A Flight Instructor Wins the AOPA Sweepstakes Husky, and What That Tailwheel Airplane Says About the State of General Aviation

Flight instructor Ashley Almquist has won this year’s AOPA Sweepstakes: a brand-new 2024 Aviat Husky A-1C-200, announced at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The winner being a working certificated flight instructor - and the airplane being a purpose-built tailwheel backcountry machine rather than a plain trainer - says something real about where general aviation’s energy is pointed right now.

Who Won the AOPA Sweepstakes This Year?

The 2024 AOPA Sweepstakes airplane went to Ashley Almquist, a certificated flight instructor. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) made the announcement during AirVenture, the Experimental Aircraft Association’s summer gathering in Oshkosh - for one week each year, the busiest airport in the world.

The Sweepstakes is free to enter. You don’t buy a ticket; being an AOPA member puts you in the running. Each year the organization selects an airplane, tells its story across the magazine and online for a year, and then draws one member’s name at the end. Past prizes have ranged from restored classics to sharp modern singles.

What Is the Aviat Husky A-1C-200?

The Aviat Husky is built in Afton, Wyoming. It’s a high-wing, two-seat, tandem tailwheel airplane - tandem meaning you sit one behind the other, not side by side. Its DNA traces back to the classic backcountry and bush airplanes, and it competes in the same world as the Super Cub.

The “200” in the A-1C-200 designation points to the engine: 200 horsepower. That’s a lot of pull for an airplane this light. It means short takeoff rolls, a strong climb, and the ability to operate out of high, hot, and short fields that would make a heavier airplane nervous.

Fabric on tube, a big wing, and big tires available if you want them - this is the airplane that lands on a gravel bar next to a river or drops into a strip that’s really just somebody’s idea of a strip. If you’ve dreamed about mountain strips or fishing trips to places with no road in, this is the tool for that job.

Why This Matters for Pilots

The headline is a nice human-interest story, but the details tell a bigger one. The winner is a flight instructor - often the least glamorous, most thankless, and most underpaid rung on the aviation ladder. Instructing is early mornings, hot summer cabins, cold winter ones, and finding a patient way to say “let’s try that again” for the fortieth time.

Every pilot flying today learned from one of these people. Every airline captain, warbird pilot, and weekend flier started in the right seat next to somebody who was teaching. When the airplane lands in an instructor’s hands, in a small way it goes back to the source.

The tailwheel choice is also not an accident. For years there’s been a steady, growing pull back toward stick-and-rudder flying: toward tailwheels, toward backcountry work, toward flying that demands you fly the airplane all the way to the tiedown. You see it in the popularity of short takeoff and landing (STOL) competitions at the fly-ins, and in how many pilots are chasing a tailwheel endorsement. AOPA picking a Husky instead of a plain trainer tells you exactly where the community’s enthusiasm is pointed.

How Do I Get a Tailwheel Endorsement?

You don’t need to win an airplane to fly one. A tailwheel endorsement is not a rating with a checkride - it’s a logbook signature from an instructor, given once you’ve shown you can safely take off and land in a conventional-gear airplane.

Here’s how to chase it:

Find a school with a tailwheel airplane on the line - a Champ, a Citabria, a Cub, or a Husky if you’re lucky.
Budget roughly 10 hours, give or take, depending on how quickly it clicks and how much wind you train in.
Expect real time on wheel landings and three-point landings, and expect your instructor to talk a lot about the rudder.
Once you’ve got it, go find some grass. That’s where these airplanes are happiest.

Pilots who’ve done it consistently report that it makes them better in every airplane afterward. A tailwheel is less forgiving on the ground - it punishes lazy feet and teaches you to fly the airplane until it’s fully stopped and tied down. Those habits carry straight back into your Cessna 172 or your Piper. You become smoother, more precise, and more aware of the wind.

What Is the AOPA?

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association is the largest advocacy group for general aviation pilots in the country. When a proposed rule would affect where you can fly, what medical you need, or what it costs to keep an airplane, AOPA is usually the organization in the room arguing the pilot’s side.

The Sweepstakes is the fun, visible part of what they do. The quieter part is the advocacy - and that advocacy works on behalf of every pilot, member or not. The organizations that fight for general aviation are only as strong as the number of pilots standing behind them.

Key Takeaways

Flight instructor Ashley Almquist won the 2024 AOPA Sweepstakes, a brand-new Aviat Husky A-1C-200, announced at AirVenture in Oshkosh.
The Husky is a 200-horsepower, two-seat tandem tailwheel airplane built in Afton, Wyoming, designed for short, rough, backcountry fields.
AOPA’s choice of a purpose-built backcountry airplane reflects a broader trend toward stick-and-rudder and tailwheel flying across general aviation.
A tailwheel endorsement is a logbook signature - no checkride - typically taking around 10 hours, and it makes you a sharper, more precise pilot in any aircraft.
The AOPA is GA’s largest advocacy organization, and the Sweepstakes is the visible front of its year-round work on pilots’ behalf.