Travelling To Alaska, In Style

Sunday, July 25, 2010 03:58 AM

A tour group en route to Alaska, in their own airplanes

Prince George, B.C. - It's a convoy to Alaska, with a twist...

Rather than a group of motorcycles or a procession of motorhomes, Dale Hemman guides his client on the trip of a lifetime through the blue skies above.

Hemman (shown in photo at left) operates letsflyalaska.com, the first company in the United States to offer guided, self-fly group tours.

And for the second time this summer, Hemman and 12 clients (in their own aircrafts) stopped off in Prince George to re-fuel as part of their 12-day trip re-tracing the flight paths that pioneer aviators flew to Alaska.

The tour group set out from Olympia, Washington. The next leg of their journey was Watson Lake, and then on to Whitehorse for the night.

Hemman says a typical stint in the air is between 2.5 and 3-hours. He takes off from every stop about 15-minutes before the group to check weather...and then the group follows along behind.

The cost for this Alaska-adventure-of-a-lifetime? Approximately $55-hundred dollars US. Letsflyalaska.com has had almost two-thousand customers since its first trip back in 1992.

Photos below show the planes lining up and leaving the Prince George Airport...

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Posted on Sunday, July 25, 2010 03:58 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: BCRacer on July 25 2010 5:06 AM

I read in the newspaper that the reason they stopped in Prince George instead of Quesnel, as they have in the past, was there was not enough ground transport there to handle the amount of people in the group...so we got this group landing here because we have TAXI's....

I guess there must have been a cafe or two that benefitied as well...
Nice to see....

Posted by: Retired on July 25 2010 10:12 AM

And tney call this a tour! What ever happened to the days when you tooled down a highway, window rolled down and air rushing through your hair.
Cheers

Posted by: BCRacer on July 25 2010 10:50 AM

I took off...lol

Posted by: BCRacer on July 25 2010 10:50 AM

It is like roughing it in a motorhome...

Posted by: seamutt on July 25 2010 3:08 PM

Some of you have no idea it seems what you can see and do from an aircraft. Should not knock something one has no knowledge of. Flying to Alaska in a small aircraft is still quite an adventure.

As for roughing it in a motorhome these people are touring, not on a camp out. There is a difference and for some it is thier home. Do you live in a log house with 1800 amenities or a modern home.

Posted by: gus on July 25 2010 4:37 PM

Nice planes. Beechcrafts? One of them N518AB is this Bonanza.
http://community.webshots.com/photo/fullsize/1400861115035359189QkZwOL

The pilot is from Florida. Has this page of a previous trip on the net with many pictures.
http://travel.webshots.com/album/381844991PKLbzA?start=56

This is his profile
http://community.webshots.com/user/cracker001/profile

Posted by: gus on July 25 2010 4:47 PM

http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1080806

That one is a smaller, lighter aircraft.

This is what someone writes about that model of plane.

"The IV-P has the same problem as a Piper Malibu: trying to extract a lot of work from a turbocharged piston engine. You are much more likely to have to manage an engine failure in one of these planes than in a C172. I love the Malibu because it gets 20 miles per gallon while going 200 miles per hour carrying 6 people, but it is scary to fly unless you have A LETTER FROM GOD PROMISING THAT THE ENGINE WON'T QUIT."

Not very adventurous this form of travel, eh? :-)

http://philip.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000u22&topic_id=Aviation&topic=

Posted by: BCRacer on July 25 2010 7:08 PM

Got news for you seamutt, if you are refering to me you got your wires crossed...anything a person does can be an adventure...
Be it on foot, on a bike, in a car, a boat, a jet a small plane or a rocket...pick your poison....
so you really gotta relax there pal...
These folks choose to fly small aircraft and camp in hotels and motels....nothing wrong with that..
and the comment about camping in a motorhome was done tongue in cheek...even though some people do...and that is their adventure....

Posted by: seamutt on July 25 2010 10:48 PM

I am in the beta position!