Miami flying

Holy Moly its done.....

2011-12-15T20:41:00.000-08:00

After 3 skills tests, 9 theory exams over 12 months, and 250 hours of flying I am there.
I am now a Flying Instructor.
Today over a full day consisting of 10 hours at school being tested on 4 different areas: Pre Flight briefing, 2 hour flight test (consisting of giving lessons, teaching emergencies, instrument flying and landings), then I had to give a 45 minute lecture and finally an oral Q&A on all aspects of flying covering anything from How the Wind blows, to Flight Planning, then how the engine works to what to do if a student has a cold.
All in all a pretty grueling day, but the best part was when to examiner who has come in from Arizona held out his hand and said " Congratulations you've done a good job".
As I sit here I'm a little lost, not sure what I am going to do now that I am not having to put in so many hours of study per day.
Its been so much hard work over the passed 12 months and so many people have helped me get where I am today. I am so very grateful to all of my family and friends who have supported me all along the way, through being a stressed out friend/husband/dad/son and student. Thankyou to everyone has helped me.
I am going to take a well earned break over the xmas period and maybe get a pleasure flight or 2 in.
For the time being I am off to Miami for the weekend then for once I will be the passenger on a plane, a nice big 747 400 courtesy of British Airways back to the UK.
Merry Xmas.
Stu.

The end of the course... after 4 weeks of training.

2011-12-12T17:46:00.000-08:00

Today drew a close to the learning part of the instructor course, I had the final lesson this morning of the 25 hours of of the flight instructors course. Stephen Fisher my instructor in this course has been a great tutor, I have learned so much over the course that frankly its surprised me at how much I really didn't know prior to starting even though I already had over 200 hours.
Some of the demonstrations I have been shown have honestly left me open mouthed....thinking "Thats how I want to be able to fly"

The minute detail we have gone into for how to teach each aspect of the basic flying course, the PPL, has been a real eye opener and also a very enjoyable one. I felt before coming here that the Commercial Pilot course which I did all of those weeks ago was going to be like that and then the Instructor course would just be about teaching. I was quite quite wrong. As I have already written in these pages the CPL was pretty much a battle, a psychological battle between me and me to shape me into becoming Captain material. The Flight Instructor course has brought a steep learning curve to the precision of flying and demonstrating it to a student, this has been a really good process. I sat thinking the other day that I would suggest doing this course to every pilot, not just those who want to teach, but those who want to get to the standard of flying that they feel they could demonstrate how to do it. It has given me so much confidence in flying.

In all honesty Stephen has really earned his salary this month getting me through this as he has a great deal of patience as an instructor and his best quality is certainly is absolute love of flying and love of teaching it. If (as we quite often did), we hit one of those brain freeze moments where I couldn't see the wood for the trees, he would find another way to attack it until that penny dropped, but we wouldn't be landing until it did. This lead to each flight pretty much always achieving our goal and moving on. One of the nicest surprises over the course has been a decent touch of humor along the way, a few laughs has certainly helped things move along.
We have completed the course on time and within budget just as we did on my CPL which has helped me as I am on a tight budget and time line too.
I suppose here might be the appropriate time to maybe give a more global view of the general aspects of life at flight school of here in Florida, as I was like many pilots a little wary of spending quite a large some of money across the Atlantic when there are flight schools closing all over the world and some of them taking students money with them.
It was therefore a pleasant surprise that as promised I was collected from the airport and brought to decent housing on day one. I was then met by the "high ups" from the school as I call them, welcomed here and given a proper induction to the college and introduced to the ways and whys of how things work.
Matthew, my first instructor did a great job in keeping me grounded and dragging me from being the average private pilot to being the pilot in charge of a commercial flight, no easy task on his part or mine. Quite honestly some of the toughest experiences I've had to go through over my time here were during those first 4 weeks, because you really have to throw yourself heart and soul into the CPL and work. If you don't or are not prepared to work, save your money and go on holiday somewhere nice. You have to really want this license.
It does concern me as I get to meet more and more pilots wanting to learn, some who have huge bank accounts and think that just writing a cheque will get you the license. Its just not the case. It doesn't work like that. I can honestly say that half way through the course I had to sit and have a serious word with myself, I was sitting looking at my bags and thinking...... can I do this ? Maybe packing those bags and a few weeks on a beach would be nicer than this. I am very glad I decided to stick it out.
I have had the good fortune to meet some really nice guys to fly with here.
Not one has been the "can't be bothered" instructor and all of them has had good experience to share, Thomas who also helped with my CPL is a current airline pilot yet still teaches as he really enjoys it helped me along my way, Trevor, the head of training did a recent check ride with me and took me through the spinning exercises which were brilliant and I saw the earth from a totally different perspective and Stephen my flight instructor course teacher, the only way I can describe him as that he loves flying like I love Key Lime pie and he's like a walking encyclopedia he knows what every nut, bolt and screw does on this little Piper.
There is a great spread of experience here and personalities too. Although at my very first visit way back last year I was a little intimidated by the size and scale of things here after doing my PPL with my good friend Sue in France I was not sure that this would be the place for me, after a little thought it dawned on me that maybe a professional set up on this scale was the best place to go to do professional courses.
I am not saying that here at EFT is the perfect school, but then I don't think the perfect school exists anywhere in the world. I did my research before I signed up, I visited Oxford Aviation and spent a day there sitting in on lectures, and when I walked out of the gates after I had realized that it really wasn't the place for me. I have done my night rating a Naples Air Centre also in Florida and have visited many more.
Are there things that I would suggest could be improved here? Yes, but then we all have an opinion, am I coming to the end of my time here as a satisfied customer, absolutely.
My courses have been done exactly as I was explained before hand on time and within budget. The only flights I have missed have been as I was sick for a couple of days. The odd occasion that a plane was down for maintenance we manged to use a different plane, I have not missed one day of flying since being here due problems with planes. Very very unusual for any school or club over the period of a few months.
I have my final flight test in a few days time and we have an examiner coming all of the way from Arizona for the test !! Yes that's 2500 miles to come and test me and my other FI colleague. For those of you in the UK that's like someone coming from further away than Moscow to London to do a flight test for us, quite bonkers !!
So for the time being I am spending the next couple of days doing a bit of flying each day and then in the class room refining the lectures we have to give on our test day. I certainly need a break when all of this is done and I can't even think of any further flight tests after this, maybe I will get to do some actual teaching in the new year and maybe mix in a few pleasure flights along the way. I will endeavor to write up about the flight test day later in the week.
Fingers crossed for some decent weather.

One week to go until the test and my student is now making life a bit moredifficult

2011-12-07T18:09:00.000-08:00

I have just realized its a week until the final test. We are getting to the end of the syllabus and my "pupil" is making more mistakes now for me to help to teach him. I am really enjoying the challenge of seeing the mistakes and then correcting them as they become more and more subtle.

The view from the back seat

I have also realized its xmas coming up and boy do I need a holiday this really has been a full on year getting all of this done. Doing the commercial license just seems like a distant memory but it was only a month ago. This course isn't so stressful but it requires far more work, along with the presentations and we also have to prepare a "technical brief" which is a 45 minute presentation for the examiner.
The test itself is a full day thing consisting of a tech brief, a pre-flight brief and a 2 hour flight lesson to teach various parts of the syllabus then a Q&A session.

Runway 28L at the end of a long day.......

Just one more week to go at this pace and then it will be time for some rest and family time.
For the moment its plenty of work and I am getting to "back seat" with my colleague on the course which helps to get an idea of the lessons from a different perspective and also gives me the chance to take a few pictures too.......

Halfway through the course......

2011-12-01T16:58:00.000-08:00

The home airport at Fort Pearce, the housing to the right side where I currently live seen from the back of the plane

So my instructor here brought out the paperwork today and showed me that we have carried out just over half of the flying that we have to do for this course and says we are on track for testing in a couple of weeks' time. Suddenly I feel a bit nervous.
The lesson today was the first time I really felt like it fell into place. The nervousness seems to be falling away now and the garbling too much description of the lesson is going the same way. Its certainly not polished but I actually felt today that I managed to get all the bits in the right places along with good demonstrations that confirmed the idea. So I came away feeling a little more like I am getting there. Mind you some of the tougher lessons to teach are on the way so still having to work hard to get it there. I was teaching stalling today
which isn't the easiest thing to teach as a lot is going on at the same time, to do, to explain and to also fly, but it seemed to be ok.
So after we had our lecture/briefing in class it was time for my fellow course student to go flying and I got the chance to sit in the back of the plane and watch her lesson from there, it was a really good lesson to watch as its the one I will be doing tomorrow and this involved flying circuits around the airport in the traffic pattern and most importantly landing....... Whilst I was sitting in the back I managed to take a video and a few pictures to go with it. The video of the landing shows how to do it with gusting 20kt wind.
So you can see the airport where we are based here and also the housing where I am living there too. As you can see its nicely near the beach, which I am not getting to spend any time on but its a gorgeous area to fly.

The runways at KFPR

The week ends well

2011-11-25T19:13:00.000-08:00

Its Friday evening, its been a good week. Interrupted by the US holiday of Thanks Giving, but it was a nice experience as the school here put on a Thanks Giving lunch for all of the students. A really nice touch and pretty much the first "social" I have seen since starting here 6 weeks ago.
Its the one thing I am a little surprised at here, having so many people in one place with flying in common that there are not more get-togethers even fly outs of one way or another, but then there are a lot of students here on site who are mid ATPL's and we are all too aware of how tough a period that is.
Today I have managed to finish the week on a positive note, for once I came away from a teaching flight feeling like I had done a decent job of it, and I think my instructor was pretty pleased with it too as he seemed happy too. Almost in my mind that I have managed to step up to the next level of this, by no means on the ball but I can say in the right ball park. Things are starting to flow better and the correct vocabulary is becoming second nature rather than bumbling nonsense which ended up with me wanting to poke myself in both eyes at the same time.

The part of this that really is making me smile is my flying seems to be on a continual upward curve and that is taking my confidence with it. I thought my flying was OK 8 weeks ago upon my arrival, that then went through the electric shock treatment of the CPL which in reflection it really did need and thanks some decent training I got through that CPL now things have become more technical.

Not so much "you should do this or that" but "if we do this the aircraft will do that, because......" and as I have said before it really is like peeling that onion, and due to that each flight there are those light bulb moments. Which I suppose I will look back upon and will form many of the building blocks of being able to teach the trainee pilot and be able to teach with the confidence because I understand the theory of the core of that onion.

I am starting to feel that after 2 weeks of the course things are going to crank up a notch or 2 this coming week, I have been tasked with putting together a 30 minute technical briefing with the class over the weekend as well as the normal study and consolidation of whats happened this week, so a fair few hours in the briefing room as well as head in the books over this weekend to come. I was hoping to be doing some flying over the weekend with a colleague but unfortunately all of the Piper planes we have the use of here are down this weekend for servicing so we'll have to wait for that.

Maybe it should come with a health warning

2011-11-23T18:29:00.000-08:00

A funny one today.
We had a good flight today the lesson went well, the flying was pretty good, I managed to get myself less in a tongue tied and there started to be more flow to the lesson, hopefully a sign of things to come.
Its the thanks giving holidays here so we have a break tomorrow after a busy few days and lots of practice in the classrooms with the briefings and they are improving day by day.
As each day passes my flying seems to be improving as well, just little things here and there that I am learning through the process of doing this course, and yes each day when I land and walk back in I am still smiling so all is good.
I have realized that as its the holidays that makes it a year since I first went to the ground school class for the CPL Theory up at Ormond beach, what a busy year thats been. All of the theory exams passed, the hour building and flights down to Key West and all over Florida done, then some good revision flying in the summer in France then recently I have been here 6 weeks and have now passed my Commercial License.

One of my classmates has turned paparazzi....

I woke up yesterday and had a really sore shoulder having slept strangely on it and today it was still pretty sore, so after class I managed to get an appointment locally with a therapist to try to help sort it out for me. After 5 minutes of prodding and stretching the therapist asked me how hard the car accident had been.
No car accident I said, its just been a tough 12 months of study and flights tests and travel the wide eyed therapist looked at me doubtfully and asked " What on earth do they put you through to become pilot these days to end up on my table ?" as my back went crunch.
After yelping like a drop kicked puppy dog, I started to wonder the same thing..... maybe it should come with a health warning.

Week 1 of 4 done of the instructor course

2011-11-20T18:47:00.000-08:00

The apron at EFT today.

The first week has been a good one, I really do like this course, there is a lot of home work required and time thinking through your lessons/briefings. The thing I do like is day by day also seeing the improvement in my own flying. Precision has become the name of the game as you need to lead by example when teaching.
Doing this though from the right seat sets you back a little as you need to get the feel for the plane from a different perspective, and as for the passed 3 years I have been flying I have been bringing the plane into land visually from one place the idea of swapping hands to fine tune the controls doing something as defined as landing takes some practice. But another challenge to get the old head around.
At the end of the week I managed to relax with a few of the other students who live on site here at the airport and the week has been a success for another few newly instrument and commercially rated pilots. We toasted their success and good health. One thing about this school, since I have been here that's around 6 weeks now, I have yet to see a pilot here fail a skills test, and one thing I have seen is plenty of new pilots taking their first solos and are due to have their PPL wings shortly.
This weekend has been spent mainly infront of that white board practicing the briefings we have been taught and trying to get them into some kind of shape that is understandable, at the moment they resemble a pretty rough diamond that's going to need a whole lot of polishing, but its an enjoyable process to get them into shape. I pity all of the poor people around here whom I have been asking to have a look a part of the brief or for a bit of advice as they are all very busy, but everyone seems happy to help, even the instructors seem happy to pop their heads around the door and see where its at. The thing I like is most of the instructors around here whom I ask for help seem to say the same thing: that the Flight Instructor course was one of the toughest courses they have done but each one says it was their favorite by a country mile.
Tomorrow first thing I will be, weather permitting, I will be teaching "Mr Blogs" my student how to fly straight and level and if he's a good student he might be allowed to do a bit of climbing too. I will keep you appraised of his progress.

Its an all consuming course and I am all consumed......

2011-11-17T09:21:00.000-08:00

The first couple of days of the Flight Instructors course really have gone by in a blurr.
I have now done 4 flights and 4 days of briefings with my instructor and only really on yesterday afternoon's flight did I start to feel a glimpse of understanding about where I need to be with this course.
There is quite a lot to take in over the first few days and also I feel like its also important for the instructor teaching us to teach to have a really good understanding of our flying skills, as a pupil will tend to copy the instructor, therefore we need to iron out any bad habits thats we have now.
To be honest with myself there are a fair few that need ironing out but I am enjoying the process of improvement and getting used to flying from the right seat. The different aspect to this course from my Commercial Pilot course is that we are spending large portions of the day in the classroom, the lectures are really quite good, I am learning each day even though we are mainly going over the Private Pilot Course and learning how to teach it.
But the days are long into the classroom for 8am today, then an hour and a half flight before lunch, then the next lesson brief all afternoon. Then home work and practice, last night I was in the classroom until 10:30 practicing on the board and trying to get a feel for my own briefings. Presenting on a white board not being my strong point, I am sure my 4 year old son would be better on it.
Having said that I am starting to get a feel for whats needed, between precise flying, precise wording and precise timing of what point you are trying to teach. I also need to learn that its possible to say something in using 5 words not giving a huge speech......
The best part is that I am still smiling though after each flight, and that's always been my yardstick of how I am doing, my instructor is like an encyclopedia of aviation, his knowledge is scary, but what I do like is his way of guiding you to get to where he wants you then getting out of you the information that you already know but aren't using as its buried in some bit of grey matter behind the kitchen sink, kind of like gentle torture, he did say yesterday that he would make a good interrogator and I tend to agree.
Its an all consuming course and I am all consumed......

Day 1 of the instructor course.... not only Rick Perry has a brain freeze in the US.

2011-11-14T18:53:00.000-08:00

Air Force One my teaching aid.

Today was a busy day here in Florida, first thing this morning was my pre-entry test for the Flight Instructor course which has started today. This involved a flight with the Instructor course manager here to show that I am up to scratch to do the course. Having only just had my Commercial Test this passed week if I had forgotten everything in less than 5 days then I really shouldn't be here.
It went ok, nothing great and a few mistakes but I am trying to re-adjust back to a very different plane once again, so whilst I was judged to be up to scratch I know I can fly better. It was only when I landed that I realised that this is the final flight for me for quite some time from the left hand seat. From now on its time to learn to not only fly from the other seat but also teach from it.... the flying has to pretty much be automatic and then on top of that demonstrate and teach the various lessons to a new PPL student.
This course is monumentally different from the CPL, this is ALL about language, communication and the delivery of it.
After the morning flight it was off to the brand spanking new classroom for us Instructor trainees and a good introduction to the course and then straight into the first of the briefings that we will have to deliver to our "pupil". Suddenly the depth of knowledge that we need to not only have but be able to communicate in an understandable manner to our brand new student who doesn't really know the back of a plane from the spinning bit at the front has dawned upon me....... The best way I can describe this at this early stage to me would be to say its like peeling an onion.
For the passed few years I have followed checklists, done my checks and carried out the manouvers as guided by my instructor at the time for over 200 hours, now we are peeling back those layers as to why we do these things which form the building blocks of the Private Pilot course and there have already been a few penny dropping Eureka moments and I am sure there are many more ahead.
After 2 hours of briefing it was time to fly once again but this time it was to be my first flight from the right seat and then the first time I was to teach anything. I manged to take off and get us to our training area and my instructor gave me the first part of the lesson so that I could see how we are meant to do this, taking 5-10 minutes initially. At this point I think it dawned upon me that Rick Perry (Rep. President Candidate) is not the only person on this side of the atlantic to suffer a brain freeze, him to forget a government department's name infront of 10 million people, me forget to be able to communicate in a normal way. I just wish I could watch a video of this flight as I am sure I started to make up completely new words as I tried to describe what I would like my student to do. Utter brain freeze at times. I am sure from the response of my instructor this was not unusual on day 1 of the course. We managed to get through it and I feel I settled after a while but its left me having 500 times more respect for each instructor I have ever had through aviation. For them to be able to sit calmly in an airplane booting through the sky at 100mph dodging clouds with a student having their life in their hands then ontop of that delivery instruction and evaluate performance. I salute you all............

Today I remembered why I am doing all of this.....

2011-11-10T15:14:00.000-08:00

So still feeling pretty good after knowing for sure that yesterday wasn't a dream it was nice today to know the exams are out of the way. A friend is doing some hour building here so I jumped in the right seat with him for a day out and lunch in Venice Florida. The weather was just unbelievable, clear blue skies low wind and a time to reflect on how lucky I am to be able to do all this. We flew from coast to coast of Florida for lunch...... how crazy does that sound to write. Quite quite bonkers.

Captain Diaz

But thats what we did, with my colleague Nuno, from Portugal. I have been out there a couple of times and its great to be able to head there again in such good weather.


Me blocking a great view

When you arrive there you can call a courtesy car to pick you up and take you to "sharky's" restaurant on the beach, its awesome. The food was great, and to have a nice stroll on the beach after a pretty stressful week, well couple of weeks, the chance to take a breath and have a quiet smile after all of the stress was great. The most important thing was they had Key Lime Pie......... this is one happy pilot !!!


KEY LIME PIE !!!!!!

Venice Beach

First time I have been to the beach for a while.

I really wanted to take this for a spin......

Venice beach

The views were fantastic from nearly 4000' so I have taken some pictures of the day out, hopefully there will be many more like this.

Okeechobee Airport enroute

I think sometimes its important to get away from the studying and get to breath a little and look out of the window and just realize that being able to fly where ever you want is a privilege and sometimes, just sometimes we should make sure we go out and enjoy it.

Departing Fort Pierce

The big test......

