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Flying sites
Every flying area we drive to, with the sourcing status of every figure attached.
There is no English-language site guide for the Almaty region. The knowledge exists — in Russian, in the heads of the local pilots who fly this range every week — and almost none of it is written down anywhere a visiting pilot will find it.
This is our attempt at the missing document, with one rule: a number without a source does not go in it. If you fly here and can correct or extend a row, send it and we publish it with your name on the row. The dataset is also available as machine-readable JSON.
One standing caveat that applies to every row: our airspace notes are operational judgement. The Kazakh AIP is the document that counts.
One row per flying area in the Almaty region that we operate in or drive to. Every number carries its status: verified means we measured it or it comes from a primary operating document; claimed means a public source states it and we have not checked it ourselves; unknown means we do not know and will not guess. Retrieval difficulty and airspace notes are our own operational judgement — they are not a substitute for the official Kazakh AIP, and if your task touches controlled airspace the AIP is the only document that counts.
| Area | Where | Launch alt. | Best registered flight | Season | Retrieval |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ushkonyr plateau | Zailiysky Alatau foothills, ~1 h west of Almaty | 1750 m claimed | — | April to October. Morning and late-afternoon slots are the reliable ones; midsummer afternoons often blow out. | Easy. Landings are near road; pickup 20–40 minutes. |
| Oi-Qaragai | Resort valley in the Zailiysky Alatau, south-east of Almaty | unknown | — | Used year-round by local operators; free flight in the warm half of the year. | Easy. Everything is inside a serviced resort valley. |
| Sunkar complex area | Above Almaty city, at the mouth of the Medeu gorge | unknown | — | Spring to autumn. | Trivial — you are inside the city. |
| Assy plateau | High plateau east of Almaty, above the Turgen gorge | unknown | — | Mid-June to September only. | Moderate. One road along the plateau; off it, nothing. |
| Talgar and Issyk valleys | East of Almaty along the range front | unknown | — | May to September. | Easy at the front of the range, hard inside the gorges. |
Tell us your dates
Send the dates you are in the country and we will come back with the slots that have the best chance of usable air. A person reads it and answers within one working day.
Or just get the season report
One email at the end of each season with the flyable days we actually logged, and one more if the SIV course opens. Nothing else, ever.