My wife and I are heading to the South Island of New Zealand later this year for a big birthday trip. Is anyone familiar with being able to fly down there? When we travel around the US, we'll call local fly operations and do a sightseeing trip where I fly but we have an instructor with us, sort of like a checkout flight if we were to ever rent the plane in the future. Is something similar available there with my FAA pilot certificate, medical, renter's insurance, etc? If so, anyone got any recommendations on the South Island? We're flying in/out of Dunedin.
@Sam Sarris
try flyinn nz at Gordy Hill on the south island. I have gone with them twice, great people and great experience
@Sam Sarris aside from Flyinn which is an excellent outfit, Sue Telford at Learn to Fly in Wanaka does a lot of that sort of work. Wanaka is a 2 hour drive from Dunedin, on the way to Queenstown.
@Sam Sarris
Fly-Inn NZ (https://www.flyinn.co.nz) is top notch. Matt and Jo are great and do an outstanding job of arranging everything to make your stay enjoyable. We spent a week flying with them out of Wanaka in 2018. I flew with Nick and my daughter flew with Matt. I got a temporary NZ pilot license at the end of the week. My daughter is a student pilot. The views in the Southern Alps are incredible. We circled Mt Cook, landed on the beach at Big Bay, Milford Sound and a bunch of grass airstrips. They met us in Queenstown with their Cessna 172 airplanes and we flew back to Gordy Hill for lunch and orientation. We stayed at a nice place in Wanaka, which is beautiful. They provided us with a car. Nick, the instructor/guide that Fly-Inn provided, was essential since I was not a qualified pilot by NZ regulations until I got a temporary NZ license at the end of the week. Nick handled the radio and navigation. Their accent can be hard to understand over the radio so it was a relief to have someone who could interpret and knew their radio conventions. They know the island so well that I didn't have to worry about navigation or airspace rules, which are somewhat different than ours. They don't have ADS-B but instead use a system of VOR triangulation for navigation. We landed in one grass field with a bunch of sheep where I had to ask Nick several times where the airstrip was even though it was right in front of me. Nick said to watch out for the street light on final approach. We had a great time. I highly recommend them.