Ideas for Pilot Participants

  • Make the Tour your 2010 holiday.  Book off 2 weeks, get everything ready to go ahead of time.  Do your research but don't make any concrete plans ahead of time.  Then go wherever your heart takes you and the weather allows!
  • Share your Tour with passengers.  You are legally allowed to share your direct expenses and your passengers will be only too happy to help out.
  • Plan on visiting one of Manitoba's Tourism regions each month.  You'll not only see all parts of Manitoba but also all of its seasons!
  • Share your Tour with your flying friends from other provinces, it is Homecoming 2010 after all!  Invite them to a specific event or for the whole Tour, just get them involved.
  • How about your American friends?  By next year those border crossing procedures will be old hat!
  • Go out of your way to encourage pilots who are inactive to join the Tour.  Help them get their rusty skills up to par so they will feel confident and safe.
  • Contribute a loonie or a twoonie to a charity of your choice for each visit on the Tour.  Ask your passengers if they'd like to join you.  Perhaps people will contribute at the places you visit.  We'll total it all up after the Tour and let the public know.  We are so fortunate to have this gift of flight, this could be a way to show our gratitude.
  • Live some of your aviation dreams!  A hot air balloon flight, a introductory glider flight, a parachute jump, a hang glider flight, ... any or all of these can be part of your Tour.
  • Look for your own Tour sponsors in your home community.  Offer to take their name around the province on the side of your airplane.

Ideas for Passenger Participants

  • Recruit a pilot to Tour with.  Maybe all he/she needs is your encouragement to participate.  Sharing costs will be a great help!
  • A hot air balloon ride could be part of the Tour.  This could be one of the things on your bucket list, what a great opportunity to check it off!  A sail plane ride, an introductory instructional flight, a hang glider flight, a first parachute jump, ... there are so many opportunities!  If you could string enough of these together you could register and be a Tour participant!
  • Ask your pilot if she's supporting a charity during the Tour, contribute if so.

Ideas for Airports/Flying Clubs/Communities

  • Become Tour Sponsors!!!!
  • Canvas your community to share the cost and benefits of sponsorship.
  • Have a guest book for Tour participants to sign in when they come to visit.
  • Post a map and have Tourers put a pin to show there home base when they visit.
  • Create a display of attractions and events in the community at the airport so people know what's going on, who to contact for rides, etc.  Work with your local CDC, Chamber, or whoever coordinates community events.
  • Have a gift package for Tourers when they arrive at your airport with items that they can redeem in the community.
  • Offer member rates or a discount on fuel purchases to Tourers.
  • Put together a Tour package - 100 liters of fuel, a round of golf, a meal at the Club House, overnight at a B & B, ... all for one price.
  • Plan a FlyIn breakfast as part of a bigger community event and link them completely together.
  • Do a 'visitor friendliness' inventory of your airport and correct the gaps.

Ideas for Flying Schools

  •  Become a Tour Sponsor!
  • Offer a special package for Tour participants who may not have been actively flyiing.  This could be an evening review of met, navigation, ... with an hour dual instruction to bring skills up to par.  The dual time would meet recency requirements.
  • Share information about the Tour with your students.  Students could be Tour participants.  Its typical for students to do some instruction at another airport, there's the dual cross country, the solo cross country, ..., a student could meet many of the requirements for completion of the Tour during his training.  Completing the Tour after training would be a great way to put into practise all those new skills.
  • Night ratings involve both dual and solo cross country trips - these could be part of the Tour.
  • Instructors could use their dual cross country trips as their own Tour visits - remember to document them with photos.
  • There is no better way to promote flying than having good reasons to fly - the Tour is a great opportunity!
  • Encourage your rental pilots to participate by sharing an aircraft.  If 2 or 3 or 4 pilots share an aircraft they can all complete the Tour at a reduced cost.

Ideas for Businesses

  • Sponsor the Tour!
  • Include a coupon in your Passport insert that will get participants into your store, into your shop, or onto your web site.
  • Put your logo and name on the side of a participant's airplane in return for sharing some of his/her expenses.
  • Put on a workshop, training session, or open house which then becomes a Tour Event.

 Ideas for Century Flight Club members

  • Going to Yukon this summer?  What an adventure!!  The Manitoba Aviation Tour was inspired by the CCF, how about combining the two!
  • For pilots from Manitoba its easy!  Use your flight from your home base across Manitoba to make some Tour visits.  On the way back from Yukon, do the same.  You have all the rest of the summer and fall to finish the Tour!
  • For pilots from the east its also easy!  Plan two flights across Manitoba that have stops in different Manitoba Tourism regions.  Take one on the way to Yukon via the Manitoba staging point and the other one on the way back.  Add a few stops and you can complete the Tour.  If you don't get all 14 stops, no big deal- it IS all about particpation.
  • Your Tour registration package and the web site will likely include information about places with fuel discounts and other incentives, your $25 Tour registration might quickly pay for itself!

Sharing Your Ideas

 Please share your Tour ideas with us by email so we can share them with everyone on this page.