An Alaskan Journal

A Chilling Encounter with Ice

Meet Some Students

Meet DPE Barb Mack

Meet DPE Mike Andersen,

The Night Witches

Aviation Stories

Learn more about Sim Flite MN

It is a web page devoted to general aviation, with a special focus on women in aviation, encouraging them to follow their dreams and reach for the sky.

"Seize the Sky" is the creation of Linda Dowdy. Linda was formerly chief flight instructor of Knowlton Flight Instruction Services, located at Anoka airport, in the Minneapolis metropolitan area. In the spring of 2006 she resigned from the flight school in order to start her own company to do sim and GPS training. The company, Sim Flite Minnesota, went operational in July and is doing well. Linda has given more than 900 hours of sim instruction and considers it the best and most cost-effective training tool available to today's pilot.

Linda is a CFII, MEI, and ATP with more than 3,700 hours of flight experience, including over 1,700 hours of multi-engine time. She has been flight instructing for twelve years and has given more than 2,600 hours of dual instruction.

In 2003 Linda was awarded the designation of Master CFI by NAFI, the National Association of Flight Instructions. To put it into perspective, there are more than 81,000 flight instructors in the country, and less than 500 of them are Master CFIs. Linda is one of eight Master CFIs in the state of Minnesota. The Master CFI designation must renewed every two years, and Linda was again designated a Master CFI both in 2005 and most recently in March of 2007.

During her 20 years of flying, Linda has flown extensively over the U.S., Canada, and Alaska. Some of her experiences are documented in "An Alaskan Journal", the story of her three-week flight through western Canada and Alaska. "An Alaskan Journal" was originally published in the November and December 1990 issues of the Minnesota Flyer.