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 U.S. 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 U.S.-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 US$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 US$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.”
Control tower stay with Northern Lights
An upcoming highlight already in construction is a 60-foot (18.3-metre) control tower with all-glass geodesic dome, which will be an Airbnb stay where guests can lie in bed and gaze at Alaska’s spectacular Northern Lights.
Over time, he says, they’re “creating, you know, kind of our own little airport amusement park.”
Guests will be able to check out the older planes and various engines and propellers around the property, the site already enjoys cross-country skiing trails and Kotwicki has plans for a frisbee golf course and volleyball court.
Sourcing a new plane for the site has typically been an eight-to-nine month process, Kotwicki says, of ringing up contacts and knocking on doors until finally an aircraft comes along that is not only available for purchase but also capable of being transported to Wasilla.
Getting permissions to convert them to accommodation has been a lot easier than it might be in a more densely populated part of the world.
““Luckily, where we’re at in Alaska is totally unzoned. The property that we bought, because of the size of it, we are allowed to do whatever we want with it,” Koticki says.
“The big red tape that we jumped through was moving them on the highway. But once they’re here, as far as the conversion goes, it’s pretty straightforward.”
Logistics
Rural Alaska may be a great choice for those aspects of the project, but it’s not when it comes to climate.
Dry, arid environments are the best option for storing grounded aircraft, such as New Mexico’s “boneyard” or Spain’s Teruel Airport.
Alaska, however, is at the opposite end of the scale: “just a cold rain forest,” says Konticki, filled with swamps and permafrost. “From a maintenance standpoint, it’s extremely difficult to maintain them up here.”
In the coldest winter months, his heating bills for a single one of the planes runs to US$1,500 to US$2,000 per month.
“The biggest misconception” is that planes are well insulated, he says. “Aluminum dissipates heat very well, and so trying to heat aircraft is very difficult. Now, yes, they do fly in minus 40 Celsius up high; they’re also burning like 20,000 pounds or 10,000 kilos an hour of jet fuel” and that creates a lot of excess heat.
The insulation value of the planes, pre-conversion, is about an R3, Konticki says, similar to a double-glazed window pane, while a typical home in Alaska would be closer to a well insulated R30.
“We remove all the original insulation, get all the old gunk out of there, and then you spray foam that’s gonna be the best R value for the thickness,” says Konticki. “We’ll usually achieve somewhere like an R 28 or 30 new insulation value. They’re still difficult to heat. I mean, they’re like long, narrow tubes.”
Konticki could have chosen the likes of Arizona for his flight school project dream and life would have been a lot easier.
However, “Alaska is a really spectacular place in terms of offering,” he says. “It makes it difficult, but it makes it really special.”