Flight training while stationed in Japan

rjmore

rjmore

Gastrointestinally Challenged
Hey all...

My nephew is interested in airline flying once he gets out of the Marine Corps. He is stationed in Iwakuni at the moment. Does anyone know if there are any training options while stationed overseas or will he have to wait until he gets back stateside? He has three years to go and may end up in Japan the whole time or on deployment.

Thanks!
 
Funny how this was a very similar question I had about 15+ years ago. There was a defunct aero club at Iwakuni that had a 172 that hadn’t flown since Bush sr was el Jefe.
If there is a local aero club, tell him to ask the Ops O at base ops.
Going to Kadena (Okinawa) isn’t practical.

Best of luck to him.
 
It will really depend on his unit’s optempo and if he is assigned out to dets. Just going off where he is based, it sounds like your nephew is not a pilot, but an air wing Marine as opposed to a division Marine or FSSG Marine.

Marines in Japan don’t really spend very much time in garrison in Japan as they are always going from exercise to exercise all over the Western Pacific, or prepping for the next exercise.

i was able to do some GA flying/training out of Kadena with the base aero club when I was stationed on Okinawa with the Marine division (25 years ago) but spent 18 months of my 24 months “in Japan” not on Okinawa and couldn’t really do any consistent flight training.

doesn’t sound like there is an aero club at iwakuni, so he might want to try going out in town to see if there are local flight training resources.
googling general aviation in Japan, I got this hit, I don’t know how old it is, but it appears there is a robust general aviation community in Japan, but it involves very typical Japanese bureaucracy,

http://www.aopa.jp/Newenglish/Newenglish/Fly_1 rev 2.html
 
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