As part of my bucket list of flying in all 50 states, I took
the opportunity to check off another state, a hard one, while on a business
trip in Hawaii. As I’m sure it is
obvious by now that I am a huge Cirrus fan, it only seemed fitting to find a
Cirrus to rent in Hawaii. This is not an
easy task since there are very few of them in Hawaii and there aren’t any for
rent. I had posted a note on the COPA
forums and got a suggestion to fly with Maui Flight Academy since they have a
Cirrus to do training in. I started
exchanging e-mails with Laurence Balter the owner and instructor at Maui Flight
Academy a couple months ago and I started to formulate a plan to accomplish
this task on one of my upcoming trips.
While on a TDY trip in Australia, my travel plans changed
and I had to leave early for my follow-on trip to Hawaii, which got me to the
island a few days early and with time to kill.
Since it just so happened to be Fathers Day, I thought “why not go do
something fun since I can’t be with my family”, so I contacted Laurence and he
was very accommodating to meet my requirements.
He was able to work me into his day since he had clients that put them
on Lanai for a couple hours of site seeing and lunch. On the morning of 15 June, I hopped on an
Island Air ATR-72 and took a short 30 minute flight from Honolulu to Lanai to
link up with Laurence.
I linked up with Laurence and we headed out to his Cirrus, a
2007 SR22G3. What was comical about his
plane was the tail number N779LB, which is pretty darn close our past aircraft
N779WC. Climbing into this plane felt
like coming home. I had been flying a
2009 SR20G3 with Perspective, but I never feel that comfortable in it like I
did my Avidyne equipped aircraft. We
started it up and I taxied to RW21 and took off. We departed to the east and around the
coastline of Lanai and then proceeded north to Molokai. We intercepted the coast and then proceeded
to follow it to the northeast. The area
was gorgeous, especially Molokai, and for you movie buffs you may know that the
opening scenes of Jurassic Park as they fly toward the island. We made our way close to the coastline by
several waterfalls and then by the old Belgian missionary Saint Damien founded
in 1873. Then we proceeded farther west
over the Kauhako Crater Pond - a small
yet 800-foot deep pond. From here we
flew out over Kahiu Point light house and circled around for a touch and go at
Kalaupapa Airport (PHLU) on RW5. Kalaupapa
is also the airport for the last “leprosy” colony that has had more than 8000
residence over the years. The remaining
few have since been cured. After this we
circled back around and followed the coast to the West and then cut across the
island just east of Molokai (PHMK) and headed back to Lanai where I landed on
RW 3.
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| Kauhako Crater Pond |
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| Kahiu Point light house and Kalaupapa Airport (PHLU) |
Flying this Cirrus was totally comfortable as if I had been
flying my old plane non-stop for the past year.
It was really as if I hadn’t ever sold it. It was a great experience to get back in the
left seat of an SR22 again and the scenery was amazing. Laurence was awesome and was a great tour
guide. He said my skills didn’t show any
degradation and made his “instruction” more of a joy ride for him.
Although the plane is based out of Maui, Laurence is very
accommodating to link together other flights to help make travel work out. He can also ferry the plane to Oahu if
needed, but additional costs may be incurred.
If you are looking for a great way to see the islands, I highly
recommend giving Laurence a call. Check
out his website at www.mauiflightacademy.com.
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| My approximate flight path (via Foreflight) |
Awesome!
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