2011-11-09T16:01:00.000-08:00


My test certificate

I am just back from a very long day. A little bit lost, I am expecting my brain to oooze out of my ears at any time as it has melted. I know I need a beer.
I thought I had better write about it now before I forget what a day its been.
It started early with a judgement call on the weather and it was good to go so confirmation with the examiner and it was time to get the plane ready and notice my nerves going through the roof.
I bumped into another guy here, Peter who was also on his Commercial test today and when I saw hoe nervous he was I was more than happy that I wasn't that bad. With the plane ready, fueled to go and the mass and balance calculations done it was time to wait for the examiner to arrive.
The man who turned up was a really nice guy who went out of his way to break the ice, we sat down and had a long briefing before the flight explaining what to expect and what is to be expected at all stages of the exam. This took about 2 hours in total.
Then it was time to head out to the airplane with my passenger and give him the full safety briefings as though he has never been in a plane like this before, it was time to get us underway and in the air. Runway 32, N2878U cleared to take off.
The departure was straight forward and it was kind of into pilot zone then rather than nervous student, I found my heading and starting point for the navigation leg of the flight which was to be a 60nm route, through some fun airspace but due to cloud i was having to skirt quite low which makes navigating quite difficult. The navigation part of the exam is a simulated commercial flight to take a photographer to a grass air strip in the middle of nowhere, yes that would be a grass strip in the middle of a grass field, whilst flying a plane at 3000ft flying a plane at 120kts. If thats not enough, just when you get there the passenger decides he wants to go and see another one that you haven't been able to plan for and have to do the flight planning in the air, calculate heading, time to get there and the amount of fuel you will use to do it. Infact as i write that it really seems quite mad having to do all that and fly a plane at the same time. So this part got done and went the best I have managed it at all since I have been doing the training. Next I had to put my goggles on so that I couldn't see outside to simulate flying into clouds by accident, this involves getting to safe altitudes and emergency calls, then you are getting vectored away from the area so have to fly instructions, climbing and descending with only the instruments to use. Oh then the fun part, half of your instruments break down so it gets quite tough and is a real mental test as you have to trust the instruments and not go with what your body is telling you. As your body can be telling you that you are descending when actually you are climbing with the plane on its side.
Next it was time to get a position fix with the navigation instruments whilst flying the plane and still "under the hood".
Thank god this went quite well and all of a sudden I was out of the cloud and i could take of the goggles and it was time to do some landings into a nearby airfield which was pretty busy and not a controlled field which means making some good decisions and knowing exactly where every other aircraft is around in a mental picture whilst doing your own flying as well. Its pretty taxing but also an enjoyable part of it when you are getting it right. After glide approach, flapless and normal landings off we went away from the airport and it was time to start stalling the plane in different configurations, flaps, gear down and then some steep turns.
These seemed to pass in a flash and we were to start in the general direction on home and I was having a think about what would be left for us to do, just as I was thinking that my examiner pulled the power to off and it was engine failure simulation time. The examiner asked, what is your plan, I told him I would land at the airstrip just off his side of the plane, which it turned out he himself hadn't seen so he was happy with that, I flew my plan to get in and he was happy I would have got there safely and intact.
This was the final stage to the test apart from us getting back to our starting airport safely and expeditiously, joining the airport and landing. Believe it or not people have got this far landed and failed for messing up the taxi back to the ramp.
This wasn't going to happen for me, I made sure I wasn't going to mess that up, had to make sure I was concentrating until the very end.
The best bit of the day was to come when I had stopped the engine undone my seat belt and the examiner leaned over and said to me Well done Captain Morton. I had to stay sat in the plane for a few moments as my legs weren't working so well. After getting myself back into the school we had a de-briefing to go over the good bits and the bad bits of the test and there were a few bits of both, we completed the paperwork and to explain what a decent guy my examiner was he took me over the road for a well earned pint and a late lunch. A big day, and finally got through it after having it cancelled 4 times due to weather.

Its the eve of the big test.....

2011-11-09T13:54:00.000-08:00

Here I am the night before my test, the weather has been a bit ropey today wind, rain, low cloud, the lot, so I am glad that the test wasn't booked for today, but it means no flying today to have a final practice run and get in the air.
I am really surprised how quickly this short journey has taken since I got here on the 4th October, 30 or so flights, lots of home work, sweat and stress. It has really tested me to the core, this course is very much a test of one's self and ability to get your mind around problems and be prepared to act, and act without a safety net as the guy in charge of nothing less than an airplane.
I am sure my flying has improved, I feel it has improved along with my confidence, I have learned to fly a new, heavier and complex aircraft which makes me wonder what it will be like to go back the smaller Piper Cadet after this is over. Most of the training has been thanks to Matthew Adams, who has dragged me kicking and screaming from a Private Pilot to one who is on the eve of my flight test for my Commercial Pilot License.
For now I am watching that weather to see if I will be flying tomorrow morning and if I can keep it together for 2 and a half hours, my legs are pretty much like jelly, I feel pretty sick. I have sat and gone through the whole test flight in my mind with a pen and paper, "arm chair flying" it through. I know my drills, I know how to do it, I have the skills, its just a case of putting it together on one flight.
I am not putting this post up directly as I am not wanting mom, dad and the rest of the family to be sitting there waiting upon news of the test when it might not even happen with the weather and having the 5 hour time difference. But I will post it what ever happens after test O'clock.
Game time......

No blogging for a little while

2011-11-07T18:52:00.000-08:00

I have been sitting here for a week or so now waiting for my flight test for my commercial license. Originally it was meant to be last Tuesday at 9am and then at that point the bad weather started.... here I am a week later and I was hoping 4th time lucky (as 3 appointments have been cancelled) for tomorrow morning, yet below is the weather forecast:

When you are doing a test here, or anywhere for that matter the test is a simulated Commercial passenger carrying flight, so the weather has to be firstly within legal limits for the airplane and secondly within the legal limits for the manouvers which are to be performed on the test. Thirdly the forecast has to be within limits for the time when you are due to return, so that if the wind is forecast is to be too windy to land then you can't go either. So with all that in mind, I am sitting and waiting for the weather to get itself into shape and then it will be time for testing.

Fingers are crossed for some news soon.

KFPR 072320Z 0800/0824 05007KT P6SM VCSH SCT035 BKN070

FM081500 04015G20KT P6SM VCSH SCT025 BKN040

KSUA 072320Z 0800/0824 04010KT P6SM VCSH BKN060

     FM081500 04015G20KT P6SM VCSH SCT025 BKN04

KPBI 072330Z 0800/0824 03010G15KT P6SM VCSH FEW028 SCT035 BKN060

     TEMPO 0800/0804 -SHRA SCT028 SCT035 BKN050

     FM080400 04010G15KT P6SM VCSH FEW028 SCT050

     FM081300 04014G20KT P6SM SCT035 SCT060

KVRB 072320Z 0800/0824 05009KT P6SM VCSH SCT035 BKN060

     FM081500 04015G20KT P6SM VCSH SCT025 BKN040

170A......

2011-10-26T16:15:00.000-07:00

The 170A as its called is the official test done by the school where you are training and cannot be carried out by your instructor. Usually the chief pilot or someone in that capacity carries out this check.
So mine was scheduled for this morning. This basically the same as the CPL test that will come next but I can only be signed off to apply for my test if I pass this one.
At the appointed hour I met the chief instructor to be given my navigation route that I had 1 hour to plan out. So I was given my airport down to the south near West Palm, and having to navigate through the class D airspace and restrictions en route.
With the flight plan organized and the paperwork done, I went to meet my passenger and escorted him to the plane giving him the safety briefings all passengers must receive. We taxied off for take off as the nerves were there and the heart thumping.
What had been really nice is that the school's Head of Training came to see me prior to departure and sat and had a chat with me how to channel the stress of these moments, it was a nice touch, and helped a lot, to put it all in perspective and helped me feel ready. Its one of the things about this school that I really like, the instructors top to bottom are helpful, have 5 minutes for you to help with something, when there are 50 or more students here to still feel like an individual makes a lot of difference.
So we took off and headed south for the first part of the route, it was good for settling down to get into the right place to start from, and then see that everything is where it should be, sea to the left departure airport behind you. We were on the way and hopefully about to arrive and Palm beach county airport in 20 minutes.
Change of radios and a quick identify on radar and we were well along the leg. A small adjustment halfway down the track and it wasn't long before the destination airport was on our nose to my relief. With the first stage done it was time for the diversion which means on the spot flight planning and navigation and then brief the passenger on when we will arrive. We started off ok, I went a little left with the wind pushing me over but corrected along route and arrived into the right area to try to find a small grass air strip in the middle of a lot of fields, I knew it was there somewhere but literally couldn't see the wood from the trees situation, I circled for a while and with a small hint from the passenger was able to confirm I was over the area, so had managed to get myself there but really need to get a lot better at spotting these grass airstrips which I am not finding easy at all. Which I will come to later.
After getting to the strip it was time to simulate mistakenly head into cloud and carry out the drills involved and get a fix on the VOR from 2 sources. Following this was various manouvers under the goggles, climbing, turning, and my favorite, unusual attitudes diving and heading up to the sky like a rocket, all recovered and we were on our way.
Next was stalling the plane in 3 different stages of flight which went to plan, then we were flying along and it was engine fire time.... fire drill done and full flaps and a spiral dive until it was out, to be followed by an emergency power off landing with a bit of MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY, I have to say I am so glad of the training Matthew has done with me on this as it was always something I found tricky, but this was possibly the best I have ever done by keeping to his guidance. We were 300ft from touching down safely and it was time to push full power and climb out, only for the simulated engine failure after take off and find a new field which also went well.
It was now time to head back to the airfield for a few circuits and different landings, a flap-less approach followed a glide approach where I put the undercarriage down early but made the runway ok, and finally it was time for a normal landing. I hate to say this myself but it was possibly the best landing I have managed yet in this heavy aircraft, a swift taxi back and I was parking the plane up.
I had the debrief with my "passenger" which was very constructive and I came away having really enjoyed the flight, in the debrief the CFI made some very valid points and some suggestions on how to bring down the work flow help things along and also how to improve things heading into the test. He wants me to do some extra practice with the diversion practice and finding the airfields, which I am finding really tricky, but hopefully practice makes perfect.
But the good news is, I have passed my 170A test and have been signed off to go for my big test at some point next week. No going back now !!

Confidence, where is it, I know it was here the other day ?

2011-10-26T15:17:00.000-07:00

Any non pilots out there know what this is .... ?

Well its been a few days since I wrote on the blog, over the weekend just gone I was suffering a slight crisis of confidence over the whole thing here, I went to visit my friend Blake and his wife in Fort Lauderdale whom I did some hour building with. Blake is a great guy and been through all of what I am going through (aswell as his wife supporting him) and had a knowing smile on his face and some words of advice.
It was nice to get away from it all for a couple of days and get my head into the right place.
Here we are on Wednesday and things feel a whole lot better, the drive and desire is there and I am smiling once again. Its funny really I have spoken to a few pilots here and who are friends and each of them so far has told me the same story that they have reached the same moment themselves. The chief pilot here put it in the right phrase for me to say that this course is very much a battle with yourself in your own head not against the plane or anything else.
So I flew on Monday and Matthew pretty much had the same thing to say to me, "You are the Captain, make the decisions, you know the answers, have confidence and follow them through".
I have been pushing on with this as much as possible, yesterday we had a technical problem with the plane that I hadn't come across before, when of the power checks there was a problem that had to be dealt with and I was pretty slow off the mark with what to do in that situation, so I have been away reading up on that, but I passed the lesson and that was meant to be my final lesson with him and I was going to be allowed to do my 170A check ride. This is a mandatory test to be carried out by the chief pilot to see if you are going to be allowed to be put forward for your test and is carried out to the letter as the test will be..... to be continued......

Nav in the clear blue skies......

2011-10-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

This being a commercial course I am not getting to take too many pictures but I love this one of Miami

This morning was a kind of simulation to the first part of the CPL exam, I had 1 hour to plan a flight to a small grass airfield in the middle of nowhere, but there was a huge lake next to it so it shouldn't have been too hard. Unfortunately for me there was no internet working in school this morning to have a look at google earth to see what the place actually looks like.
Never mind the RAF didn't have google earth before setting off on their many bombing missions in 1945 at night, so I would have to trust in my ruler and compass and flying skills.
The last time I did a navigation flight in the previous flight, it wasn't one of my best days out in the plane and my confidence was a little low before todays sortie.
I planned the flight, then went through over once more, just to check there were no silly errors there.
All checked and it was time to collect my passenger and head on our way.
Strapped in and heading out on runway 28L which put me directly over my start point for the nav.
Time logged, heading and altitude set, and we were off. With a briefing to the passenger with an ETA of just over 20 minutes.
I found the first check point ok and on time, i was happy with that. It makes so much difference when the weather is clear, and you finally get the plane trimmed correctly. (I have been spending way to much time arsing around trimming, instead of getting it right at the start, its a lot less workload then) the second check point came and went and we were right on the button I could see the huge lake in the distance so it was time to wait for the parts of the picture to come together and confirm where we were with various roads and the lake in the right place. As the time ticked on the picture came together perfectly and the grass strip was right off our nose. I was pleased as punch but it was an easy day to do it on.
Then it was time to get the goggles on and start the instrument work, I had a complete brain malfunction here with the drill on what to do you in accidently go into cloud. I have been reading and reading this over the couple of days i was sick, and there I was goggles on and mind blank...... totally blank. Flying can be so frustrating, I think it was probably the shock of getting a nav right.
I managed to get my act together with a little prompting, but that was a serious failure.
I managed to get my radio nav fixes done properly and a little quicker than the previous times and then there was partial panel time and unusual attitudes. These seemed to be ok but my timed turns were not up to scratch, i need to stop and think whilst doing this rather than rushing straight into it. Careless mistakes.
It was then time to rejoin, and I was not an A grade student with that today I can tell you.
I could actually see myself buggering it up, slow and indecisive getting the plane ready for landing, and my passenger had pulled the fuse on the landing gear, so no green lights for landing, once again, slow decision to go around, all of this whilst I was 4 miles on final and there was someone else landing ahead of me, and I didn't think to slow us down..... Just Go Around......silly.
So I did go around and was about 500ft lower than I should have been making that decision.
The circuit I managed well and got us ready and came in for a reasonable landing, a little flat but ok.
I really need to start being the boss in the plane and not sitting behind it like a horse on the gallops.

But in debrief I have been given my papers to complete over the weekend to apply for the test and Matthew was reasonably complimentary in saying that I really am nearly there but need to get myself up that final level be test ready. So more working on my "couch flying" going through the procedures and the Pilots handbook. Its a scary thought to be filling out exam applications already.

On a side note I really did realise why I am putting myself through all of this today and why I really do know that instruction is for me. One of the fellow international students and Italian called Michele whom I have met on a couple of occasions whilst he's studying for his first license, the PPL . Well I saw him going out in the plane this morning with the examiner and it took me back to my first test. He arrived back and I saw him having his debrief with after and then saw the look on his face when he was told he had passed. It was amazing, all of the hard work had paid off I thought he was going to explode with joy. His instructor must be so happy to take someone who can't fly at all to now being a Pilot. That's why I want to become an instructor. Well done Michele.

Coughs and splurts, Stalls and gliding......

2011-10-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

Today I was back with Matthew, it was our first flight together in the Arrow as all of the previous ones have been with Thomas in the news plane.
Firstly just to explain that I haven't been hiding under a rock for the passed few days, unfortunately my trusty instructor is so generous with his advice and flying skills that he's also pretty generous with his flu germs too as I managed to get a smaller and reduced dose of his cold that managed to block my ears up for the passed 2 days so its been deafness, night-nurse and no flying.
But back in the cockpit this morning with a glorious day if not a touch chilly at 16 degrees C.
We were in the Arrow once again and it was the lesson to finish off all of the stalling, there are basically 3, the clean stall, the base turn stall and the finals/Approach stall to be done. All went reasonably well, but I did forget props fully forward on 2 occasions which is a silly mistake.
Then we managed some gliding turns which are a lot of fun in this plane, 60 degrees of bank !!!
I am starting to feel more and more comfortable in the plane now, not quite at home in it but another few hours should help.
I seem to have got my cockpit management more under control now, not 100% but its better each flight.
Rejoining the airport control area is better each flight but there is a little too much hesitancy there, I think its a fear of making mistakes which is causing me to do it. Need to be much more assertive and decisive, thats my goal for tomorrows flight, be ontop of those things, the actual flying seems to be ok.
Upon returning and through the debrief Matthew mentioned that over the weekend we will need to fill out the test application and send it off over the weekend, at that point I felt quite sick, we can't be at that stage already, surely. Apparently so.

Bows and Arrows

2011-10-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

The National Park beach at St Lucie

Today, Monday, involved quite a lot of flying and I am glad I did some preparation.
Firstly over the weekend I actually got to have some down time and the weather wasn't raining cats and dogs like last week, so a nice long walk along the beach at the local national park was in order, to blow away a few cob webs and have a reflect upon it all whilst building up a nice appetite.

A great bit of surf here for the locals

Before heading for a nice lunch though I decided on taking some of my instructors' advice and spend some time sitting in the new Arrow on the ground at the flying school and just going through my check lists nice and slowly, getting to know where all of the bits are that make up this new plane. Then going through some of the procedures for the emergencies, such as fires and engine failure. Just sitting there talking to myself on a Saturday afternoon on my own in a plane on the ramp without the engine turning, I can only imagine what people who were walking by must be thinking. For me it was a great exercise and will be doing it each day now.
So after a weekend with some study mixed in it was time to get 100% back to it at school today. Due to a nasty bug Matthew my regular instructor had been replaced with Danish Thomas whom I flew with on Friday as well for my introduction flight with the new plane, so we continued on from where we left off. Today's morning flight was to be instruments, tracking VOR's and NDB (Navigation beacons where little arrows point you in the right direction if you program them correctly). This I seem to be getting the knack of but the NDB still needs some working on, I am tying myself up in knots slightly but its coming along. The VOR work seems to be ok so far.

Me at the beach over the weekend

Then it was time to rejoin the airport to land the plane which I seem to have stopped myself flapping about so much. This wasn't helped today by a controller who seemed to be flapping more than I usually do as he started to give us instructions which weren't entirely possible and were back to front, then he started into a bit of a melt down, so I pointed the plane away from the airport for a while whilst he got himself together and also all of the approaching planes, when he then continued to get it wrong my instructor got onto the radio to ask him in firmer terms whats going on. At which point the chief controller took over and started to organize things in short order.

There still was a little to much disorganization on my part there but its getting better.
The weather has been closing in all day and I thought that would be it for us but we decided to give it a late call so I had some lunch at the airport tiki bar and went back to see Thomas and as the Captain it was my choice for us to go up again we were doing stalls this afternoon. This was something a bit different in an aircraft alot heavier and also with landing gear which has to be considered in some of the recoveries from different stalls.
But my trusty instructor did a good demonstration each time and then it was my turn and I felt pretty comfortable with it all, by biceps certainly feel like they have had a work out, I need to practice the procedures over again in the plane like I did at the weekend but it feels good.
It was then time to head back into the circuit and get the reigns on this plane for some glide landings, in this plane, I can only describe this as driving your own roller coaster, its BRILLIANT.
The procedure involves flying parallel to the runway about half a mile away and then cutting the power off when you think you can make it to touch the wheels down upon a certain point. The basic of the procedure is that you have to keep a certain speed so not to stall the plane and as this plane is so heavy you are pointing the nose right down to hold the 79 knots. When you are certain you are going to make the runway you put down the gear and put your flaps down, which means that you are even more nose down all the way in until its time to flare and put touch down.
It was on the point of landing the plane on the centre line that I realised I hadn't been breathing for the whole exercise. Thomas, my instructor seemed happy with the job done and it was time to call it a day.
All in all a good positive start to the week. Some things I really need to work on, cabin organization is definitely the main one. But I am smiling after a good monday.

Its a very sad day today.

2011-10-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

Sue in her element, in the clouds.

Unfortunately today my mentor, instructor and friend Sue Virr passed away after falling ill just over a month ago.
Sue has been there since the start of my flying adventure, she helped me through all of my PPL theory exams and then my skills test after some great flying in Limoges and being able to stay at Nearlyheaven.
Having the chance to have such cross country adventures out to the atlantic coast and down in the south of France into the Alps.
It was during this learning voyage that Sue's passion for flying rubbed off on me and it was not long after I passed my test thanks to Sue that I enrolled in doing my commercial pilots license theory course work. She was never far away with an email with a bit of advice or just a word of encouragement, and here I sit now halfway through my commercial pilot course all thanks to her.
She has made a huge impact on my life and I know there are many other students as well out there who now have their licenses and a love of flying thanks to her.
Thankyou so much Sue, you are going to be missed.

