Wasilla, south central Alaska. Home to bears, lakes, mountains and a flight school that’s fast becoming a private aviation wonderland.
At FLY8MA Pilot Lodge, you can opt for a scenic flight tour with glacier views, take the controls for a flying lesson, or go all in and get your pilot training.
When night falls over the broad vistas of the US state they call the Last Frontier, you can then climb the steps to two unique accommodation experiences: a converted McDonnell Douglas DC-6 airplane and the newest arrival, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 – still with its DHL livery.
The fast-developing site is an ongoing project by FLY8MA founder Jon Kotwicki, who previously owned a flight school in Florida, before working as a commercial pilot and eventually ending up in Alaska.
Flying for the airlines “pays good money and everything, but it’s a very boring job,” he says. “Driving Uber is more interesting because you could talk to your passengers.”
Having fallen in love with the south central region on a vacation spent hiking, fishing and spotting bears and grizzlies, he chose it as a spot where he and his team – and his trusty Pomeranian dog Foxtrot – could “buy a lot of property and perhaps develop our own airport and run our own show.”
Expanding playground
The site runs to a little over 100 acres and started off as just a runway. Then came cabins to house students, and then cabins to house tourists on scenic flights.
The cabins got rigged out with heated floors and towel bars and “everything fancy,” he says. “And then, like, let’s one up that. It would be cool if we got an old airplane to turn into a house. Let’s make it really nice and put a Jacuzzi on the wing and a barbecue grill. Let’s get two more and have three of them.”
They built a second runway and a hangar for this expanding playground. “I have a tendency to go a little overboard,” he chuckles.
“It’s fun, whether it’s grown adults just in awe of the place, or it’s kids running up and down the whole length of the airplane, going crazy and running to the cockpit,” he says. “It’s frustrating and stressful and overwhelming and expensive to do these things – but it’s rewarding.”
The first plane to be converted was the US-built 1950s DC-6, which in a previous life flew freight and fuel to remote villages around Alaska.
Now it’s a two-bed, one-bath stay, with a fire pit on the wing deck, with Airbnb prices around $448 a night.
Bookings have just opened for the DC-9, which is three-bed, two-bath, and has a sauna, hot tub and heated floors. It can host seven guests and prices are around $849 a night.
Work is underway too on the newest addition, a Boeing 727, which will be a lodge space for guests to congregate.
There’ll “be a big kitchen in there, big dining room table. People can have meals together,” says Kotwicki. “We’ll have a hot tub on the wings, couches. The tail of it, I’m really excited for because that’ll be a rooftop deck” with a “nice little fire pit to hang out and everything.”
Kotwicki has recently bought a fourth plane. It’s a Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar, a military transport aircraft produced from 1949 to 1955, which he says is “so ugly, it’s cool.”
