Oahu by Private Airplane
In this video, we take you with us around OAHU on a 60-minute scenic flight. We start at the HONOLULU AIRPORT and take the east coast up to the north shore and cut through the center of the island, also flying over Pearl Harbor seeing the USS Arizona from sky view.

As someone who has gone on many helicopter flights, this scenic flight by plane gave an interesting perspective of the island by air. Would recommend!
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Adventure At A Glance
Duration:
1 hour
Starting Point:
Honolulu Airport | OAHU
Group size:
Private Tour
What's Provided:
–
What to Bring:
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Our Experience:
Watch YouTube video
Check out this YouTube video on our full trip
***NOTE: THIS FLIGHT TOUR COMPANY HAS PERMANENTLY CLOSED***
A New Perspective
Having a scenic flight around the island of Oahu in something other than a helicopter gave me new perspective on what it's like to fly on Oahu. There we were right on the tarmac, pilot right in front of us. If anybody in your party is interested in aviation or wanting a more immersive experience, this was actually really really cool.
This particular airplane has no air conditioning, the windows are open and you can see everything that's going on. We had headsets on the entire time so we could hear the pilot and all the ground chatter. It was actually really really cool and made us feel like we were part of the flying experience besides just being passengers.

The Route
From the airport, we headed over towards Waikiki passing by Diamond Head crater. It was pretty cool having this kind of a perspective because normally whenever you're flying in a helicopter, it's not quite the same experience. This was of course a bit more bumpier because of the weather.
We had a few islands off the coast over here, Marine Corps Base a little bit farther down, we have sandbar and now we're going up towards the Kualoa Ranch area or “Jurassic Valley.” We passed by Chinaman's Hat and now you can see the “Jurassic Valley” just to our left.
Overall, this is a really cool flight and we could track where the plane was going by looking at the instruments. We headed up to the North Shore, passing over Turtle Bay resort and you can see all of the gorgeous beaches and the wind farms.
Lastly, we flew over Pearl Harbor so we were able to see the USS Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri Battleship from sky view.
As our flight was coming to an end, we headed right back to the airport right where we started.
First Impressions
Overall a fantastic 60-minute flight to get a different perspective of flying on Oahu. I would recommend it. We just finished our 60 minute scenic flight and a couple of first impressions with this specific flight:
- You're on an actual airplane, a twin-engine propeller plane. It was pretty cool if you have anyone in your family or traveling group that's really interested in aviation.
- This takes a completely different spin on a normal helicopter flight tour. For example, with this it was quite noisy because we are on an actual airplane that's a propeller plane, but you do have headphones so a lot of the sound is blocked out.
- What was particularly cool about this flight is that you were able to hear everything that was going on between the pilot and flight control. So if you have somebody in your family again who's really interested in aviation he wanted to be more part of the flight, this is the way to do it.

You start at Honolulu Airport and then from there you go along the east coast of the island up to the North Shore by Turtle Bay and then you cut through the center of the island by the Dole Pineapple Plantation.
Overall, it was a pretty fun experience. The weather was a little bit less than cooperative with us. It was overcast and there was a little bit of rain. This made the flight a little bit more bumpy, just like you would have a more bumpy flight in a commercial air flight.
If you are prone to motion sickness and you can sense that it could be a little bit more of a windier flight or a rainier flight with more bumps, I would definitely recommend taking any motion sickness tablets or anything prior to the flight and maybe take an extra one.
The Review
While, I didn't get motion sickness though I did get a bit uneasy near the end of the flight just because of the bumpy air. It did make my stomach a little bit more nauseous though I (thank goodness!) did not get sick.
Overall, great flight and had a great experience. If you're looking for something unique to do here on the islands and you've already done a helicopter tour, this is definitely a great experience to try out.
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Island:
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