New plane, N2878U Piper Arrow. Nice way to end the week.

2011-10-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

Today I have been let loose on the complex plane for the first time. A lot of new things to learn and it feels like a great plane to fly, and you actually have to fly this one, it wont go unless you make it with a firm hand too.
Due to the plane being a lot heavier it affects most aspects of flight, for instance for glide approach on full flaps is an experience to behold, I was virtually standing on the rudder pedals as the nose was so low to keep the speeds.
There are lots of other differences too with the landing gear and variable pitch propeller all make for a little more to do and think about at every stage of flight. The landing feels a lot quicker than anything I have ever done before, you literally have to fly it onto the ground so a quick landing, very different from the Robin in France or the Cadet I have been on so far. Great experience to be learning something new.

My new ride N2878U.

My instructor today, Thomas, took me step by step through all aspects of the basic operations and it was a nice introduction for the flying to come next week as I am sure the workload and pressure are going to mount once again, I like flying with Thomas, he has an uncanny knack of knowing what you are thinking, a good reader of people, you can see he loves what he is doing. He only teaches part time and then flies 737 jets the rest of the time and lives in Florida.
So all in all positive as I sit here celebrating the end to the week with a huge American style cheeseburger at the airport restaurant tiki bar which is right on the side of the runway.
I feel pretty lucky to be here.
I am getting to fly at a good school with good people who really do seem to give a hoot about their students. There is a pleasant atmosphere at the school plenty of people around who always seem to have 2 minutes if you have a question or query. There are so many horror stories you hear about flying schools these days with some particularly bad reports about some in the US, but so far, touching wood this one has exceeded expectation and I am certainly learning something new each day. I suppose time will tell when we start talking about testing in 2 weeks time.
For the time being I have some reading up to do over the weekend and maybe a bit of down time.

Its better but its not great. Maybe Valium

2011-10-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

I did a lot of preparation for today after yesterday's debacle, and felt better for it. Although I am getting myself stressed on these flights.
I did better in most of the portions of this flight today but it still wasn't good enough. Its strange, I am making mistakes, I can see myself doing it, but my brain is racing around other things and not correcting them. For instance today, at the start of the navigation I leveled out at 3300ft, my heading, and immediately saw there were a few isolated clouds on my heading and thought I must descend to remain within limits, then went onto other stuff before without actually doing it. Up until the point where I am nearly flying into it. I had just gone on and got my radar flight following and start doing my paperwork for the route we were flying. I am just rushing, its silly, almost like an outer body experience watching myself make errors and then stressing over it, to the point where I am making silly errors along the way.
It seems to be my mode of learning, make every mistake possible, then try not to do it on the next flight, the work load on these flights is huge for me, as its new and I am trying to figure out a routine. But I made my navigation and found my tiny grass airstrip.
I couldn't find my diversion, well went to the wrong one, I managed to convince myself that another airfield was the one that I needed, without even looking at the clock that I had at least 5 more minutes of flight until I should be there, @111kts that alot of ground to clear and a dumb mistake.

My briefing on the Arrow....

The emergency drills were a lot better today, I feel I have got those now and then navigating out of cloud worked well and to the drill.
I managed to get us correctly back to the airfield on instruments under the goggles and then landed ok, but it still feels very rushed. It was also very good weather today. All in all I need to be better at my decision making and stop the headless chicken routine, its bonkers, I am sure if I had a video of my my work up in the cabin up there it would be hilarious viewing.

Photo-competition.... whats this ?

I received my briefing on the bigger Arrow airplane yesterday afternoon which I will shortly be flying, its a bigger heavier beast and going to take some getting used to. I am enclosing some pictures of it.

The Variable pitch propeller on the Arrow

The High T tail which can give a bit of a bumpier ride on stalling

The blue lever on the right is the new piece of kit and the undercarriage

I am starting to wonder if a couple of valium pre flight might help me keep calm.......

Today the wheels fell off, metaphorically speaking.

2011-10-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

A misty morning greeted me at the airport this morning and I am sure some of it got into my brain, as today I should have just stayed in bed. Today was meant to me my half way revision flight to see where I am, and to say it didn't go well is an understatement.
The first part was to be a planned navigation and that started badly when I had calculated the heading wrongly and started off in the wrong direction fortunately I realised, but flustered and slightly panicking as I was things just went from bad to worse from there the I had to start flying towards some rainy cloudy weather. I was left wanting for my captains skills and wasn't making decisions and keeping to them, the worst part was I could actually see my self making the mistakes but I need to be far more assertive and confident in my decision making. Today it just wasn't happening, infact I was awful. My flight planning needs to be 100% better and then need to fly my plan.
Plenty of lessons learned today, and serious ones at that. I need to get into my books and see the differences between US and UK airspace too. All in all I just wasn't at the races and need to get my Captains hat on and see myself more as the one in charge of what we are doing.
Matt did say to me at the beginning that CPL students usually hit a brick wall at half way through so true not one to be late I have just bounced off it 111knts.
It can't be all roses chocolates everyday so need to pick myself up at the moment and get back on the horse and be better tomorrow when I go again.

Today's second flight deserves a new post.

2011-10-11T12:03:00.000-07:00

The second flight of today was a pretty long one of 1hour 40mins, instrument flying and then it was using radio navigation with my goggles on to find airports etc. Its pretty hard work flying without the use of your eyes looking outside as you need to watch all of the instruments at the same time, kind of the rub your tummy pat your head kind of thing.
So once we were ready to head back to the airport I lined us up into the circuit and Matt told me I was to do a glide approach which means cutting the power off when you judge that you could glide all of the way in. The control tower had called us as No.2 to land behind a Cessna plane which we could see, so the landing checks were done and the plane ready. I was turning onto final approach and getting my speeds right for the glide and suddenly saw the plane a mile in front touch down on the runway and veer off it at a rate of knots well over on to the grass skidding to a stop about 40metres into the grass at the side of the runway. The controller called us immediatly to "go around" which means to abort landing and go around the circuit to do another one, whilst we heard over the radio that all were ok in the plane/lawnmower to the side of the runway. A sobering thought when you are flying this amount about how much control and concentration you need to have and keep all of the way through the flight, no matter how hot or tired you are.
Tomorrow I have my half way course check ride, kind of a mock test under proper test conditions and then it will be a promotion onto the bigger Arrow plane, which was described to me today as very similar to flying the plane i am in but towing 2 horses.....

An Island for retired space monkeys

2011-10-11T07:38:00.000-07:00

This mornings flight was all about emergencies, fires and engines out. A lot of the training for this involves learning the checklists and finding a safe place to put the plane down. Oh and a spiral dive at 45 degrees and 100knots to put the fire out. Knowing the check list seems to slow it all down abit, but I am now going to be practicing this virtually every day from now on the "Passenger" might put the throttle and just say engines out so I have to be on my toes now to always know where I would put the plane on the ground safely.
Whilst we were doing one of the many forced landings Matt pointed out one of the funniest things I have ever seen from the air which could only be American.
To the south west of the airport is a special monkey retreat. Kind of a retirement home for them. These just aren't any monkeys, these are the fellas who went on the Space programme, each of them has a nice little pad in there with and each have their own play park on an island. I am just hoping they might do one for retiring pilots some day with our own play park........

Monkey Island for retired space monkeys

This afternoon's flying will be radio navigation and the weather is good.

Naughts and crosses whilst flying with goggles on, this isn't Its A Knock Out

2011-10-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

Today's navigation route and diversions

Fresh week, fresh Stuart, jet lag has passed and some good home-work preparation done.
Today's first flight was my first navigation trip which I would have to do all of the work myself, and now I have committed more of the checklists to memory and feel more organised I feel like time is running a little slower and I am getting more relaxed. Its all starting to come along, still a few minor errors but not the silly ones of last week. I tracked to my first grass strip and we found it within the allotted time just off the left wing and my "passenger" was allowed to take his pictures.
We were then diverted to another runway to find "on the hoof" so a quick bit of planning and my passenger turned back into instructor and flew the leg for a demo of the best way to do it. We found that one on the nose and it was then my turn for a diversion myself which I flew over 2 legs as it was 18 miles. We were slightly left of track the first one so adjusted, calculated and I then flew the second leg to left of the airport but were bang on time and found it without too much trouble.
Now as I had done the preparation before I wasn't so all over the place for rejoining the circuit, getting the weather and getting us down.
Its starting to feel like its coming into place, not quite but nearly.
Off for Instrument flight after lunch, chocs away.

The Piper Arrow which I will be flying soon

This afternoon's flight was back to the instrument flying once again, so putting the plane into unusual attitudes and recovering, dives etc. Then learning about timed turns around the compass which take 10 seconds per 30 degrees in a rate one turn, all of this with goggles on, half of the instruments not working and not climbing or descending more than 100ft.
Kids who like computer games should come and play at the real thing. I am really enjoying it, when you feel you have it all under control its a really good feeling. So there I was feeling all good with myself that I was finally getting myself in control of the plane and it was time for my "Passenger" to start to distract my attention, so first of all it was climbing to the left, oh and now to the right, then it was: " Ok now we are going to do all of this whilst you play me at Naughts and Crosses." Laugh, I nearly wet myself there and then, but he was serious as he was drawing out the grid.

EFT-European Flight Training

Please imagine if you will 2 grown men, sitting flying a 4 seater plane, at 3000ft. The one flying the plane wearing something like ski goggles to not be able to see outside and the "Passenger" drawing out Naughts and Crosses, whilst I try to fly us back to the airfield without bumping into anything.
The lesson went really well though I thought, Matt really is a top grade instructor, what he has done with my flying over the passed week is great, I have actually started to feel a lot more confident in my surroundings here, but I do feel the hard work is really about to start, I think the gloves will come off and the pressure will rise.

I should be able to start working on the bigger aircraft by the middle of the week, The Arrow which is complex plane, which this test states I have to be tested on, so the work load will increase, and I will get no help from the "Passenger" when I am flying so I am to be the Commercial Pilot with a paying customer. As I left tonight Matt showed me the hours we have logged and dropped into conversation that after tomorrows flying I will be halfway through the course. Its going just too quickly.

Weather the Whether.....

2011-10-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

Today was a strange day and a good day.
I was woken early this morning at 4:45 with a huge clap of thunder and some serious rain fall. Try as I might get back off to sleep, not a chance. No flying today I thought, this is one huge storm. A cup of tea and breakfast later and the rain really was coming down with thunder and lightening still I head off to school expecting a ground school day.

Todays weather

I met a new instructor today, Thomas, who's an airline pilot and from Denmark but lives here and flies 737's and teaches part time as well. He was to be flying with me today but the weather was stopping that for the time being.
So it was to the classroom to learn about some of the radio navigation techniques for a couple of hours, which was kept interesting by Thomas and I learned a lot, then looking at the weather forecasts it was starting to clear up and pretty quickly, so as the Captain I had to make the decision to go flying. On the agenda was instrument flying, which involves me wearing a hood over my eyes and then trying to fly the plane simulating flying in clouds. This I have practiced with Darrell last week in France so it went quite well. Next was unusual attitudes, which means putting the plane into a spiral dive or a into a position more like a space rocket whilst I have my eyes closed then when I open my eyes have to right the plane quickly and safely. Quite good fun to be honest, I am surprised how much I enjoy these.
So all in all this exercise was enjoyable, just in time for my brain to go on vacation once again and I started to get my self in a flap when having to make my way back to the airport. I still don't know why I am being like this, every now and then the red mist comes down in the cabin and I get flustered and a little lost with my procedures.
Thomas mentioned that he saw it in progress and that I need to have more preparation, give myself time and not rush. Get everything straight in my mind before I start the process.
So I am going to go through these things on paper over the weekend and try to create a mental process to go through without having a plane to fly at the same time. So definitely work to be done over the weekend to get some of the procedures into place I also have some technical reading to do regarding the airplane and learn the various speeds for flying the plane off by heart as thats now important at this stage.
For the moment in reflection at the end of the first 8 hours of the training, I am a little frustrated at the silly mistakes that I seem to be making and almost feel I have started the course with stage fright, but I am really happy at the progress I am making, I am learning each day and the instructors are top drawer. I think with a full week next week I will be exhausted by the end of it as I am sure things are gathering pace now. I am really enjoying being here and feel I am at the right place for this part of my flying career. For now its a little rest over the weekend.

Radio head.

2011-10-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

Well another early start to the day, but I had to put my captain's hat on and decide to delay the flight for 45 mins as there was some local weather around. So let it pass and we got onboard the plane, went through all of the checklists only at the final moment to have one of the instruments stop working, the attitude indicator. Can't fly without that so shut down and back in we go.
Fortunately there was another plane there and we were shortly off and away. Although once again I seemed to leave part of my brain behind as my radio work was really quite bad and not in the game at all, but the flying side of things was much improved on yesterday as I finally feel like I am getting used to the plane. We finished what we were doing yesterday in the gusty winds, with glide approaches and short filed landings. Matt seemed happier with my flying and I felt it was a marked improvement on yesterday.
I did get my knuckles wrapped over not knowing all of the approach speeds for each of the configurations of the plane today, so some serious home work to be done, I really should gotten a Pilots handbook for the plane before I started, so work to be done there.
In general one of the things I am enjoying is seeing how Matt instructs, although he must go through dozens of students doing these same lessons over and over yet at no time do I feel like he is just going through the paces, he is on the ball and sees the mistakes a mile off and we seem to be able to correct them, he's not condescending or mocking, he strikes a good balance which I must try to learn from if I get to the point of instructing further down the line.
All in all a positive start to the day but I need to get this radio work done, so a lot of concentration on that this afternoon if the weather stays away.

This afternoon's flight was my first taste of Commercial Pilot Navigation, now to explain this in simple terms, my passenger is a photographer for The Sun newspaper, Ironic isn't it, mind you he did promise not to hack my phone. My job is to collect the paying customer and brief him take him to the plane, then fly him to the place where he wants to shoot some aerial pictures. Which of course is some remote place really in the middle of nowhere. Then we went onto another one and eventually another one. The whole time whilst flying giving updates of where we are, what time we will arrive and then point out the house, building, prison, airstrip or whatever the subject of the photographs is.
All well and good you might think, programme the gps and off you go. But no, No gps its the old steam gauges with map and compass, judging where the wind has blown us off course and then correcting the course as we do.

Todays navigation route.

The first leg of this was a demonstration by Matt then it was my turn to navigate, then the 3rd leg I had to navigate, fly and do the radios and find the tiny airstrip. Suddenly I have realized that the flying part now has to become second nature, whilst you are completing paperwork, map reading and informing your passenger, the work load has very quickly increased, always something to do. The adrenaline started to flow a little as the eyes start to scan the horizon for my waypoint or the subject of the pictures. To my surprise I managed to find it, although I do think I was given a relatively easy one for starters, and my passenger got his pictures.
I let my guard down a little too early though as we were also nearly back to our home airfield and I hadn't set the aircraft up for arrival and I was rushing once again and making some mistakes. Silly errors that really shouldn't be there but I will be ironing out.
Matt seemed altogether happier with my radio work this afternoon, I am feeling more at home with the plane now, knowing where to look for things and getting the landings better and better each time. I hope this stands me in good stead for when I move up to the bigger aircraft at the end of next week.
I am really pleased to have chosen here to come and do this course, the school really is well set up, the instructors around the place seem to enjoy working there, always wishing a good morning, I even crossed a Texan in the corridor earlier as I wished him good morning I received a "Howw Dee" from him wild west style.
I am exhausted at the end of each day my brain literally hurts, so I know I am trying my hardest not sure if I can keep up at this pace, but I will certainly be trying.
If anyone reads this and would like to leave a comment feel free to on the bottom.

Wobbly legs, 21knots of cross wind and the final exam result.

2011-10-05T16:17:00.000-07:00

My letter from the CAA with my final result.

Right, where do i start today..... i suppose at the beginning.
Early start this morning for lesson 1 on the CPL(commercial pilot license) agenda which is climbing and descending with power, without power, and turning whilst doing the same. Obviously now we are in commercial land I have to now treat the instructor like a passenger the entire time. Even when I meet him in the morning I have to introduce myself and guide him through all safety briefings and even show him how to put his seatbelt on.
The other difference with CPL are the check lists, both written and mental. Before the climb, during the climb and after climb, check list check list check list. My brain is slightly fried with those and there are so more to come, but I like the feeling of being more in control and understanding the reasons behind the checks. I seemed to do ok with these as they were pretty straight forward but I will have to keep going over the check lists.
After I got back from the flight and wished my passenger well I went for a coffee and as my emails came through... to my enormous surprise an email from the CAA was waiting with my exam result on it.
I was nearly sick when I saw I had passed with 82%, my legs literally went from under me, the waitress came to take my order and my mouth couldn't form words, i think she thought i had torrets syndrome or a horrendous stutter i managed to say wa wa wa water ..... sitting there in a pilots uniform i think i just scared her off from flying.
Anyway its done, no more study with those books I can concentrate on the flying so it wasn't long before I was back with my passenger briefing him once again and taxiing out for some circuit practice, in a 21knot cross wind. Sweaty hands, the blood drained from my face and the joy of having passed my exam was left behind at the hanger.
Trying to put in a straight circuit with wind like that was a tough ask for me and truth be told I was a little worried about the conditions, Matt talked me through it well but at the start the hand-eye-plane co-ordination seemed to have been left behind at the hanger as well my first attempt at landing was just awful so I went around as the plane wasn't settled down right.
Slowly after that with some help from my passenger it came into place but not without a few bumpy approaches. On the final one I managed to nail it and came away feeling a lot better than at the start, I don't mind the not being able to do things part when they are improving each time.
The wind just got too much after that so we cut things short and did a flapless approach and landing and it was time for lunch. After each flight we have a thorough debriefing and I was a little annoyed with myself as I would like my flying to better than I am doing at the moment, but my passenger told me not to be so hard on myself as there are ups and downs and the most important thing is that when I am not doing something right I am learning from the mistakes and improving, which seems to be the important part at this stage.
So after day 2 some tough flying, some improvement but it needs to get better.
Day 3 tomorrow and another 2 flights, some instrument work and then my first CPL navigation exercise.
Maybe a few beers at the weekend now that the Theory exams are all passed.

Arrival and day one......

2011-10-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

My ride to Orlando

I arrived into Miami airport after a bumpy ride across the atlantic, never had a 9 1/2 hour with seat belts on the whole flight. Arrival was the same old nightmare at immigration but hey ho I made my connection to Orlando and managed to track down my ride to get down to Vero beach with one of the instructors.

My new training partner

I have been assigned a room in a house in Vero Beach off of the airport site, which I think is better as I am able to get away from it all at the end of each day and there are only 3 of us in the house. The others are 2 students currently doing their theory exams and will then be heading into the CPL around xmas time I think all being well.
I arrived into school for the first day to be met by Matt Adams, my instructor, and so began the paperwork. Contracts, safety briefings, ID card, etc.

To my surprise I have been given my own car which I am pretty impressed with, I will be able to have an amount of freedom when I have to odd spare hour or 2.

Matt comes across as an intelligent, bright guy who knows what he is talking about and pretty personable. We are around a similar age and I feel that his standards are high, I like that, I think its going to make my flying improve and so far he listens and that's important in an instructor-student relationship. At the end of the day this is the guy who's going to get me to where I really want to go, by hook or by crook.
We have got an introductory flight booked for this afternoon to see exactly where I am at, to be honest I am pretty jet lagged and nursing a sore head but that's just down to coming half way around the world. So I will save this entry and add in below how the flight goes and a summary of my first day.

