact information is/was located on the c-spa.org website.


I completely agree with you that PDX lacks any resources for float flying...which is a shame. I hope to set something up where a float plane can dock, park a while, fuel up here in PDX when I set up my little 135 in a few years, but...not sure that is a realistic goal considering how real estate is on the rivers and such. I would be very interested in going into a venture with somone to set up a quasi seaplane base here. However, I think a more realistic way to get some type of base of operations going for us in the PDX area would be to start at a marina that could accomodate seaplanes (no tall pylons) and perhaps they could provide some 100LL for us.

I am also a member of C-spa, but, I have not made it to any of their events yet. Unfortunately all of the splash-ins and the recent annual meeting were held on weekends...which...I always work

ZP

ZP,

I'm glad you're working that angle. You should look into working out of the Wiley's. Call Aron Faegre from C-SPA, I know he lives next door now and bases out of there.

The Puget Sound area is probably one of the most seaplaney places in the lower 48, but even around here it's somewhat rare to find a good place to dock one. Piling-secured docks are common, it seems real easy to me to just add a separate float for seaplanes but apparently it takes an act of God. Roche Harbor & Friday Harbor in the San Juans have them, otherwise from what I hear if it's not an official seaplane base (or sometimes even if it is)-- good luck. Port Townsend would be a natural and there's been talk off and on for years about a seaplane-docking facility somewhere on the downtown waterfront, but no joy yet.

The first thing to do if you're in an area that does some seaplane training but where there's no seaplane DPE is to contact the local Flight Standards District Office of the FAA, and tell them they need to designate a DPE for SES in their district. IT takes a while to get approved as a DPE, and requires a lot of hoops, but the way it gets started often is someone contacts the FSDO and lets them know there's a need.

MTV

Zane, this may be helpful, maybe not.
Since you're shopping NW Oregon, contact Terry Brandt @ the WAAAM museum. He holds every ticket known, both GA & comm'l, fixed & fling wing. He also knows everyone "aviation" if he can't do it for you. Thing is tho, he's on his way up here for a couple weeks to play w/his Cub on floats!
G'luck.
OH! And I'm pleased to hear of BCP 3 coming soon!

Here in MN state of 10,000 lakes and lots of floatplanes we currently have no DPE as our FSDO is busting our DPE's for very minor things, 2 of them in 2 months. These are DPE's with over 37 years?? FSDO guys, young with very little experience, 20 hours on floats and they are our FAA float inspectors, but the are FAA qualified as they tell me after getting a SES rating in a J3 cub? I have 9 SES check rides this week alone and having examiners fly in from South Dakota and Wisconson and costing my customers a lot more $$, what a buch of SH@@! Now the FSDO threatens me and is ramp checking all my planes and records after I question their two faced one way street tactics! They can break the FAA FAR rules and regulations, but if a DPE or instructor makes a small error they are on us like flies on SH@@! More news to come from this!

We had a Cub/floats training program set up in Central Washington about 15 or so years ago using my plane ( it wasn't really intended to be non profit-but it was...). The only willing qualified examiner out of Spokane area FAA office was too heavy to give check rides in the Cub and be anywhere near gross wt with the student/examinee aboard, so we found a light wt. DPE out of Hood River who would fly up to Moses Lake and give several check rides the same day-no extra charge if we had a few for him to do. Great guy, a HR deputy sheriff who did this for just shits 'n giggles.
Anyhow when the paperwork for the licenses passes through Spokane FSDO, they sent a letter to our HR examiner and told him if he "trespassed" into their area again, they would have his DPE ticket pulled. Consequently, the follow up examinees had to fly down to HR to take the SES exam. Then, after we did that, they (Spokane FSDO) sent us (those associated with the program) a letter which was a notice that if we continued the program they would come down and go through my plane's (THE SES training airplane) log books with a fine tooth comb, and if everything wasn't strictly according to their current logging standards, the airplane would be permanently grounded. Well, my '46 Cub is highly modified (now essentially a PA-11) and the changes were made back in the '60's when logging mods was pretty casual everywhere, so it wouldn't have ANY chance to pass that "review", so we had absolutely no choice but to fold the program. I guess we really pissed them off using the DPE examiner out of Portland FSDO Office. I really don't have a clue why, I guess just a "turf" issue....

I'm not bitter about it. I wasn't making any money, just being a good guy so friends/people could have the joy of getting a rating and have a Cub on floats for them to rent locally.... What I was, and still am, is just completely amazed at what all they did to "Checkmate" the program.

Fundamentally Against Aviation - again....
lc