The apron at EFT

I survived day one !!
Todays flight was a kind of a mini test, to see if I am ready to go onto the CPL course, carrying out manouvers and emergency drills when the instructor pulls the power and says we have an engine failure and its time to find a field to put it in. After 45 mins he said he was happy with it all and it was time to head back in. I had forgotten how flat Florida really is by comparison to France its really amazing, like a billiard table.
Anyway after a slightly iffy landing in the Piper PA28 the Matt said I was cleared to start the course for real first thing in the morning, as he handed me booklets and paperwork for my homework to study.
I am really pleased that the work done last week with my friend Darrel has paid off and all credit to his patience as he's kicked me into shape with the preparation.
In reflection the first impressions of the school are good, they picked me up from the airport, the owner are the Chief flying instructor were there to greet me on the first morning, the accommodation is good, the place is very professional, I like the aircraft, and as a bonus they have even given me a car to drive.
Early start tomorrow so I had better get some sleep now the homework is done.
All in all a good start.

Time to close the eyes and jump....

2011-10-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

So the Caa say the exam results take 10days to come through. 3 Weeks later I am sitting in the hotel at Heathrow airport no results yet heading off to Florida hoping I have passed and going to start my CPL practical training. It feels slightly strange, even taking the edge off of the excitement of heading off for the stage of the training. I fly to Orlando via Miami tomorrow and start day 1 of training at European Flight training for my commercial pilots license.
Apparently the sun is shining over there, the skies are clear, so hopefully my flying will be up to scratch after last week's brush up and I can get through it.
After the CPL will come the juicy bit, the Flight Instructor course, which is a pretty grueling 5 weeks of training in the classroom as well as in the sky
I have decided I am going to try to do a diary over the next few months and try to post each day as I think it will be good to remember exactly what $20,000 and 18 months of study actually buys and the trials and tribulations of putting myself through all of this.
I will be away for sometime so feel free to add any comments or ask any questions as it all goes along, I will do my best to post as many pictures as possible and hopefully will have my exam result in over the next day or so and it will be a pass or I will have to head back home pretty quickly.
I am looking forward to some further adventures with my flying friend Blake as well I have missed the fun we have had over the passed 12 months, get yourself ready Blake, you've been warned.
So my fingers are crossed my next post will be to say its all systems go, the sun is shining and we are under way........

Blindfolded, half of the instruments not working and a spiral dive....

2011-09-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

Me in the Robin

Today involved some good flying, some testing flying and a good lesson or 2......
I am really grateful to my friend Darrell for putting me through my paces today and pretty much testing the limits of my flying skills.

found the windmills from 3000ft

We started off simply enough with a navigation exercise to a grass air strip about half an hour away, we then had a diversion to a wind farm consisting of 4 wind mills and was pretty chuffed to have found that from 3000feet.


Me with the blindfold hood on

A drink and a bite to eat at the nearby airport of Angouleme was in order before it was time to head back out and get into the serious part of the CPL training which involves some strange exercises including wearing a blindfold so that you can only see the instruments, then block off half of the instruments, then whilst you can't see make the plane go left, right up and down. I seemed to get on ok with this, climbing descending and turning to points on the compass, then the real fun starts where I am not allowed to even look at the instruments whilst Darrell spins us around a bit to disorientate me then puts the plane into an unusual attitude and I then have to recognize which direction we are going with only some of the instruments working and the blind fold on, either diving nose first into the ground at about 130 knots or going straight up into the stars like the Space shuttle. This has to be recognized and recovered in a matter of seconds before we hit the ground or run out of sky.

Covering up the important bits

I actually seemed to cope ok with this, I was slightly worried about this aspect, not due to the impending death aspect but because when I had done it before (flown with a blindfold) I got quite motion sick as I was disorientated. It was for this reason I told Darrell is was probably best not to be wearing his best jumper today.
He need not have worried, my lunch stayed where it was intended and I am still alive to tell the tale.

After all of this was completed it was time for some real brushing up on my circuit work, which is where you join the airport where you are going to land and then make final approach and land, I seem to have gotten a little slack over the passed few months of flying and this needed some tightening up, which due to some patience and clever teaching techniques of my passenger all seemed to work well, so there was only one thing to finish off with and that my favorite some stalling, I have always hated stalling planes, since day one of learning to fly it has been my bogey area, so Darrell got the bit between his teeth and we managed to get this to a far better standard, passed the point of being a baby about it and making it a lot better and controlled throughout the procedure.

Me and my training Captain.....

After 3 and a half hours flying today I really feel 100 times better and prepared on what training lies ahead for me in Florida over the months ahead.

Once again my exam result didn't arrive, so another nail biter of a nights sleep ahead before it arrives.....

Unusual Atitudes......Spiral dives....

2011-09-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

The Robin DR400

Today was great fun, some real flying and a concerted effort to get into training mode. Darrell, my patient friend who is also an instructor put together some of the exercises which come up all through the CPL training, these include recovering from unusual attitudes, ie Spiral Dives, approach to stall, basically the up is down and down is up, and the sky is somewhere in between, oh and I forgot to mention you are wearing a hood over your eyes so you can't see out !!
Not usually my idea of fun but it feels like a real accomplishment to get through it unscathed and only slightly green with nausea.
The rest of the flying today included stalls, which has always been my bogey point of flying, I don't overly enjoy it and then steep turns and circuits around the airport.
I felt that I got back into the groove flying wise today and the advice and help from Darrell who has been through this course not so long ago has been a real help and I feel after our long flight tomorrow as we have the plane for the day I should be firing on all cylinders.
We have been so lucky with the weather its just perfect for getting these hours done and hopefully after tomorrow I should be very close to my 100 hours Pilot in command time that I also need for the commercial training.
Unfortunately the postman failed me today and there were no exam results coming through, so another 24hours of waiting. Patience is the key.....

Back in the saddle and it feels good

2011-09-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

Its been a crazy few months of study study study for this final Navigation re-test. I took the exam 10 days ago at London Gatwick CAA HQ, and as expected it wasn't the most fun day of my life. But I am hoping hoping and hoping some more that I have done enough this time.
I am sitting tapping my fingers waiting for the result to come through at anytime maybe even tomorrow.
If and thats a rather large IF, I have passed it, it will mean I have the right to be on the already reserved plane for Florida in 2 weeks time to start my Commercial Pilots License practical flying course and then onto the Flight Instructors course. All of this will take me up to around Xmas if all goes well and I pass the further exams.
At the moment I am writing this blog post from where it all started for me, in Limoges, France where I studied for and passed my PPL 2 years ago with my Instructor Sue Virr who owns and runs the only English speaking school in France based at the aeroclub de Limoges. I am here, as its now 2 years since my license that I have to re-validate it with a flight with an examiner and be signed off once again.
I did this flight today and it was great to be back in familiar surroundings with the Robin DR400 aircraft. I have bought my friend Darrell along for the ride for this week as he is already qualified and has been through the courses before me and he is putting me through my paces to get me match fit for the intense training ahead, although I didn't scare him too much today I think he has his work cut out to get me ready over the next few days.
We have some navigation routes lined up for the next couple of days and I will take some pictures, hopefully the weather will stay this good and I will get a few good hours under my belt.
I will report in when the exam result comes through.

Its time focus.....the courses are booked.

2011-08-29T02:40:00.000-07:00

So its done... the deposits are paid.
The flight to the US is booked.
D'day is the 3rd October when I will be flying out the Florida. Firstly I will be near Miami with my friend/mentor/instructor and all round good buddy Blake for my Faa Instrument training at Fort Lauderdale.

I will then be heading up to Vero Beach to European Flight Training HQ for the start of my Commercial Pilots course which takes on average 3-4 weeks of pretty intense flight training all around that area with 2-3 flights per day. A friend asked the other day if any of this will be in a simulator which it wont, its all out there flying the actual plane.
Providing I pass the flight test at the end of this I will be straight into 5 long weeks of flight instructor training at the same place. This one's going to be tough, combining class room teaching, with cockpit teaching, preparing lessons and not letting the students crash the plane too many times.
It all suddenly feels very real and there is only one small stumbling block. I have had to secure my places on the courses with still one theory exam to go.

Unfortunately during the last sitting of the final 3 exams in the CPL Theory tests I managed to fail one. Navigation. This means one more trip to the CAA in Gatwick in 2 weeks for a re-take of the exam.
A really good friend and great "ground instructor" Darrell just came over to visit me in France for a week and between my day job work has been whipping me into shape for the exam.
So for the time being its focus focus focus on the exam then off to the US for the fun stuff to put the theory all into practice.....

Whilst doing my day job I also came across a rather novel way to avoid the traffic queues on the beaches of St Tropez...... no sure I would like to do the flying though....

Let the Games begin.

At last back in the cockpit.

2011-07-16T07:20:00.000-07:00

The PA28

I was asked by my work to go and photograph a house down here in the south of France where I am currently working. So I managed to get the local club to let me rent their Piper PA28 for the trip which took a couple of hours.

Presque Isle Gian

To be back in a heavy plane after the delights of the light-sport in Miami was certainly a shock to the system, in a good way as I need to get back into Piper mode for the next part of my training, the CPL as a lot of this will be in the PA28 before moving onto a more complex plane.

Six-Fours

The airport at Cuers is uncontrolled yet is also a military base, so there are all sorts of local rules and regulations, the main one being that all of it is in French here, but its not to tough to understand. Also getting back into the overhead joining of the circuit which is obligatory on uncontrolled fields like this one.
The best bit about today was being up in the air for my job I had my camera with me, so on the way to and from the job I had to do I got to take some pictures of the gorgeous south of France scenery:

Les Calanques

Casis

Its been a little while but I've been a little busy.

2011-07-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

So here I am. Apologies for the delay, I have been in Spain for a month, studying like crazy.
I'm at Gatwick airport Holiday INN, and not really on a holiday. I am at the end of 2 days of exams at Caa HQ Gatwick.
Yesterday I had the Principles of Flight exam. A horrible subject and equally horrible exam. I have never got my head around it and have studied like made for it. I left the exam feeling as though i must have failed it.
Next it was Flight Planning Mass and Balance yesterday afternoon. A 3 hour marathon exam which I only just finished 5 minutes before the end. There were 3 or 4 people who didn't get to finish. Very very tough, I felt I had the knowledge to get through but it was a very difficult exam but I think the most positive of the 3 I have done this week.
A funny side note to this exam sitting was, we havea study manual that we have to have for this exam, containing maps and terminal plates. Normally one of the students has theirs taken off them to be checked incase you have marked you maps with cheating notes etc. Low and behold I was chosen and the lady took my book off me, no problems there as I don't want to pass the exams by cheating. The lady then gives me a replacement version of the book whilst she checked mine over.
On the first question I opened up the map to do the plotting and what do I find.... Only all of the answers had already been written out on the CAA's own maps. So I had to get the official's attention pretty quickly whilst remaining quiet in the exam room, and when she came over she was pretty red faced at what she saw and then had to give me my own book back to complete the exam.
The final one was this morning, General Navigation/Radio Navigation. Now, I was pretty confident walking in there, right up to the point where I opened the exam paper when the blood rushed from head to my backside.
The paper seemed to be trying to trip us up at every turn, with multi layered questions all over the place. This is fine when you have time to work them out, but the exam was only 1h30 mins long. For the first time in all 9 exams I was still sitting there right at the end of the exam. I didn't feel out of my depth with the subject matter, but I felt very rushed and was unable to check what I was doing over again, so if I made any mistakes they will have slipped through.
I suppose in summing up, I have done 3 huge exams over 2 days and I haven't got a clue if I passed them, nearly passed or failed them with bells on.
Tomorrow its medical madness with my initial class 1 medical, which takes all day and probes the places that other beers cannot reach.
I am hoping the blood pressure has dropped after all this nonsense.
If I have failed any of these exams, I will be back here in September to re-take them. If I have passed it will mean I am off to flight school at some point in the future for my Commercial Pilot course then my Instructor rating.
For the moment I have to wait to have a celebration beer after doing the final exam as I have the medical, but tomorrow night all being well, the Guinness will flow.

I have finally done all of the course work

2011-06-25T06:41:00.000-07:00

I have finally done all of the course work for the 3 exams that I am about to take. The Navigation work is quite easily the hardest of all of the Subjects I have done so far, and I am quite doubtful about getting a first time pass on this one, which seems quite common amongst the pilots I know. Its a huge, broad subject for the CPL, my brain just seems to be rejecting it. The other 2 are pretty tough too, Principles of flight and Mass/Balance & flight planning.
So now I have been through all of the course work, I am now starting the revision phase and exam preparation. The exams will take place over 2 days at Gatwick airport in London at the Gulag also known as the Caa. (Mind you the food isn't too bad)
My head is ready to explode but I am just looking at the calendar and crossing off the days until I can get my head back out of the books and into the cockpit and fly the darn plane.
On another note I have been taking the occasional break from study and have been watching a great aviation tv series called "Flying Wild Alaska" once again. Be careful its totally addictive and shows some quite unbelievable flying and landing in conditions most of us would be hiding under the blanket instead of getting behind the controls. I downloaded it through iTunes, one to keep an eye out for.
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/flying-wild-alaska/

Right I've had my cup of coffee.... time to revise.

Into the final straight with the ground study, hopefully for the final time

2011-06-19T01:16:00.000-07:00

Its the 19th June. On 12th & 13th July I will have my final 3 theory exams. I am in Spain at the moment, on a family "Holiday" which basically means I am trying to squeeze in 6-8 hours of study if the joyous subjects such as Principles of Flight, (which is like studying degree level physics), Navigation and Flight Planning Mass and Balance.
I have had a week of doing Flight Planning this week and have nearly got the practice exam scores where I want to be. Each day I do a little Principles of Flight and then on Monday I will be going head first back into Navigation. I think I am on the right path with it, and am really looking forward to exam day.

The idea of waking up in the morning and not having to put my head in the books will be a nice day and hopefully its just a month away.

It will then be another case of sitting and waiting for the results to drop through the door before being able to plan where the path of qualifications takes me.

For the moment its sitting here in Spain and hitting the books hard.

The nose is out of the skies and back in the books

2011-05-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

It feels like the death of 1000 cuts at the moment.

3 subjects to finish up and the final exams in 5 weeks. It feels like its taking for ever. I have been pushing hard with the hour building lately, and thats got me down to needing just under 20 hours, which is a good place to be. The concentration has had to shift back to the books for Principles of Flight, which is pretty much the same as degree level Physics, not my strongest subject at school, well I'm not sure I actually had a strongest subject at school.

Anyway I have made it through the syllabus and am now bashing the question banks and the scores are climbing up now and for the first time I am feeling comfortable with the subject.

I want to get this one up as high as I can before getting the maps back out for Navigation and flight planning which are the other 2 subjects.

I am heading to Spain a week today to spend 3 weeks with my parents where I will hopefully have these subjects squared away to where I want them, then it will be time to head to London Gatwick for hopefully the final time. The other part of this trip to Gatwick will be for my class 1 medical, which all commercial pilots have to have before they can even start the practical part of the flight course.

If all goes to plan, I will pass these exams, get the medical then sometime in August head to northern Florida for my flight courses to do my Instrument rating, Commercial rating, then eventually my flight instructor rating......Jeez.... have I really got all that still left to go ?

It will have been a year of study so far when I get to this final set of theory exams in mid July, I have no idea how many hours I have had my head in the books so far but it I feel like the end is in sight, so I had better stop writing this and get back to work.

I have posted a picture which I have played with a little on photoshop from the Miami Beach landscapes series I did.

Hope you like it.

Elapsed Time: Heavy Traffic

2011-05-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

This is quite brilliant

Simple but brilliant

Its gone international

2011-05-27T06:57:00.000-07:00

I have managed to find in the setting for the blog the part which tells me where people are reading it, I was really chuffed to see there are people as far afield as India, Malaysia, Australia, Germany, Denmark and Canada reading it. Thankyou for reading and feel free to post any thoughts or comments.
Stu

United States

624

United Kingdom

122

France

Spain

Germany

Barbados

Denmark

Malaysia

Australia

Canada

Some great views and for once I took my camera. Probably the best day of flying this year.

2011-05-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I had the chance to fly in a different plane, similar to the usual one but a bit quicker and a little nicer.

Miami Beach

I even took my work camera on this trip as for my day job I am a photographer, so took the opportunity to take some aerial pictures around Miami and the keys here.

Downtown Miami

I wont write loads about the flight other than to say that Blake took me to visit the King Air which he gets to play in as a part of his day job which is based at a local airport and we then got to see Key West in the day time and then took a low level flight over south beach for some nice landscape pictures. I hope you like them. You can click on them to see them full-size..
I also shot some video but will need to get around to editing it and will post it shortly.

One thing I will say is a huge thank you to Blake for making the flight today happen, we had a lot of fun and I was still laughing like a school boy when I got home. But as they say, "some things stay on the flight deck."
Infact I am thinking it might an idea for a reality tv show to record our conversations and put in a little camera into the plane as you really wouldn't believe where the conversation goes over the course of a 4 hour flight late into the night.
I think Blake has flown next to me for over 25 hours over the passed 2 weeks and he always has a smile on his face and never seems fazed by my flying.
Thankyou.

A smiling Blake

The Author of the Blog in a King Air

The King Air

Our Cockpit in the CTLS

Key West with the airport in the bottom right corner

7 Mile Bridge

South Beach

Tamiami Executive Airport

South Point Miami

Somewhere in the Keys

South Point Miami Beach

26 hours to go after a visit to Honoluana Island Grill for fish and chips

2011-05-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

It was a little strange to get in a little daytime flying yesterday, and what an awesome sight it was too, I decided to head out West and head up the West coast of Florida and finally get to eat at the Honoluana Bar and Grill at Venice Municiple airport.
There was a nice mix, some good weather (happy clouds) and rough looking weather (unhappy clouds) so a little cloud dodging and when we were arrived at Marco islands the weather vanished and a nice climb up to 4000ft, the views were magnificent. I feel really lucky to be able to spending so much time flying in this area.

I love flying in France with the mix of coast and mountains, the South West of the UK is picturesque and steeped in history and this is breathtaking coastline and beaches around southern Florida with the mix Keys, Islands bright white beaches.

I spent the christmas holidays in this part of the world at Fort Myers beach, which is rugged like the north cornwall coast and I loved it, I have flown over here 3 times at night but never during the daytime, so I was taking pictures like a crazed paparazzi.
Just after Fort Myers beach are the islands of Sanibel and Captiva, exclusive islands, with gorgeous houses ad large boats parked up at the end of the garden. One of the beaches on Sanibel when I visited in December was a stretch of beach about 5 miles long made solely of shells. Its just breath taking.

On Sanibel there is also nature reserve which I took my son Thomas to where you can take a boat out into the shallow bay which is waist deep and you can see so much of the wild life there so I took Blake down for a 400ft fly by over the reserve and then continued up the coast line over Captiva and North Captiva en route to Venice.

Now to explain how you normally arrive into airports like this which do not have a control tower for those who don't know. There is usually an automated weather radio transmission which we can dial up on the onboard radio to get the wind strength and direction and then choose the appropriate runway. At Venice there are 2 runways, hence 4 possible directions of entry. This airport is also home to some pretty quick jets which come in and out. So when its busy if you can imagine the round about at Piccadilly Circus with a couple of formula one cars mixed in you might get the picture.
The problems with this approach is the weather system wasn't working. Hmmmmmmm
What to do ?

Well we had wind coming at us from the direction of 310 degrees and there is a runway 31 so its a no brainer line up for 10 mile final for 31 as we were approaching from the south it was easy. The problem then comes in when you have a different aircraft coming in from a different altitude and direction where the wind will be reading very differently from ours so their decision of appropriate runway may well not be the same one as ours, or even end up coming in directly in on the same runway from the opposite direction. We had had a plane also on finals for their runway 04 and was a turbine so a lot quicker than us, there was also a small plane in the circuit for another runway.
To go back to the car analogy, imagine that round about at Piccadilly Circus now with all of the traffic lights on green at the same time.
I had my dad's voice in the back of my mind, (Dad is a driving instructor) "Make a situation safe yourself, a good driver makes a situation safe by their own decisions", so I thought it best to do the same here, time to circle away from the airport and do a little sight seeing whilst the converging planes got safely onto the ground as we were in no rush.
A little look around the islands and then time to line up again for runway 31 and reasonable if not a little quick landing into Venice and time to look for the restaurant/bar.
After a decent fish and chips, which the Americans put in a bun to make a huge piece of battered fish into a burger, a little strange but very good.
We decided to get out reasonable quickly as we wanted to see the sun set from up in the sky.
As we taxied out to 31 again the same problem started to happen, I was lining up for 31 with the wind coming down the runway and someone was established on finals in the opposite direction, and another lining up for runway 04 for takeoff. This place is truly bonkers, every runway was in use at the same time at one airport !!
Patience prevailed, wait and watch them all leave and land and head out myself, keep it safe.
The only thing just as I'm climbing out at 700ft a very quick jet comes over the radio joining the circuit near to us, so changed the departure kept low, talked to them over the radio to let them know where we were and we pottered off down the beaches heading south watching the approaching jet.
When ever I have flown up here I have never been able to spot South West international airport from the coast, its a strange one as it seems to hide, so a quick check of the airspace rules for the airport and we would be able to transit the airspace at 4000ft directly overhead runway there. Carefully watching the cloud ceiling above which was at about 5000ft we squeezed between the cloud and the airspace. Between Blake and I we only managed to spot the place when we were virtually on top of it, it was like the Bermuda triangle I was wondering if it actually existed. But we were treated to a 737 taxiing and taking off as we passed by.

From there a trek south towards Naples and a left turn to follow the Tamiami trail with a heading due East towards Tamiami Airport and the city lights of Miami came into view.
The approach from West into Miami is great, to the left you have the planes taking off and arriving into Miami international and further left the same for Fort Lauderdale, from 4000ft at night this is what night flying is all about.
The circuit at the airport sounded busy so after getting the up to date weather details we were lined up perfectly for runway 9L over 20 miles out and listening to the comings and goings ahead of us.
Including someone who was taking a Jet for a run up and down the closed runway 9R to test the engines, the strangest things happen at night.
So here I am on finals on my way in and what happens ? Divert onto runway 13 at the last minute, not unusual and happens all the time so a quick adjustment right turn and into 13, things were looking good until I got to about 20ft, when things went a little wayward with my landing which ended up with a pretty decent balloon and ended up straying off to the right of centre line by a little too far. Not exactly my most gracious arrival into an airport with a touch down which managed to test both mine and Blake's dental work to the max.
Over 25 hours of night flying over the passed few weeks.

26 hours of flying to do until I reach the magical 100 hours PIC, hopefully no more ropey landings like that, I am not sure my medical insurance will pay for the dental re-alignment.

Night time solo & what's next......

2011-05-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

Last night I went out to continue my quest for flying hours, I am starting to wonder if the quest for the Holy Grail might have been easier.
The Holy Grail for me is 100 hours of "Pilot in Command" time so basically flying not under instruction and in command of the aircraft. I also have to have 150 hours total time before I can start the Commercial Pilot practical course. So far I have over 150 hours total so thats all good. I currently have about 65 hours "PIC" time, so 35 to go.
My plan is to get as many more "PIC" hours as I can afford whilst here in the US. Here in Florida is the cheapest place in the world to fly so it makes sense to fly as much as possible here. For me I feel that night flying is really helping my growth in the cockpit as I am using instruments more and more almost as default now where as flying during the day time you don't tend to use them so much. Infact its been over 25 hours since I have flown during the day.
I am heading to europe for the summer and hope to get some hours in with my friend John, who is also on the same path as me, he has a gorgeous little plane called "Molly" and we are hoping to do a little wine tasting trip around France and continue building those hours.
My aim when the log book is full and the last of my theory exams is passed (No easy task) is to head back to the US and do my Instrument rating, Commercial Pilot license and Instructor rating in September/October. These all involve some intense flying with tests at the end, one example, the Instrument rating test involves a 6 hour oral exam prior to being even allowed to fly on the day of testing, you then take to the skies with a kind of blindfold on for a few hours and try not to tip the plane upside down without being able to look outside. As I write that, I feel I must be mad !!
Now might be a good time to mention, I have a whole new respect for the pilots who fly us around on our way to our holidays and business as the training and testing is immense. I have mad a point of saying Thank you to them each time I fly. As the testing doesn't stop there, you have to be re-tested every year or 2.
Last night my usual flying buddy Blake had to bow out as he has a day job getting to fly one of the best aircraft on the planet in my opinion, a King Air, and he was called with a very early start this morning so night flying before hand wasn't the best preparation, so it was time to the take to the night skies alone.
Most of my flying friends tell me they hate flying alone, and I haven't done that much of it but I can't say I hate it, its just that flying is a fun thing to do with friends as its nice to share the experience. The problem for me is that things often stop working on the plane when ever I fly alone and last night was no exception.
The plane was ready and waiting when I got to the airport and I was quickly lifting off to depart the traffic zone to the east.
Just as quick back story, I had to cancel a flight a couple of nights ago as there was an electrical issue with the plane that cut the navigation system which I only discovered when we were about to taxi so we had to put the plane back in the hanger. This lead to some thinking about what would happen if it happened in flight and made me realize how I was relying on the all singing all dancing moving map GPS system in the plane and not doing enough manual map work anymore.

When you take off with this system the initial screen was the plan of the airport, the taxi ways, runways etc. Tamiami isn't a huge airport but still there are 3 runways and half a dozen taxiways so pretty easy to make a wrong turn.
So I took off and normally the screen on the GPS changes to the local map showing all of the geographic points and more importantly the airports and you can therefore get the radio frequencies for those airports including any possible developing weather but all that popped up was a green map showing the geographic outline of florida and no further info even a good look through the options i couldn't get the info i needed.
I know the flying area around here well enough by sight in the day time to fly without any trouble at all, but night time, squeezing between Miami international airspace on one side and a fast jet military base on the other and out over the ocean was going to be a stretch.
So my thought process went through the options, go back in to Tamiami and go home and watch the basketball on tv, (we'll call that the big girls option).

Just fly around the circuit at Tamiami and have a look at south beach and burn fuel flying in circles.
(we'll call that the wasting flight time option)
Option number 3 is realize I have a map and a functioning plane, I am well trained and its time to grow a pair.....

So off into the blackness it is with a map in one hand and the stick in the other. This way of flying at night is a challenge but is great fun and nice to feel under pressure to trust the compass in front of you when there is only blackness ahead. After a while it was great, looking for the way points on the map with a torch and spotting them come up all the way down to Key West over the ocean although I have started to realize why my friends don't overly enjoy flying alone, it really is nice to be able to share the experience.
So I managed to get to the southern tip of mainland US it was time to head back, and the wind had really started to get up at altitude, I had 25 knots off to the right hand side of the plane and was crabbing my way up the coastline so I shortened the amount of time between the check points where I was navigating between to keep a good course but all was going well. The coast guard helicopter came over the radio as they were in the area so even had time for a little chat with them before the city lights of Miami came back into view.

Remembering it was a big night for Miami with the Basketball version of the Champions league finals happening I decided to head up south beach and north for a trip as they always have the goodyear blimp over head the city on big sports nights and its a great sight from the air.
When I checked my watch I saw I had been up for over 3 1/2 hours which had gone quickly, I suppose it does when you concentrate a lot and there is a work load but it felt good, the challenge now is to find the airport and enter the circuit correctly at night, at the correct altitude without a the GPS for help.

A good look at the map a taking a bearing from Key Biscayne to the coast and then the coast inland it seemed to be fine and was confirmed when the tower at Tamiami confirmed and gave me a left hand circuit for runway 9L then with the added twist to the evening of cutting the downwind leg short and squeezing me between 2 planes and give me a last minute change onto runway 13.

The great thing about flying is you never know what's coming next and its good to test that training every now and then........

One third of a Greaser.......

2011-05-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

So there I was completing the departure for another night flight out of Tamiami at 1000ft with the idea of heading down for another run down to Key West (KEYW) as there were some pretty heavy storms out to the north and west, explaining to my flying buddy Blake about my flight with with Ozzie the other night.
I happened to mention that I had one of those moments that we all love as pilots, at the end of the flight with Ozzie, its like a little ray of sunshine at the end of a trip, where all of the elements conspire, where everything comes together and you get the almost perfect touchdown on landing. Where the tyres literally kiss the tarmac with a little Smooch.
I didn't make too much of this with Ozzie sitting next to me as it was his first flight I was hoping he'd just think thats the way I do it every time. He musn't read this blog. But to nail one on a night landing, in the wet, with a plane which has a landing light with less illumination than a candle I had been beaming inside.
Anyways..... I was telling Blake about this and he so informed me that Americans call this a Greaser, when you nail a good one.
So a little ballade down south beach just to keep an eye on where the storms were going and the decision was made to head down to Marathon (KMTH) and from there assess whether the weather was ok to continue.
The night was moonless due to cloud and it felt a little unnerving at one point as we were heading into total complete and utter blackness over the sea, but as my trusty friend next to me reminded me, its good for the instrument training, and to get to grips with actually trusting your instruments and developing "the scan".
I have to say it was with a little relief that the lights of Key Largo 20 miles in the distance.
Due to the total blackout we could see a huge storm rumbling away about 50 miles off to the West over towards Naples, all along the horizon with forks of orange lightening every 30 seconds or so. A truly amazing sight from 3000ft.
The flight down went pretty much without drama apart from keeping an eye on the pulsating storm, you have to be careful, particularly flying at night, not to get fixated upon things and you stop carrying out the rest of the business in hand, flying the plane and keeping it straight and level.
We entered the overhead at Key West at 3000ft, taking the easier route this time of staying high and above the controlled areas.
The more of the night flying I am doing the more I am loving it, learning the all new skill of instrument flying and gently getting used to it is one part of that but I think it really hones your skills, even just picking out the airports amongst the city lights.
After a chat with a jet who was departing Key West with some frequencies for his departure we got to watch his take off and climb out, which I never tire of at night when he managed to boot it out of there at god knows how many hundred knots, I wouldn't have been surprised if was flying concord.
I was back to the East for us and track back up the Keys for the return leg.
The huge storm was out of my window now and it really was an amazing sight. Then to my surprise another cheeky little storm opened up on the right with some flashed of lightening.
This one had just popped up out of nowhere. We checked the radar and it was sitting about 40nm away and not an issue but was a nice light show all the way home to Tamiami (KTMB).
The wind was pushing in from the East so I joined the left hand circuit for runway 9L, all on my own, not another plane in sight. Its amazing for an airport of this size and to have so many planes that we are the only ones flying.
So lined up, looking good with 2 whites 2 reds concentrating hard, Blake turns and says "Lets see this landing then"
Great there's the pressure, right at the perfect moment.
Touch down wasn't too bad, but like a judge on the X-Factor panel Blake turns to me and declares:
One third of a Greaser....

The wizard of Ozzie...

2011-05-19T06:57:00.000-07:00

Last night was a new experience for me.
It was the first time I have just taken a friend flying, one who has never been up in the small plane before. I usually go out with friends who have much more experience than me like instructors or fellow pilots like me, hour building on the lower rungs of the of the piloting ladder.
So the first consideration for me was to make sure the conditions were right and to stay on the side of caution as not to put my friend Ozzie off getting in a plane ever again and more importantly keep a very good friend a friend.
So when I saw the initial radar when there was only one cloud over the whole of Florida and it was sitting right on Tamiami airport with a warning of heavy rain and hail I wondered if lady luck was indeed telling me something.
I decided to delay for half an hour and see what intentions this menace of a big black cloud was up to. I have enclosed the radar picture.

After 30 minutes had passed the storm dissipated into a few showers and it was time to pre-flight and go sight seeing.
I made sure that I went through everything slowly and precisely with my passenger, just to warn of lumps and bumps which can happen, and also went through the procedures for taxiing and running up the engine, just so that he wouldn't be lost in a whole load of radio speak, codes and could sit back and relax as much as possible.

We got the plane fueled ready to go and taxied off for runway 9L and got through the run up and I got to show Ozzie what the various bits and bobs in the cockpit do and the reasons for them.
After a quick safety briefing we were radioing "ready for departure" and full power was on and off into the dark Miami sky we went.
At 1000' feet Ozzie informed me that from the moment of applying full power to leveling out he had forgotten to breath........
Noting he might be a little nervous in unfamiliar surroundings instead of heading straight down the Keys I turned left to take him for a ride down south beach Miami, so that he could spot the various land marks and get to grips with now being 1000 feet above them instead of driving a car passed them.
He seemed to adapt to his new environment well, we even got to fly by the Goodyear Blimp so after a circuit of south beach I decided to to turn us north once again and got him to follow me on the controls for gentle turns to the left and right which he did really well. I have never seen my friend have such a smile on his face.
I felt there and then I might have a flying buddy for life.
We did a few more circuits of the south beach area and Key Biscayne, the showers from earlier in the evening were starting to move around a bit and I didn't want to get caught out and put Ozzie off after he had settled in to things so well.
I thought about heading back to Tamiami airport, just as I started on my way there I heard the tower talking over the radio warning a fellow pilot in the area of light-moderate showers in the vicinity of the airport itself so we decided to go and chase the Goodyear Blimp for another half hour or so and give those showers a little privacy to do what they do best.
Upon hearing the weather had moved to the south east a few miles it was time to head back to base and was once again given runway 9L on left had circuit, as we approached we found a shower or 2 to dodge but managed to get in onto a very wet runway but thankfully managed to pull a pretty sweet landing out of the bag and another 2 hours of flying in the book.
Smiling like a cheshire cat my new found flying friend was a happy man and he insisted upon a few beer to celebrate....
Cheers Ozzie. Time for you to start the studying.

Give me the Keys.......

2011-05-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

I am waking up this morning after some lovely night flying last night, not quite believing I am managing a full time day job then flying into the small hours every night after, and the weather is letting me too.
The secret is coffee at the moment.
I managed to head out a little earlier than the night before as the plane was ready on time. This meant that after clearing the airport air space at Tamiami we were able to sit back and relax and watch the sun go down over the Keys with our destination the most southerly point of mainland America at Key West.
It was amazing. Sitting at 2000ft, the sun the colour of fire dropping under the starboard wing and the nose pointing straight down the line of the florida Keys, the chain of islands each linked by bridges and road all the way down to the final one Key West, a very popular holiday destination for Americans.
We were keeping an eye on the weather as during the day there had been some grizzly stuff blowing through but we seems to time it perfectly, with the weather out to the left and disappearing out over the Atlantic and the sunset to the right.

So after the sun dropped the night was clear and we got to see so many huge houses on each of the little islands and even bigger yachts moored in front of the big houses.
We passed over head Marathon, where I have flown into many times before but have never continued on further. Little did I know that 7 mile bridge was just after the airport, yes thats a bridge that is actually 7 miles long, when you get on it, you can't actually see the end, an impressive sight from the air.
With the decision made that the weather is clear onwards to Key West and an interesting few things to remark about the approach.
Firstly there is a military airbase to the north east of the the International airport and it overlaps with the main airport's airspace, so not only needing approach clearance, you also have to get permission to transit the MATZ (military area) once thats cleared its time to set up the approach into KEYW.
The second thing to mention is near the military base is a weather balloon which isn't lit up. and its on a cable from the ground up to 14,000 ft.
Yes a 14,000ft obstacle near the approach to an International Airport......
The third thing to mention about the airport at Key West is, it isn't a huge runway, not that in my little plane its going to be any trouble, but I can't imagine coming in on one of the 737's which service the airport daily, I hope to been down here during the day to see to that sometime.....
So in we went and were greeted by a really pleasant ground crew guy who guided us in and hastily put a fresh pot of coffee on for us and we had a rest for 10 minutes and a chat.
Soon enough it was time get out of there and it was runway 27 up into the moon lit sky and managed an orbit of the Key before heading back up the coast towards the mainland
There is something very relaxed and a different ambiance about flying at night. I can't quite put my finger on it, but its very peaceful and a really enjoyable way to fly. I thoroughly recommend getting a night rating and enjoying flying around the coastal areas, with the moon reflecting off the sea, its hypnotic.

With the skies so clear we could see the lights of the approaching planes going into Miami international after half an hour so we dialed up their frequency to listen to the way the big boys do it, and it was then that we decided to get low and join them and enjoy the night time clear weather and carry on up the coast. We had to initially get low to get under the Miami approach which means getting under 1500ft but the fun really started after passing Miami and getting to Fort Lauderdale. The airport there is a lot closer to the coast line, which means I had to get a lot lower to squeeze in underneath.
700 ft to be exact, with 737's 1000 ft above us coming into land, it was a great sight, a little tricky with a 20 knot cross wind but we carried on all of the way up to Delray beach before turning back and heading for home, once again low level under Fort lauderdale before heading inland over south beach causeway and a right turn to find the approach into Tamiami which is south of Miami downtown.
I'm really enjoying this hour building time, the confidence grows with each hour and looking forward to some more time tonight if the weather is kind.

If anyone is actually reading this feel free to comment or ask any questions, I am mainly writing this for family to keep up with what I am up to and also an aid memoir for when I want to look back in a few years time but would love to hear any thoughts or suggestions from anyone out there whether good, bad or ugly.
P.S. The picture of the jet at the end I have included just because it was parked next door and looks great.

7 hours in the book and some nice sights at 1am...

2011-05-17T08:09:00.000-07:00

Last night was the first time I have been flying a plane a 1'O'clock in the morning, and considering I did my first flight of the day at 2pm, it was a long day.

The day started with a flight out of Opa Locka airport, north of Miami, where I went out in a Cessna Skyhawk for a couple of hours with a full glass cockpit to do some Navigation work with the VOR transmitters around Miami, in preparation for my Commercial License course later in the summer.
We even got to see a family of sting rays in the sea south of Miami near Key Largo.
I then hot footed it down to Tamiami airport for some night flying with my friend Blake to go and build some hours.
We took off late due to the aircraft being used but the moon was rising as we got air born and the view of Miami was great.

We started off to the east to head out over the water towards the moon then tracked around the southern tip of Florida, all of the way passed Everglade City, Marco Island and Naples to head north all of the way to Venice airport after passing Captiva Island.
We landed there in hope of the nearby restaurant/bar being open for a snack and a drink and the tummy was rumbling but the second trip out we had just missed out on getting anything to eat
The whole trip so far had been into a pretty stiff 20 knot head wind so I was pretty glad the idea was hour building as it took over 2 and a half hours to get there.
Anyway after realizing there would be no refreshments for us we decided not to hang around and head on back. The trip back to Miami with the wind with us and heading towards the moon was an utter pleasure heading south down the florida coast line.
We squeezed through the controlled airspace between Naples and South West airport and found the I-75 or better know as Alligator alley, the East/West road between the 2 coasts of Florida, and yes by its name you can guess there are a lot of hungry fellas down there just waiting for us.
The air was so clear without the humidity at night time that as soon as we left the West coast from Naples we could see the city lights of Miami. It looked so good that we couldn't resist going passed the airport at Tamiami and heading up south beach at 700ft above the ocean for a 1am flyby. Ocean drive looked awesome at this time of night under the clear skies.
The plan is with the weather being so nice to fly at night the plane is booked once again for this evening and I hope to be able to head down to Key West under the moon light.
Fingers crossed for the weather and hopefully another 4-5 hours in the book.

Time to head up to see the stars.....

2011-05-16T07:10:00.001-07:00

I have 3 weeks or so until I head back to europe for the summer, and I have decided upon a new tactic to boost these solo hours I need, I've block booked a plane every night for night flying as if the weather plays ball it will be a lot cooler and there will be aircraft available.
So I am looking at some airports to see if there is anywhere interesting to head for some late dinner, but I am hoping for some moon lit flying down through the Keys and up the West coast of Florida if the thunder storms keep away.
There has been a lot of nasty weather around of late so no hours in the book this weekend, its seems the stormy season has hit florida early this year with 32 degree temperatures and 80% humidity, things could get a little warm in the cockpit during the daytime.
Hoping the weather stays nice today and I'll report in tomorrow on the first night flying in the light sport plane.....

In the final straight.

2011-05-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

Well if I hadn't decided to postpone taking the exams I would have been packing my bags this evening and heading out in the morning off on the all to familiar trip to the UK from Miami to sit the final exams. I sit here studying at the moment, slightly disappointed but altogether glad I made that call as I am not ready for the exams yet.
I have really got into the subjects now and am even banging out a few practice exams in 2 out of the 3 subjects but there is just no chance I would have been ready to sit down in a week and pass them.
Navigation is a massive subject, the variety in it is quite daunting. One example of that is that for the ATPL students (Airline Transport) its actually 2 different exams, similar to the first exam I did of Aircraft general knowledge.
The Principles of Flight subject is just one mass of boredom and even worse than Air Law. Any insomniacs out there drop me an email and I'll sent you a chapter and you'll snoozing in no time.

Tomorrow I will be starting the final subject of the trio and the one that actually has the longest exam out of all 9 and thats called Mass Balance Planning and Performance, which is a cheeky little 3 hours in the exam room.
I have just over 8 weeks until the exams and I have decided upon a 3 week vacation before the actual date to make sure I have the brush up time away from work. The other delight I will have on the next exam visit is my Class 1 aviation medical, no walk in the park and not much fun either, with a full day of tests, some physical and some mental and some others........
If I manage to pass these exams and my medical, I am hoping I will be able to enroll in the Commercial Pilot flight training aspect of the course at Ormond beach Florida which takes about 4 weeks of full-time flying to complete with once again a nice test at the end of it, you'd think I was getting used to tests by now but its still a daunting few months ahead of me.
I am really looking forward to the flying of the Commercial flying course as its all about sharpening the skills I have as a Private pilot already and then getting you ready for the world of getting paid for flying which is the fun part of it all. I think the course will give me a lot more confidence in my capabilities in the cockpit and will also get me flying bigger, heavier and more complex aircraft which is one thing I am really looking forward to on it.
If I get through that course and pass it will be onto the Instructors course........ but I will bore you with the details of that another day.

As part of my daily working life as a photographer I recently had to fly over to St Thomas in the caribbean where I was lucky enough to fly right seat in a Cessna 402 air taxi and there was some lovely views. These guys really do have a great job, hopping between the islands 7 or 8 per day, manually flying in the sunshine, dodging storms..... I have enclosed a couple of pictures to show their office in the sky......

Delaying the next exams

2011-05-01T16:43:00.000-07:00

I was meant to be doing my final 3 exams in May and also having my class 1 medical all at the CAA at Gatwick, I have decided rather disappointingly to delay it all to the next round of exams in July as I have been so busy at work I just haven't had the chance to study enough for this round of tests.
So I have allowed an extra 8 weeks of study time as I am not in too much of a rush to get it all done, I also still have some hour building to do, so I feel it should all fit in well and let me do it at a calm and normal pace instead of the crazy hours I was putting in ahead of the last round of exams.
So fingers are crossed for a good round of exams in early July then head off for the Commercial Pilots flying course in August.

300 Nautical Mile Cross country now in the book even though managed nearly 500nm and 6 hours flying

2011-04-16T17:34:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day.
A long day but a good one. I started out at Tamiami airport (KTMB) with a friend along for the ride, south of Miami and flew under the approach/departure path for Miami International flying at 1000ft up the coast of South Beach until I was passed the control area and then popped to 4500ft at Fort Lauderdale to get radar flight following service all the way up to Ormond beach, some 250NM north.
There were some amazing sights as we over and over flew the international airports as they came and went, from Fort Lauderdale, West Palm beach and eventually Daytona.

The main thing about doing this kind of flying is how exact you have to be, if the controller assigns you an altitude and course, you stick to it like glue. Not 300ft above or stray a few degrees east or west as I found out at one point for losing 300ft and getting reminded by ATC for not advising them that I was descending to dodge a cloud.
It was an interesting first leg, seeing the enormous mansions along the wealthiest piece of coast on this side of the USA, the radio work was taxing and I felt I dealt with it ok and enjoyed the challenge of it.
To top it off we got to pass the space coast and see the enormous runway for the shuttle to land and also the tower which secures the rocket for take off, a truly impressive sight at the scale of it all.
after getting vectored around the restricted area near the space coast we were back in the coast line and then looking for Ormond beach (KOMN) and organizing the arrival and landing. Its an airport I have spent a lot of time at with my ground studies but I have never flown in or out. There was an added twist of a 22 knot cross wind..... I just love those in this little plane I have been flying. We managed to get down with a little more grace than the last time I had a cross wind landing. 250nm done and nearly 3 hours in the bag for the first flight.

A quick re-fuel we were off again and this time heading south to get to Okeechobee (KOBE) as my pal Darrell has been telling me that the restaurant there is awesome. The pair of us were getting very hungry so decided to head down there for the next leg next to the enormous lake there for some food..... or so we thought. We climbed out of KOMN and we were directed through the overhead of Daytona International and had planes taking off and landing underneath us, we were battling a head wind all the way and even managed to see the private airfield where John Travolta has his collection of planes and huge house.
After 123 NM south which took 1hour 40 mins due to the honking headwind we landed at the un controlled airport next the lake using the UNICOM radio to talk to other planes, landed and parked up.

We arrived at the restaurant at 3:01PM to be told by the waitress that the kitchen closed at 3pm. I laughed, it couldn't be true !!! 2 Starving men, 4 hours of flying and not a chicken wing to share. GUTTED.
We ended up with a few biscuits from the pilots lounge and a soda. The promise of a nice lunch that I had been banging on about all morning had been snatched away from us at literally the last minute.

With our tales between ours legs it was back in the plane and time to head south and for home, with a tour around Lake Okeechobee and a pretty featureless final leg down through the dead centre of Florida and straight into Tamiami airport on runway 13.
3 landings, 3 take offs, nearly 6 hours in the book and 500NM covered but no lunch.

Must do better next time and call ahead for a reservation.

Change

2011-04-15T18:44:00.000-07:00

By the way I have decided upon a change of layout for the blog, I am not sure if anyone actually reads this blog but if anyone does and there are any suggestions I am always open to ideas suggestions and welcome any comments.....
Stu

Whether the Weather be fine or whether the weather be not....

2011-04-15T18:09:00.000-07:00

As a part of my day job I was about to head off to North Carolina tomorrow for a long long cross country flight to North Carolina in the morning to photograph at really nice feature/story but the weather is against us with huge storms on their way in over North and South Carolina so it will be put off for another day.
Not to let the weather ruin the day though, I'm going to head out with my pal Blake and maybe head up to Daytona up the coast, but will check out the weather in the morning and see what looks good.
Hopefully it will be bright and sunny across Florida and I can get my 300 Nautical mile qualifying cross country done where I have to stop off a 2 other airports.
I will pray to the weather gods tonight and hopefully will have some nice pictures tomorrow.....

Navigation.......

2011-04-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

So Nav....
It's the new Met, I thought I knew my way around a compass and map, but........
This is a really tough one, the problem here is that there are so many variables which go into each question, one error on one of them and and the whole thing falls apart.
I am currently putting in between 4 and 5 hours per day on this subject and the clock really is ticking as we count down to the exams in May.

I have been through the questions on Principles of Flight and am getting average scores, so it will still need a lot of work before the exams, its such a wordy subject and really not that interesting. Where as Navigation is a lot more hands on and has many techniques to learn, its quite interesting as I learning new skills, but its taking a whole lot of time, and I am not sure I have enough of it before the date marked with a big red X on the calendar.

I just saw this accident online which happened last night:

2011-04-12T07:03:00.000-07:00

I just saw this online which happened last night, amazing footage looks like child sized models being played with not a 600 Ton A380 Airbus, worth watching:

http://youtu.be/fMKGv3KFqKo

Principles of Flight..... i think i would prefer to be studying the bus stops of the eastern block....

2011-04-11T18:01:00.000-07:00

Principles of flight, I have discovered is not exactly the most interesting of subjects to study, I will post a few sample questions so that you get the idea:

Question: Positive static longitudinal stability means that a: ???

Question: The airload on the horizontal tailplane (tailload) of an aeroplane in straight and level cruise flight:

Question: Which of the following statements is correct? I. A high limit load factor enables the manufacturer to design for a lower stick force per g. II. The stick force per g is a limitation on the use of an aeroplane, which the pilot should determine from the Aeroplane Flight Manual.

I think that the real test of this subject is managing to keep your eyes open and heart beating long enough to get to the exam room.
The study for this final set of exams is going really quite slowly, I haven't managed to get into Navigation yet and that is the biggie as far as this set is concerned. I am trying to wade my way through this nonsense and also do my day job, which is proving quite tricky at the moment, if that continues then I might be forced to delay one or two these exams until the next round of exams in July, as I am feeling bery under prepared 5 weeks out, but I will just wait and see for the moment.
I have also booked up to do my Class 1 medical at the CAA when I am there next, which I hope isn't going to be as much fun and games as it was getting my Class 2 done, which is what prompted me to start writing the blog all those months ago.

In my last posting I put a video of the approach and landing into St Barts, I have added to this posting what it looks like from the middle of short final........

St Barts landing

2011-04-02T06:25:00.000-07:00

As a part of my day job I get to visit some pretty fun places, St Barts in the caribbean is one of them.
The landing into the airport is a tricky one, to the point that you need a special endorsement on your license to be able to land here. There is a very short runway, combined with a beach at one end and a 200ft elevation at the other end.
To add to it on this visit we had to circle for 20 minutes before landing as it was raining so hard the pilot couldn't see the runway.

I have posted a video I took of the approach.......

Stunned, what a call to get at 4am.....

2011-03-26T07:55:00.000-07:00

I'm lying there in dream land, sleeping deeply when I hear the vibrating of my phone on the table next to, slightly stunned and dazed I answer the phone and its my mom.
"Your predictions were wrong " she said, "your predictions were wrong, I've got your exam results and your prediction of 3 out of 5 was very wrong, you've pass ALL FIVE !!! "

Stunned not strong enough a word, gob smacked is getting there.
It was probably the hardest study I have ever done, and I was sure I had failed Operational Procedures and very unsure about Meteorology, if you have read this blog before you will know that I only decided very late on to try to do Meteorology at the same time as the others, so to have got a passed it in the circumstances after burning the midnight oil so much and probably being a huge pain in the ass at home.
My results are:

Meteorology 83%

Operational Procedures 85%

AIr Law 78%

Human Performances and Limitations 91%

VFR Communications 100%

I can't quite believe that I have got through 6 out of the 9 Commercial Pilot exams, especially having had to do 5 exams in one day.

There are 3 to go now, Navigation, Flight Planning and Principles of Flight, so its time to book the flights up for the final trip to the UK and just 8 weeks of 5 hours a day of studying to go.

The cycle starts all over again, hopefully for the last time

2011-03-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Miami, biting my finger nails to the quick and pacing a little bit. I am not sure why I get myself like this , its silly really as there is nothing to do but wait.
I suspect I will be re-taking a couple from this time which isn't too much of a drama as there are 3 exams to take next time not 5 in one day.
The next subjects include the biggest, broadest and hardest one of the lot : Navigation. Its a subject I actually really enjoy but the calculations are long and drawn out and pretty tricky to get right each time so makes for a serious challenge.
The other subjects this time are Principles of Flight and Flight Planning and Performance, not easy subjects but not as comprehensive Met or Nav.
I am starting to go through all of the subject matter and making notes on the calender as to where I should be by which dates.
But for now its back to a little pacing until those damn results come through so I can figure whether I have to include more study that the 3 subjects already mentioned.

The wonderful men in their flying machines......

2011-03-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in a nice little restaurant in terminal 3 of Heathrow airport.
I normally only write about my flying stuff on here but today I feel that its worth sparing a thought for the incredibly brave men and women of the RAF whom, it looks like, are about to embark on another dangerous mission.
This time, as ever the professionalism of these talented and selfless pilots will be tested over the deserts and towns of Libya trying to stop a tyrant from killing his own people. Their readiness to get in and get the job done, when so many other countries can sit back and watch, makes me proud that we have the best flying military force in the world.
I have been privileged due to my "day job" to visit the RAF in theatre when they were patrolling Iraq from deep within the Desert, and never have I been so impressed with the way these people go about their daily lives. Where life really is difficult yet they climb into their Tornados, AWAX and their Typhoons and do the kind of flying, in the kind of circumstances that the average Joe on the street will never see yet they fly sortie after sortie.
Today I am sparing a thought for these terrific pilots as we will all see what is about to unfold.

Wow I can't believe thats over

2011-03-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

I am over in France at the moment, after yesterdays marathon exam session at Gatwick.
The day was long and I am a little worried that I made the mistake that the lecturer from the school warned me against, which was not to concentrate too much on Meteorology and let the other subjects go unattended. I did the Met exam and came out thinking it was possible I have passed and possible I have failed, I just don't know, the paper was certainly kinder than it could have been. Straight after Met it was OPS (Operational procedures), and soon after I opened the paper I had a feeling of dread that I was not in the game on this one, I worked hard through each part as much as I could, but I really don't think I had enough to get me through it. I am 90% sure that I will be retaking that one.
Human Performances was very tricky, in the practice papers you get a lot of straightforward questions, in the actual exam they had a lot of trick questions, deliberately there to trip you up, and a lot of these were questions worth 2-3 or 3 marks per time. I really don't know how I did in that one, I could have got 50% I could have got 85%, I am left dangling on that one. Air Law was surprisingly easy, as it was an awful subject at PPL level, I say that and I might end up eating my words when the results come through, maybe I just didn't realize the trick questions, but all of the students said the same thing.
VFR Communications was just funny, its a silly exam as if you have a pilots license and can't answer the questions in that exam you shouldn't be flying.
I am totally drained after if all, never again will I attempt 5 in a day, it was a touch to far for my brain but glad I gave it a go.
Now its back to the nail biting for 10 days to 2 weeks to wait and see if my 3 out of 5 results prediction comes true.

Wish me luck I'm going in

2011-03-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

Well thats it, the study time is all but over, I am getting my plane via North Carolina to London, a bit of revising over the weekend and then its to Gatwick for the exams on Tuesday.
With my scores the way they are I'll still be happy with 3 out of 5 passed, Met is such a huge subject I really have to treat the exam a practice run, then hopefully it will be just one last trip to Gatwick in May for the final subjects and any re takes.
I'm certainly getting some airmiles in with American Airlines this year.
I'll try to post after the exams if I can from there, but I'm going for a couple of days chill out in France once I have finished the last exam, to go and see my friend Sue Virr the flying instructor.

Less than a week until the damn exams......

2011-03-09T19:42:00.000-08:00

I have spent a lot of time this week worrying about the silly things in this whole process of getting this CPL/FI rather than concentrating on the things I can actually control.
I have been stressing over how many solo hours I have in my log book and when I am going to get the rest done, which school I am going to do my CPL at and what accommodation there is at the school, whether I have enough annual leave left to get all this done.
ALL complete nonsense. I should be concentrating all of my energy into Air Law, Operational Procedures, VFR Communications, Human Performance & Limitations and Meteorology.
Because if I don't the rest of it isn't worth worrying about.
Maybe its too many expressos, maybe its too many late nights studying for these exams next week, maybe I should turn the desk light off, put the books away, grab a beer from the fridge and watch a movie.
Whatever it is, this set of exams is just hurting my brain.
So for the rest of this evening (its 11pm) its time for a bottle bud and a Bond movie......

So I'm talking and no one can hear me....

2011-03-06T16:17:00.000-08:00

So today is Sunday and its time to start building these hours, after some calculating last night with log book in hand and calculator in the other i realized that I have hopped skipped and jumped over the 100 hours mark now, then the realization kicked in that only 40 of those hours is solo time and i need 100 for my commercial license which I hope to do in July/August.

So this morning I rented the trusty light sport N43CT from Tamiami in the hope that I could cross another hurdle that I need for my CPL and thats doing a 300 mile cross country flight landing at 2 different airports apart the starting one.
I was really looking forward to this one as it helps build the hours and isn't straight forward so game, i thought......

I have taken a map picture of the route planned so it makes a little more sense and will include it on the post. All started pretty well, fired up the plane, got flight following clearance (radar tracking organized with miami centre so they are keeping an eye on traffic), hit 3000ft and i popped up on their screens, game on, time for some sight seeing.
Some huge clouds out of the left and some people enjoying fishing and boating around the smaller islands.
I'm also pretty sure I over flew a couple in their boat doing what couples enjoy most, if I had had a horn on the plane I would have honked it.....
So I started to see Marathon airport up in the distance and start to check weather, to my disappointment it was blowing a pretty huge cross wind of 18kts on/over the limits of whats allowed on the aircraft. So instead of trusting these pesky instruments on the plane I decided to over fly the airport to check out the wind sock and ask the local traffic. Local traffic said it was more 8-10kts at the ground.

Ok, I thought might as well get in and get some lunch...... I joined the circuit along with a bi-plane and a Cessna caravan.... I was at the front of the queue.
I got down to circuit height of 1000ft and was getting bounced around quite a bit, in for a penny, in for a pound.... lets get this thing on the ground. I turned onto final approach and the fun began, its was getting a little tricky with the wind directly off the left side of the plane so I was being pushed out over the water so a little battle commenced, to convince the over grown kite that I am flying that its pilot is hungry and wants some lunch and not swim in the sea......
At 300ft I had the left wing down so much i couldn't see out of the window and was coming in at a 45 degree angle. The problem is that this aircraft likes its landing speed.... in fact it loves its landing speed doesn't like to be 5knots faster or slower or you are all over the place. So with lots to consider, namely howling cross wind, landing speed and not landing wing first it was an interesting short finals, there is a balance that needs to be met with wind like that with a plane so light that is with the wind you need to keep some power to fight back or its an early bath in the gulf of mexico.
So I got down to around 10ft waiting for ground effect to take hold and nicely smooch the rubber onto the tarmac, but it just didn't come and i was sailing down the runway at 20 degrees into wind and was just holding the 10ft.... decision time comes and its either go around or put it down, my grumbling stomach won so i put in a touch of power in a pointed the stick to the ground where there wasn't so much of the sound of a kiss between tyres and runway....... I almost felt like I had to apologize to the plane as I taxied in. Upon arrival the general aviation desk showed me the weather info and it was a gusting 18kts cross wind.
It such a lovely place at Marathon airport, you are welcomed with smile and rather nicely there is a driver there to meet you and take you where ever you want and its all free.
So I headed off to a waterfront restaurant where I had eaten a few months ago with John Stevens, my wife and son. Lovely food and a pleasant view and it was time to get back in the air and onward with my 300 mile trip the next leg being up to Venice beach where I stopped off for my night qualification back in October and is a lovely airport.
Half of the way along my route on the West coast of I wanted to transition Naples Airport so I start on the radio to them only for it not to be working....... Oh shit the radio is down and I am about to bust into their airspace were my first thoughts...... Secondly, I had better turn the plane around and find whats wrong.
Some wiggling of cables, changing sockets and flicking of switches and nothing was happening. So I thought the best course of action would be to start to head back home and work a plan out, to be honest the weather seemed to be closing in up ahead, the idea of being stuck out there with no radio and storms on the way didn't seem like the best way to finish the weekend.
So back over the Everglades, uncontrolled space and a bit of altitude and the next set of wiggling the wires starts, I find out that its the PTT button on the column which is not working, but the one on the other stick is, so its a case of flying along and using the other stick every time i needed to talk, far from ideal, but enough to get me home into a busy Miami airport at Tamiami.
I decided for a low level look at the houses on the lower parts of the Everglades so came in at 500ft and traced the coast line all the way back around the south point of Florida as there were some nasty looking clouds over the land so I traced around Key Largo and when it was time to contact approach at Tamiami I was stretching across the cockpit to use the other column and was lined up for a straight in approach from the east onto Runway 27R and it was with a rather large sigh of relief when this time I heard the kiss of rubber on tarmac and a gentle taxi back to the stand.

After calculating the times there is another 4 hours solo in my log book, only another 56 to go !!!!

That Friday feeling.....

2011-03-04T05:47:00.000-08:00

I am sitting here at the flight school in Ormond Beach FL, where I am at the end of my week of ground school prior to the 5 exams I will take in March, today is the last day and we are studying Operational procedures in the classroom.
The week to date has been about 50% harder than I had imagined, I have passed the mock exams which I have taken so far apart from Meteorology, which I was expecting as I only started to study for it 2 weeks or so ago, and to be honest its a bigger subject than I had imagined, I think I wrote on a previous post that I have added this onto my other exams mainly to get experience in the exam and if as I predict I don't pass that one I will be well versed in it for my third visit to the exam centre at Gatwick to re-take it in May along side the final 3 subjects.
Being around students of varying experience here this week has been an interesting one, I've been helping out the pre-ppl students at the student house with their theory and going through the PPL Skills test with them, all in all its been a nice week, a little tricky for my own study at the house where they put me this time as the house was full of people and there are not even desks in our rooms so no quiet corner for homework. Thats been solved by heading over the road to one of the other student houses with the commercial and flight instructor students in, which is more like a library each evening as they have a high volume of study to get through.
I will be in the UK for the week 12th March for my exams and then it will be the anxious wait once again for the results.
This will be my last ground school week here in Florida as the next one will be in Luton in May, hopefully the sun will shine there and then it will be the final exam sitting, (If I pass them) hopefully I will then be able to do my Commercial Pilots flying course here at Ormond Beach in July/August time, in the humid moist hot summer months, how I like to punish myself......
Just a note, I love to hear from people reading this from the comments or an email, so please feel free to leave a comment, even just to say hello....

Oh my, what have I let myself in for ?

2011-03-01T19:44:00.000-08:00

Oh my, what have I let myself in for ?
Well its the end of day 2, Tuesday, here in Ormond beach doing my ground school revision/exam prep week.
I have to report thats its pretty tough, to be honest tougher than I imagined. Yesterday (Monday) was ok, I got through Human Performance and Limitations ok, and got a good mock exam result of 90%.
Then today we did day 1 of Meteorology, holy moly did I feel a little out of my depth on this one. Its a massive subject, with so many different facets to it thats is really quite difficult to get a handle on and feel comfortable, and trust me I am far from feeling comfortable with it so far. I am hoping with some serious hard work over the next 2 weeks I can get myself there to where I need to be. To be honest I have only tagged the exam on, having not thought I would study this one this time and take it in May, but for some curious reason I changed my mind. We will have a day of Air Law tomorrow, and then back for day 2 of MET, I am hoping I can improve by then.
This really could be a struggle doing all 5 exams in one day in March.......

Stage 2 gets serious

2011-02-26T16:43:00.000-08:00

Here I am packing my bags for the second trip to EASA at Ormond Beach where Cranfield Aviation hold their US in house study weeks.
The first time I went I really enjoyed it, so hopefully it will be the same again. This time its 5 subjects so could be a little more intensive than before, god knows the exams day will be.
I will have a week back home after the study week before I once again head off to Gatwick for the exams.
So its Air Law, Human Performance and Limitations, Operational Procedures, VFR Communitcations and the biggie Meteorology.
Smoke me a kipper.......
I'll be back for breakfast.

K-TNT great day out

2011-02-18T19:51:00.000-08:00

Today I got a text from my friend Blake to tell me he was free to go flying, so a little re arranging and a quick sprint down the freeway (motorway for the english) a quick pre-flight we charging down runway 9L easterly for a great trip out.
I flew us out of KTMB over the start of the Keys then a right turn to follow the coast line of south Florida, hoping to eventually come across Everglade City KX01 for a quick touch and go and then onto 10,000 park, which is literally 10,000 islands.
The views were amazing and as we came around the point and started up the west coast of Florida the wind seemed to be picking up and it felt as though we were standing still in the air, although still getting a G/S of 95kts.

I started to see Everglade city in the distance, I had visited there by road a few months ago at xmas and its a nice little place, with the air strip right in the water. We passed vertical over head to see the wind socks bellowing a 17knot cross wind and decided that a landing might be best avoided as one gust would leave us a little wet and I didn't have a change of clothes on board.

So we carried on up the coast towards Marco Island as Blake hadn't seen it before and did a circuit of the Island paradise of the Millionaires until I started getting a little worried about some of the radio calls I was hearing in the area of Marco airport which is unmanned with no air traffic control, the radio calls we quite mad, people calling Final approach when they were arriving Perpendicular from the airfield.
So I didn't want to see the results of that and Blake suggested a trip to see KTNT or better known as Dade-Collier County airport.
This place is amazing, and I mean amazing. Its and international airport , 10,500 yard runway built to take the space shuttle as well as billed at the biggest airport in Florida to take all international traffic.
The problem was they built the runways and when it came to get the planning through government for the rail links and the airport it was refused so here lies the biggest white elephant possible but more precisely biggest play ground for pilots you can think of.

Just imagine having an airport the size of Heathrow just for yourself in a light aircraft. Now I wont be naming names or anything but there have been stories heard about some fun being had here with planes and testing take off capabilities, even having a game of keeping a plane doing a wheelie on 2 wheels for as long as possible whilst landing but the less said about that maybe the better !!!!
Anyways..... as there isn't an apron at the airport you can park up anywhere you like and even have picnic if you like its quite mad.

After a stop for a quick bite to eat and drink I took off and we were off into the big blue in the direction of the Miami "Daytona" racing track and over Key Biscayne which we were able to pass at 1000ft.

KTMB (Tamimiami) airport was really busy so we decided instead of heading in we would get pretty low under the Miami approach and head up the Famous South Beach and boy was it worth it. We got down to about 500ft and followed the golden sand up the beach and was even taking a few pictures at the same time, it was possibly one of the most fun flying trips I have done yet, we then did a 180 degree turn back down the coast and managed to get back into Tamiami to take the plane home after nearly 4 hours out, as you can see from the pictures we had a lot of fun and I can't wait to do it again......

Now this is some serious hard wear......

2011-02-07T15:32:00.000-08:00

Today as part of my day job i had to spend the day at an airport in Dallas, Texas, (KDAL), where I had to sit was just where all of the traffic was departing after they had attended the Super Bowl here in town last night.

I was even getting to listen on my iPhone app to the Ground and Tower issuing the clearances and taxi instructions. It was really quite hectic, I've not seen so many private jets in my life, most of them were getting a 20 minute hold before being allowed to even enter the taxi way, then they had to join a queue of another 18-20 mins on taxi Alpha for departure. Now I am sure the occupants were just sitting back and enjoying the Krug, Moet or pint of Guinness, so I am sure they didn't mind me taking a few pix to show them burning tons of Jet fuel whilst they were waiting......

At the end of the day I also got to go to the Museum of flight at the airport, where they had some interesting bits and bobs including the lunar landing capsule from Apollo 8 and the cockpit from a 757 which I have posted too......

The ipad is brilliant

2011-02-03T21:36:00.001-08:00

On the iPad with the foreflight app you can have live GPS overlaid upon VFR charts and then have live weather in the mix too.
This I'd going to be a well used piece of kit for me. It even has the fuel prices at each of the local airports......

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Dallas

So a couple of things I have to share

2011-02-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

Today I got myself my shiny nearly new iPad, this is gods gift to teenage spotty geeks who love gadgets and pilots, who also love gadgets. On a serious note, it is a god send. The App Foreflight is nothing short of genius, so many maps, pieces of info, taxi ways, frequencies, live GPS, weather, all on one screen, and a beautiful HD screen it is too. Simply amazing. Ontop of that I'll be able to watch Oprah when I am hour building.
No.2 on the sharing list is a blog I have been reading for about a year which is awesome for us pilots, http://sulako.blogspot.com/
Mr Sulako is a pilot and Ops manager of a canadian private jet company and he uploads every day or 2 some of the best aviation videos I have seen, definitely worth checking out even if you don't fly.
No.3 The studying is going along steadily, I am onto Operational procedures which to me feels like a money making exam for the CAA so that they can get 80 quid out of me, as the subject matter is a melange of Air Law, flight planning and AGK. But hey ho, we are here to serve the mighty CAA masters at Gatwick, so study it I shall.

PS going to start to try to blog from my iPad, yes, did I mention that I have just got one ?

The second phase of study is going really well so I am buying myself a present

2011-01-31T17:50:00.000-08:00

The second phase is going really well so I am buying myself a present. I can't resist any longer, the adverts are everywhere and I have now seen one in action, tomorrow I am getting myself an iPad 3G.
The new aviation apps are amazing, along with electronic flight logs, log books and the fact they are all together awesome have broken through my sensible barriers and I'm off shopping.
I am not sure if Foreflight is available in europe but I have just seen an online demo of it, and its the straw thats broken the camel's and the bank manager's back.
I'll report in when I have it in my naughty fingers.........

Holy Moly I passed the first one

2011-01-28T06:28:00.000-08:00

This morning I received the happiest of text messages through from my dad, with the news that I he had received the letter with my exam results on and I have actually managed to pass Aircraft General Knowledge and Instruments exam with an 81% mark....... I actually feel sick. Wow I have managed the first hurdle, just another 8 exam sittings to go. We are on our way......

Stu

The second phase begins..... Human Performance & Limitations,Air Law & ATC Procedures,Operational Procedures, VFR Communications, Meteorology

2011-01-23T14:54:00.000-08:00

The 5 subjects for the second set of exams in March are:

Human Performance & Limitations,
Air Law & ATC Procedures,
Operational Procedures,
VFR Communications,
Meteorology

Of these the difficult ones in my opinion are LAW and Meteorology, the other ones are smaller exams and also subjects I have already done exams in for the Private Pilots license so I have a basic understanding of the subject.
The first one I have started the study for this week is LAW, as its very much about learning the questions and answers and not so much about the theory of it all, just a mass of knowledge to start to take in.
So I am starting with that and when my brain starts to overload I will go into the other subjects and then come back. Time is short for me in this term as the next sitting of the exams is on 16th/17th March, 7 weeks from now......
I have yet to receive the results for the Aircraft General Knowledge but in all honesty I am thinking I will be retaking that one.
The results should be in within a week or so, I'll keep you posted when it finally comes in.

First exam done, Aircraft General Knowledge and Instruments.....Mmmmmm

2011-01-17T15:59:00.000-08:00

First exam done, Aircraft Gen Knowledge and Instruments.....Mmmmmm
Well when I got up this morning, I felt relatively confident that I had studied as much as I possibly could have and was doing ok on the mock tests but after getting to the Civil Aviation HQ (CAA) at Gatwick airport, things went a little astray.....
The first rather strange thing about this exam is it was in an exam hall for over 100 people and there were only 2 of us taking the exam, me and a friendly fella called Juan Hernandez from Spain, so no UK pilots on this exam session at all.
We were called in, sat down and were given all of the safety briefings, rules, regulations blar blar blar.
At 10:10 we were told to start.......
By 10:17 I was sweating a little
By 10:22 I was feeling a little nauseous......
The first few pages seemed straight forward enough, the general workings of a plane, then I turned the page to be faced with a lot of electrics questions, I beg to ask an electrical engineer out there if he can please explain the relationship to the inverse proportions of current in relation to voltage within an airplane distributor to me and tell me what it has to do with me flying an airplane, especially when for me to do any running electrical repairs on an airplane, even change a light bulb is pretty much illegal as I am not a qualified engineer.
Imagine how the sweat and nausea went when I turned the next page to see that this light and pleasant theme of questioning continued.......
A few deep breaths..... and I found my rhythm again in the questions further into the paper and began answering once again.....
Anyway to conclude, I am really not sure how the final result will come out on this one and am slightly worried a retake might be on the cards when I come back over here for the 2nd set of exams in 8 weeks time.
The frustration is that it will be 3 weeks until I get the results through....... so a slightly anxious wait whilst I get my head back into the books for the 5 exams that I have upon my return trip in March......

I feel like I am on the conveyor belt now and can't get off, unfortunately its the conveyor belt in a James Bond movie where my hands are tied up with the big guillotine at the end and the evil villain Ernst Blofield enjoying the anticipation my impending doom.....
(I should stop writing now, the jet lag is getting to me)

Happy new year all and what a year I have planned

2011-01-08T21:02:00.000-08:00

studying on the beach in Puerto Rico

Happy new year all and what a year I have planned, 3 sets of Commercial pilots exams to complete, along with about 80 hours of PIC (Pilot in Command) hour building to do then the small matter Commercial Pilot practical course lasting about 4 weeks. I have yet to decide where to do it though.
That should take me up until about August. Then all being well it will be the Flight Instructors Course, the biggie, the raison d'etre, the 5 week long monster course lurking at the end of the year.
But first and foremost I am studying every spare hour I have before my long flight to London next friday for my first set of exams at the CAA HQ at Gatwick. Aircraft General Knowledge and Instruments.
Since I last updated the blog I have been at the books most days and have then gradually moved onto Practice tests, Tests questions and old papers.
One new friend who was at the school in Ormond beach when I was there, who was studying for his Instructor course strongly advised me to sign up to the Bristol Ground school question bank, who do online mock tests from the actual question banks (apparently) so I have been busying myself with that as well, and to be honest it has really worked well, I will let you know if its actually accurate when I get my results in a few weeks time, but for the moment I am cramming as much studying into my working and family life that I can.
I am really glad that I have decided to do the course in 3 parts rather than 2 as the workload would be impossible with my working life, in the last 10 days I've been working in Orlando, Miami then Puerto Rico.
The trip to Puerto Rice was a really good one and I still managed to study, I wont bore you with the work details of the trip but upon landing into San Juan I found out I needed to get to the other part of the island which meant getting an air taxi with Cape Air.

the return flight in the cessna 402 with a bit more to see

This was a great experience as the pilot let me sit right hand seat with him flying a Cessna 402 twin engine plane for the 45 minute hop to the other side of the island at 5000ft in white out IMC conditions.

Cape Air's Cessna 402's, the dream job

The trip back a little later was a lot more "visual" lets say as once again the pilot let me fly up front in the right hand seat with a couple of passengers in the back. As we approached San Juan we were vectored in behind a Delta Airline 737 which was an awesome sight to be behind this huge beast of an airplane making its turn onto finals and then landing just 2 minutes further down the flight path from us. I will upload a few pictures onto this page if I can from that trip. I think I found the dream job, seeing these guys flying all over the caribbean in great little planes into even greater little airports.
Fingers crossed for the exams next.

This poster at the airport cracked me up, I ask silly questions all the time just
ask my instructors, doesn't put me on a watch list does it ?

Happy new year

wow, that was the week that was....but got signed off to do my exams

2010-11-27T15:37:00.000-08:00

So, I have just got back from my first week of full-time study in Ormond beach Florida at the EASA, Euro-American School of Aviation which is based there and my training college from the UK, C.A.T.S uses their facilities for their distance learning course for the ATPL exams.
It was good to get to see a "Professional" school in action, by that, I mean a school training professional pilots of the future. All of the trainees were in uniform, giving lectures, briefings and dealing with flight plans.
A great environment after I have been doing all of my study at home or in hotel rooms to be able to discuss with other people on the same situation is great and helps with the studying.
The class room work was pretty tough though for an old brain like mine, I hadn't spent that much time in a class room since 1996 when I left Sidmouth College, doing 9am -6pm on the inner workings of an airplane tests the grey matter thats for sure, but I have come away feeling energized and ready for the first stage of the exams in January and the instructor agreed and has signed my application form for the first stage of the exams at Gatwick on Jan 18th.
The lecturer was great, very experienced, knew what he was talking about and also had a great sense of humor. He was also called Stuart, apparently we make good pilots.
The subjects were pretty tough, turbine engines, gyro instruments even fire extinguishers, but Stuart seemed to be able to break it down into enjoyable chunks with some good flowing lectures.
I was pleasantly surprised by the EASA school as well. I have heard and read so many nightmare stories about studying in Florida, at "foreign" schools which are cheaper than the Uk but substandard teaching.
I have now studied at 2, Naples and EASA, spoken to 90% of the instructors there at both, flown in the planes, even met the owners, and all I can say is that I would recommend them both, and will be studying at both for my future training without hesitation. Admittedly I'm not a blue eyed 22 year old student who they can boss around and squeeze money out of, and was asking them some pretty direct questions, I think you can't let these schools treat you like a student and headmaster relationship, you need to make sure they remember who is the customer and always I want value for money.
The instructors always had time for me at each school I have been to and importantly they are mainly career instructors with a gazzillion years of experience with so much to impart.
I was sharing a house with 2 guys in Ormond beach who were doing their instructor courses and this week is a huge holiday weekend here in the USA, its like Xmas in the UK, "Thanks Giving", normally everyone, and I mean everyone is off all of the long weekend, but their instructor for their course was there for them, as much as they wanted all weekend if they needed, with out question and at no extra charge. I thought that was a good touch, the instructor could have taken all of the time off with out question and the students would be left paying for longer stays in the accommodation but they were working their way through the course and hopefully will be teaching at a school in the near future.
Anyway its been a long week with a lot of study, its Saturday night and I think I deserve a Miami beer.

Progress report......

2010-11-24T17:10:00.000-08:00

So I am 3 days into my first ground school for my Commercial Pilot theory exams. I have been studying since September since I got the books. Studying usually for 15-20 hours per week, for the first set of exams in January. I have 3 modules to complete in total and for each module I have to have a week of ground school up here in Daytona, Florida to see how that I am up to speed.
So far its been long study days, and pretty intensive, plus there are only 3 of us in the class so you can't hide away for too long.
I am happy to say that so far so good, the lecturer, who is the chief ground school instructor with Cranfield Aviation in the UK is very good, got a great sense of humor and keeps the lessons flowing well. I have been doing my progress tests each day after each set of lectures and passing them. But in saying that today was the first day where I felt I was behind a bit and need to do some more work, we are doing Instruments, Gyros and Magnetics. Including the theory behind all of the workings of them and the results if each of them fail in the airplane whilst in the air.
Sitting down for 8 hours per day is hard enough, let alone the subject matter, to top it all off, the school is at a flight school right next to the runway and the weather is fantastic watching, so sitting working in the classroom whilst watching all of the pilots flying off out over the ocean is tough.
I am hoping to get some extra Instrument study in tonight and try to get ahead of the curve a bit.......
Will keep you posted.

Key Lime Pie in the Keys.....

2010-11-21T05:19:00.000-08:00

What a great week this has been.
After my first flight in the CTLS (Light Sport Plane) and subsequently being checked out and allowed to fly it, my friend and fellow pilot John Stevens has come over from the UK for a long weekend to get his Faa conversion done for his Caa license. So whilst he was with one of the instructors, Tim, at Premier Aviation going through the Faa syllabus I was getting to know this new aircraft.
One of the other instructors, Blake, was kind enough to help me out with a navigation flight down over some of the Keys, with the idea being that if all went well with John's Faa conversion and no weather delays etc John and I would head out on Saturday ourselves.
Blake introduced me to some more advanced radio work here in the US which is a little different but not tricky, to organize "Flight Following" radar service out of the water and the northern Keys, it was new to me here doing radio calls where we were talking with them and next on the frequency were pilots driving 747's from the UK then American Airlines 757's, but they were extremely helpful and friendly.
We were given a departure frequency and squawk whilst taxiing on the ground and assigned altitude and heading for after departure, all went really well and it was a really nice flight, Blake was a really good guy to fly with.
When we got back in John had finished his Faa check ride and was signed off in his log book, so we were both off the leash and free to take rent their aircraft as we wished so we were booked in to take one of their planes for the planned route of going down to Marathon, which is 3/4 of the way down the Florida Keys towards Key West the next day.
Saturday arrived and the weather looked good, a little breezy but nothing to worry about. My wife and son are currently in the Keys for a break with some friends so the plan was to meet them at Marathon airport for a bite to eat.
The same procedures were followed as the day before to get flight following down and back with me in the left seat on the way down. With an easterly departure approved on runway 9R we were on our way out over the ocean in no time to meet op with the northern most Key and turn right to follown the tiny slither of land all the way down.

En-route the scenery was fantastic the small islands, fishing boats and kite surfers on the turquoise ocean. A few clouds about 3000ft were keeping us from assigned altitude of 3500ft but Miami central were happy for us to drop to 2500ft.
There was virtually no traffic all the way down to marathon and with a healthy tail wind we were there in an hour after a slightly suspect landing on my part. There was a really friendly welcome on the tarmac with assistance of where to tie down the air craft and even the offer of complimentary transport to a restaurant or hotel !!!
But my wife Luce and son Thomas were there to greet us and we all headed off to a local beach bar for a snack and a drink, well I say snack when I mean huge slice of Key Lime pie..... well when in Rome and all that.
When we realized the time was getting on, it and we wanted to get back into Tamiami before night fall we dragged ourselves from the beach bar to the airport where Thomas and Luce got to see in the plane up close. The FBO were so friendly and helpful and there wasn't even a landing few, not many places in the UK where you would get that kind of service !!
In no time at all John had us on our way climbing back through 2500ft. As we got back onto "flight following" with Miami Central they warned of some nasty weather ahead and offered to vector us around if we needed. We had a good weather radar onboard and could see what he was talking about so decided enroute that a change of return leg would be needed and would head north over the water and approach Tamiami airport from the West instead of over the Keys where a huge storm was sitting.
The only problem with this routing is that it goes through a "training area" which is busy at the best of times with very inexperienced trainee pilots all put in one area at the same time, a little like bees in a hive and a slightly bonkers way of doing training in my opinion, you only have to look at the accident reports.
So John and I had to be on our toes but were once again helped along by Radar service and managed to dodge the trainee who seemed hell bent on trying to play a game of Tag with us.
We were given a pretty easy approach back into Tamiami which is unusual at such a busy airport and were able to just turn right onto long final for a runway 9L and John brought her home a treat just as the sun was going down.
I think the flight gave us some good experience in working the cockpit together and we worked really well as a team getting the job done at the busy times and I'm hoping its the first of many cross country adventures for us to share.

Sharks, Turtles and Stingrays..... from 300ft

2010-11-18T06:59:00.000-08:00

Well where do I start with this posting.....
I suppose the beginning.
My Instrument rating instructor Chris, has his own business as well as teaching, he imports light sport airplane for selling on the mainland US.
I helped him out a while ago to shoot pictures for him for his brochure and website as start up costs are high and photographers are expensive beasts.
So I offered to do the pictures for free in return for getting checked out on his plane so that I could rent it in the future. Deal done and todays the day for flying.

He is based out of Tamiami Airport towards the south of Miami so I went down to his offices and I am enclosing a picture of the plane.
Its quite small and pretty light, but really well equipped with all of the latests computer wizardry. Tamiami airport, KTPM, is pretty big with 3 runways and a ground controller who would be better off off doing horse racing commentary he can speak so quickly, so some serious work on the radio to use 4 different taxi ways/ intersections and runway crossings to get to the hold for runway 9L.
We took off to the East out over the bay area over the water until we were 6-7 miles out and over head some of the isolated florida keys.
First off we had some manouvers to get through: Power off stalls, Power on stalls, Steep turns, slow flight.
The stall were amazing, it didn't want to stall at all and the stall was barely noticeable, very smooth ride and no wings dropping, just a steady sink.
The slow flight surprised me, at 40kts we were able to hold altitude at 2000ft and put in slow turns, it was like we were floating.
With all of the boxes ticked for this part of the check ride Chris asked if I wanted to go see the sharks.
"WHAT ?" I exclaimed, "SHARKS"
He went onto explain that there is plenty of aquatic life around the Keys and with the really clear sunny day we had we could see right through the clear blue sea.
So Chris told me to take the plane down to 300ft over the water, to which I raised an eyebrow and it was time for fish spotting.
Leveling off at 300ft and soon enough with the pair of us looking out of the windows we were spotting schools (not sure if thats the correct collective) of Sharks dotted around the keys, then a few turtles breaking the surface of the ocean and lastly a giant, and I mean giant, the size of a ford fiesta giant, Sting ray gracefully swimming along oblivious to her observers 300ft above.
I have not had so much fun whilst flying a plane in my life. I am only sorry that due to the low lever, wave hugging flying I couldn't take pictures at the same time but I certainly feel like I have discovered a great reason as to why flying in southern Florida is so popular.
So after we had done out David Attenborough bit it was time to rejoin the real world back at Tamiami, 10 miles out and a few radio calls and we were back in the circuit with Lear Jets, King air twins, and a few other students. There wasn't one normal circuit as we had to slip in between planes on ILS approach, then go on super long extended down wind legs to join the queue, there was always a minimum of 4 aircraft in the queue ahead.
One great reason for being able to do the PPL at Limoges, being always able to use the Class D airport facilities but nice and quiet at the same time.
Landing the light sport is a new skill thats for sure.
In my pre flight briefing Chris had explained as much as it loves to float, so he said we were going to be doing flap-less landings and come in a a shallower angle, as with the flaps extended the plane tends to come in steep and slow and drop onto the runway, also any cross wind can pick you up and throw you on the grass. Flap-less it is then.
It was nice to be back flying with a stick rather than yoke so the aircraft feels more under control to me for the finer touches coming to land and I was pretty happy with how the 4 landings went and Chris was happy enough, one thing though, I came in a touch quick one of the, just 8-10kts and that lead to floating nearly halfway down the runway even with power off, so its important to nail the speeds in this light plane.
I have another hour and half to do to finish the check out on the plane and then I will be able to rent it myself and start building up these hours that I need to, to get to the magic 150 P1, pilot in command hours I need for my commercial license.
On Sunday I will be heading off to Daytona beach, to do my first compulsory study weeks for my theory work for my commercial pilots license, 8 hours of sitting in the classroom learning about the internal workings of piston and jet engines for 5 days.

I think I may spend some of it day dreaming about a rather large Stingray swimming around the Keys.....

And finally the Night Rating is done.....

2010-11-18T06:24:00.000-08:00

Wow,
How much fun was that.... ?
I got to travel over to Naples air centre on Tuesday night to finish up my Night qualification with Lawrence (my instructor).
In brief the night rating consists of 5 hours of total flying including doing a night navigation to another airport, various procedures and 2 hours of solo flight with 5 full stop landings and taxi backs at a towered airport.
Firstly I need to say that in Lawrence I have found a terrific instructor, really dedicated to flying and certainly not someone who is there clock watching. A really good guy to fly with and always there with some good advice and helpful hint or 3. A huge thank you to him for working into the small hours for me.
The flying itself was simply awesome, particularly the solo work, I loved it, up there at 3000ft alone with nothing but the stars and the moon for company, I would have happily stayed up there for hours, especially at its only $99 per hour instead of the 200 pounds in the UK.
The landings took a little getting used to, as you tend to use the runway lights for perspective instead of the broader horizon in the daytime, which meant I was coming in a little steep and tending to land a little heavy until Sue's voice (my PPL Instructor/Mentor in France) came back into my head from my PPL training, "look to the end of the runway and fly the runway" whilst on final approach; almost like the OB1 Kenobi Star Wars moment: "Use the Force Luke" and the problem was fixed, the force was with me.
The one problem with doing all the landings is you then have to taxi off the runway and taxi back to the start of the runway and go through pre take off once more, I think during my first hour I spent more time driving the plane around the airport taxiways than flying it.
The airspace around Naples Florida at night is unrestricted at and over the coastline with the small islands lit only by moonlight and the city lights are truly beautiful, I recommend getting the night rating done, it certainly gives some confidence at the same time as a real feeling of achievement.

I am off to get some flying done in Miami over the coming days so there should be a few more postings from there......

Did I have some fun today...?

2010-11-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

Today and tomorrow are the annual air days at the Homestead Air reserve base near Miami.
Now the Americans do know how to do all things military pretty well. They rolled out the cream of the cream of US Airforce, Army, Marine and coast guard pilots for some of the most amazing shows I have ever seen.
So I took Thomas along for the day free day out and we weren't disappointed, we got to get up close and personal with a huge variation of aircraft as well, from helicopters, Apache, Black hawks and coast guard to super huge cargo machines.

Tom and I were even invited to go upfront and take the seats in a $4.1 million T-1 Jay Hawk Jet. Definitely he high light of my day. The Jay Hawk looks for all intents and purposes like the average private jet but this one is used by the US Military as a trainer for all pilots going onto larger cargo and personnel carrying aircraft, the average pilot having to complete around 150 hours on this sleek speed machine before going onto the heavier sisters of the fleet.
A great day was had by all......

So I have been in the US for nearly a year so I have been thinking...

2010-11-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

So I have been in the US for nearly a year so I have been thinking about where I am with all things flying.
Firstly due to the first 5 months after my arrival flying being limited due to security and medical issues the total hours I have managed to fly has been pretty limited, this is not a huge problem as I am not really in a rush. But I do feel like I have had a fair amount of time and money wasted over the passed year unfortunately due to joining up with a school with rather dodgy aircraft and having to re-do, re-apply and re-pay for all of the procedures for a second time in the process of starting instrument training with the Cessna school.
There have been some massive positives though at the same time. I am very fortunate that my nan has given me the present of paying for my Commercial Pilots license theory course with CATS school out of Luton, something I didn't think I would be able to start yet, whilst over here in the US of A. Due to this I am spending every hour I'm not working in studying for the upcoming exams of which the first one is in January in Gatwick for Aircraft General Knowledge.
Due to being able to start the CPL theory I have put the FAA Instrument training to the background for the time being as doing the both at the same time is just a little too much to cope with, and I hope to pick this back up prior to doing the CPL practical exams towards the end of next sumer/autumn.
As you may have read I started my JAA night training this week and I have to say it was a pleasant surprise in many ways.
Firstly due to the fact that so many people within flying seem to have a downer on the whole flight training experience in the USA and particularly Florida. The rumours and allegations of JAA Schools (schools which teach the European syllabus) having crappy planes, money hungry owners and instructors who don't give a hoot except for building hours and getting "A Line Job" I have found totally unfounded. The school at Naples has been a particularly pleasant surprise, my instructor Lawrence has been a true professional in every sense, he loves flying, he loves teaching, its infectious. Even though I am not doing my CPL theory with their school he has offered to help mentor me through it over Skype if I have questions that need a little explaining or if I hit that proverbial brick wall which I have a few times.
With a school of their size its nice that the owners know who I am, give me a warm welcome when I walk through the door, so when I read some of the stories on aviation websites about them in particular and other Florida based schools I am going to start taking some of these opinions with a pinch of salt.
I think you have to take everything on merit, I made a mistake in my first choice of school, although frustrating I am glad I went through it so that I can a, see the indicators of this kind of place and b, see how a school shouldn't be run for my own personal future.
So for the time being I am 2/3 of my way through the syllabus for Aircraft General Knowledge and I will have my study week in the class room at a school in Ormond Beach Florida towards the end of this month and will get an idea if I am on the right track, with 8 hours a day in the class room, something I haven't done in quite a while.
If all goes well I should be heading to Gatwick for the first exams due on the 17th/18th January. The following sittings will be in March, then the final exams in May. If and thats a huge IF all the exams get passed I will hope to have enough hours to go on and do my CPL practical month long training and testing towards the end of the summer.
The 150 hours of P1 flying needs to be achieved between now and then so I am pretty happy that a flying friend John is planning to come stateside and we plan on touring all over the country and build those hours up and enjoy some fun flying.
A pretty big 9 months ahead, fingers crossed it goes to plan.......

From Naples to Venice at night and not a word of Italian spoken

2010-11-02T22:06:00.001-07:00

My second night of night flying was another success, really settling into the aircraft and the area.
The radio has been a little daunting as they speak with a heavy accent here and are not using JAA vocabulary as it were, so a few translations needed this evening, but got there in the end.
This evening was all about Navigation as last night was mainly about handling, landings etc.
Lawrence was more about me handing a lot more of the cockpit work and showing how to work out where we were along track as we headed north out of Naples up to Venice beach about an hour north.
We spoke with the large airport at South Western Regional to get traffic service up the coast as there was a lot of traffic around and some low cloud into the mix which kept us on our toes and keeping an eye out, but all in all a pleasant flight up, as we approached Venice, Lawrence did his magic trick again and lit up the runway lights with the radio. The fun thing this time though was as we were on short finals at about 200ft all of the lights suddenly went out and for the first time in a while I was a little worried and was about to hit the power for a go around as everything was pitch black and there was no horizon, and just after the runway was the sea, worry though I shouldn't have as Lawrence quickly hit the radio switch 7 times and just like the illuminated fountain at the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas the colourful lights were ablaze once again although my heart was thumping we got down safely if not a touch long touching down on the runway.
So we full stopped there and headed to the convenient restaurant bar on the apron for a little local fair of Crab cakes and a half hour of rest.
Out of the window we started to see some drizzle coming down the runway so it was time to hop back into the trusty arrow and fire her up for the trip back down the coast.
To make things a little more interesting I started to get used to some of the Nav systems on the plane and made a few VOR fixes on the trip back to refresh my memory and also see how much different it is doing it in the dark with US style maps, I managed to get there in the end and was happy with that and also the work load of dealing with the radio workload at the same time. Its amazing the difference between the USA , UK and France for radio calls etc so the mind was boggled a little when combined with learning a totally new skill like night flying especially when we headed out to sea in the pitch black for a short while and doing all the flying on instruments alone, whilst tracking the VOR and dodging class C airspace whilst 737's were on the ILS !!
The approach back into Naples was good the clouds had cleared even the stars came out to shine, unfortunately the tower closed at 10pm so I wasn't able to complete my 5 full stop landings at a towered airport in time so another trip to Naples will be in order and hopefully another round of crab cakes.....

Top job Lawrence for making this enjoyable so far.

Night Night Naples

2010-11-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

Well after 2 failed attempts due to weather problems I have finally got my night qualification underway at Naples Air centre here in Florida.
Lawrence, my trusty instructor showed me around and introduced me to my new steed; a Piper Arrow.
We were initially delayed for a couple of hours due to pesky storms but finally got off the ground and into the big black after 9.15pm.
A few circuits (or patterns to us USA speak) to get used to the plane and the general area and I was joined in the circuit by James in another plane, he's also another night qual. student. After half a dozen circuits and really getting into flying the arrow we headed out of the circuit for some navigation work, with James hot on our tail. We flew over Marco island which is a play ground for the rich and famous and has its own airstrip where Lawrence showed me his bit of magic, where we dialed in the Marco Island frequency for their runway, which was closed for the evening and after keying the mike a few times he lit up the entire airport like a xmas tree with all of the runway and taxi lights springing into action.
After 10pm Naples becomes uncontrolled as the tower closes so the pilots in the area all talk to each other and its pretty informal to be honest and I quite liked that. A helicopter pilot came on frequency and told us to get our umbrella's ready as a squalling rain system was fast approaching so we headed out to sea and played a little hide and seek with the rain.
We then went back into the circuit to have a well earned cuppa after as the first couple of hours was in the book, I even managed a half decent landing which is pretty tricky in the dark.
The idea was to then head off on a longer navigation trip up to Sarasota as the requisite 5 hours of night flying needs to be eaten up, unfortunately when we checked the weather radar just prior to departing and it showed the squally shower from before had built strength and come back to bite us for a second time so we decided it was perhaps time to call it a night and then give it a go again tomorrow. I was really impressed with my instructor Lawrence though as he even offered to get up a 5am to get some more flying in as the weather had spoilt the second flight.
The poor fella had been polite enough about my wayward landings already there was no way I was going to drag him out of bed at that ungodly hour, plus some may say I need my beauty sleep.
So just going to wait for the sun to go down tomorrow and fingers crossed, and weather gods providing we will get some more flying in the star filled skies.
Night night.

Aircraft General Knowledge CPL and on to Electrics

2010-09-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

So I am putting the hours in, Air Frames and Systems is the name of the game. I have finally got to the end of the first chapter and have gone through some most of the progress tests today and have scored above 85% in all of those.
So next is the dreaded Electrics, now I know this is going to be very difficult as it wasn't my strong point when I did physics at school. I just can't get my head around amps, Ohms and volts, let alone resisters etc.
The big test is going to be when I have done the next chapter if I can still remember the first one. This is a proper test of the grey matter thats for sure, but I'm enjoying the learning side of things although its tough going.

If I manage to get through these exams I definitely know it will all have been worth it. But I just wish the mode of learning had been invented already whereby they could plug something into my brain and I could upload it........

The CPL Theory work is in full flow.

2010-08-29T16:50:00.001-07:00

After the initial shock when all of the books arrived and the sudden gut wrenching realization of how much work it is going to involve over the coming 9 months or so, I have got myself into a decent routine with the study.

The first exams for me should ideally be in January at Gatwick airport if the obligatory study week here in the US goes well and CATS put me forward for the exam. My first exam topic will be Aircraft General Knowledge, and is the biggest of all of the books I have to study covering topics such as Landing Gear, Hydraulics, Cabin Pressures, Electrics, and basically anything that moves on a plane.

The best thing about the course I have signed up for is that its not all book based, they have a really good web based study course which runs along side the books, so its not a case of wading through the pages. The web based version seems to be more compact and precise and as I travel a lot with my work I am able to study for an hour here and there whilst on the road and hanging around airports whilst waiting for flights.

I am almost and I emphasis almost getting to the point where I am enjoying getting back to studying again, but I am sure I will be happier when the first set of progress tests are out of the way and I know if I am on the right track with it all.

Apart from that I am looking forward to seeing my friend John, (who has also recently started along the same study path as me), who is coming over for a visit in the coming months to get his FAA U.S License validated and also hope to get some flying in over here as a prelude to a potential flying adventure in the new year. I am busily looking at the maps for various places to go and visit during some hour building time in spring next year. A favorite idea of mine is to get as far as the Grand Canyon but we'll have to see....... but for now its back to the books.

It official, an American Pilot

2010-08-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

Its arrived in the post, I have it, it official, after 9 months, 2 medicals and 10 hours of flying I have an FAA Private pilots license.

Solo flying around the US here we go......

A pretty proud day

2010-08-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

Last week I managed to carry out an ambition, and it will be a day I won't forget. I was able to rent a plane in Dunkeswell, Devon where my parents live and fly them down to Perranporth in Cornwall for a cuppa and slice of cake and then back up to Dunkeswell flying up the northern coast of Cornwall and then catching site of Dartmoor.

The idea was to treat my mum for her 60th birthday with something a little different, and also to get to show my dad that all the hard of studying has paid off. My dad spent hours and hours of his holidays last year helping me through my navigation theory study and it must have paid off as we didn't get lost once.

The trip was a good one for me as I had also just done my radio telephony practical exam and has never actually flown in the UK before.

So off we went in a PA28, joining up with Exeter radar for traffic service up until we got some fantastic views of the Exe-Estuary and then Dartmoor. We then passed over to Newquay radar where we were asked to orbit for incoming commercial aircraft, which gave us some decent views of the area. When given clearance to continue we headed straight on into Perranporth, where we later found out that we had timed things perfectly as the cloud had been down top 400ft not 20 mins before. After a decent cup of tea and a chat to the friendly locals we were swiftly on our way, down the most amazing take off I have yet experienced, basically at the end of the runway there is a 250ft cliff drop down to the sea.

A swift right turn and we were plotting our way along the Cornwall coast taking in the little coves and sandy beaches up until the mystical Tintadual the birth place of Arthur and Camelot.

We then took a right turn to get on a direct track back to Dunkeswell in East Devon.

The Devon countryside is gorgeous from 1500ft and I was really lucky that it was perhaps the best flying conditions you could ever ask for taking you mum up on her first time in a light aircraft.

After joining long down wind over Honiton we turned onto finals to come into Dunkeswell just as a whole group of freefall parachutists were landing at the airfield at the same time, it was a fitting climax to a great day.

A with a glint in his eye and pat on the back from my dad, with a hearty "well done", I knew that all the studying had been worth it.

Time to get serious

2010-07-21T02:45:00.001-07:00

Today I have signed up to one of the biggest commitments of my life. Commercial Pilot License theory. The books have arrived from CATS in England who I will be doing the studying/training and exams through. Its going to be a tough 18 months of study and for me who's not one to sit in one place for very long its going to take some discipline.

The arrival of the books through the post today has made me realize just what I have signed up for.

Hopefully I will have time for some actual flying at some point too.

CATS from what I have seen so far have a very good way of being able to learn the knowledge, with a web based platform along side the books, so I can study on the road as much as I do at home. I just need to draw up a study schedule next with one eye on when the exams are and work work work.

Wish me luck.