So after an evening of all you can eat Chinese with Tsin-Tao’s paid for by Alan (The Welsh guy who passed his test yesterday) it was back with Gerry and more training. Oh, before we get to the flying: six guys eating all you can eat Chinese food – and good it was too! –  2-3 beers per person: $65 before tips… It is not just the flying that is cheap over here.

So we started in the pattern and Gerry was pretty impressed. I was now doing the whole thing by myself just having Gerry step in with a little rudder when I needed it, which was not every time.  After six touch and goes, it was off to the training grounds and steep turns, stalls etc.  This was coming along nicely.  I did 2×45 degree angle turns with 0 drop of altitude both to the left and to the right.  Clean and landing stalls ok too. So now, I just have to get the whole ting down routinely to ensure it will be right every time. On the way back to the airport, we were cruising at 3,500ft. Gerry put on Carb heat, pulled throttle back and informed me that I have had an engine failure and what would I do about it?  There is a checklist for this (There is a checklist for everything, you should know by now) and I could not remember anything. I went on by common sense… which just is not good enough when you are under extreme stress.  Adjust speed to best glide speed and trim (logical, eh?)  Get downwind so you can cover as much ground as possible looking for suitable forced landing.  Check for cause of engine failure (Well, I knew that already – I saw Gerry turn off the power!) but still; one has to go through the checks.  Look for suitable site.  “I’m going to land at that airfield over there”.  “You spotted it, well done. Can you reach it?”  “Yeah”.  “Yes, I think you can too… go for it.  I need to get to it downwind at 1,000ft altitude, turn base and final and make a nice forced but controlled landing.  I am converging to the downwind leg and I feel really nice.  “Eh, you’re a bit left”.  I am not!  “Er, it looks OK from here”.  “Nope, you’re definitely missing it”.  “I’m going for that one” I say pointing out the windscreen.  “I wouldn’t, it’s a driveway with a ditch at one side and lamp-posts at the other. I thought you had seen the grass airfield over there!”  “Oh, s***.. I forgot airstrips could be made out of grass as well.  Quick change of plans and the field there looked pretty inviting.  I was allowed to go to 300ft (and for you non-pilots out there, 300ft when you have been zooming around at 3,000ft is bloody close) before I was instructed to “go-around”.  Full power and I was so happy when I saw the VSI (Vertical Speed Indicator) go positive.  Two more of those, getting a bit better but still some work to do.  Later that day on our second flight it was back to the pattern.  I did a total of five landings.  The first was near perfect. Obviously, a fluke but it could not have been much better. On the centre line with the aircraft pointing that way too at touchdown, smooth in spite of cross winds etc. I saw Gerry do a double take, wanting to know if I had practiced during lunch.  The second landing wasn’t bad but a bit off centre. Third was on centre with a bit too early flare but not by much. Fourth was ..erm.. interesting. The worse ever, actually.  I had come in a bit too much to the right. Just before the threshold there are bushes and you get a lift (thermal) screwing you up with respect to your path. So there I was, a bit too much to the right and a bit too high but not enough for Gerry to interfere.  I was trying to get us more towards the centre while pitching down. Gerry was trying to help on the rudder to get us to the middle and I was flaring to early. Oh f***.  This is definitely a situation where I should have applied full power and gone around… unsalvageable. We ended on the runway at a bang so hard I am really happy we did not leave bits of the undercarriage behind us.  Full power and take off for final pattern and full stop. The fifth and final landing was pretty good though I was a bit shaken from the hard landing. We had to tell Chuck, our wonderful resident mechanic, that he had to look the aircraft over.  He came over to the flight centre and saw Gerry and myself in conversation.  “Who was the pilot?”  “He was!” Gerry was quick to point out, albeit with a sly grin.  I was estimating in my mind what a new undercarriage could possibly cost.  “Well” Chuck said, if you walk away from a landing it’s supposed to have been a good one.  “Did you walk away, sir?”  I confirmed that I did indeed make it from aircraft to centre under my own bi-pedal power.  “Well, it must then have been a good one” Chuck comforted me while explaining to the instructor that replacing some fluid in the oleo and brakes would leave the aircraft more or less as we found it.

Hey, this is fun. I am feeling more cheerful today.  If I do reasonable well on landings all day tomorrow and Thursday I’m pretty sure I’ll be soloing at the end of Thursday or first thing Friday.

I also had to do my FAA medical today. “Can you hear me” “Yep”.  “Can you see me?”  “Yep”.  “Close your eyes and stay vertical.” That’s about it. What really outrages me is that on an FAA license I can fly at night. In addition, he never checked if I was colour-blind.  Fantastic….

Summary after 4 days
Flown: 2 hours and 54 minutes.
Total flying time: 13 hours and 14 minutes.
Solo: 0 hours and 0 minutes.
Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Day 23

So, Gerry was off to fire training and I was meeting up with my 1-day temporary instructor. Yannick, from France, and there was no mistake about it.  Inspector Clouseau on the Radio: Warrioh forh-zero-wun, downwind fur wun-wun. Very sweet indeed.  Actually, the guys at the school told me that 2 days before I arrived Yannick had been involved in an air-rage incident.  He was at the run-up area with a student going through the power checks.  There are many checks and you have to do them right and for someone who is learning it takes a little while to read from your check list and do the checks.  Too long for a redneck “Lake” parked behind them. Sorry, but all the natives around the flight school are called rednecks even by the Americans at the school.  Goes a long way, I guess, to explain the noise-abatement order put on runway 22 but that is another story. Anyway, the pilot in the Laker called on the common frequency:  “Hey you guys in the Piper, are you moving or not?!”  Well, Yannick got on the radio and in his best Frenglish explained that they would be going soon enough but he should be sympathetic towards a student pilot.  “God damn foreigners” was the reply “you bomb our cities, pollute our airspace and are kind to our women” (for the last bit, those were not the exact words, mind you, but I am sure you get the drift).  Yannick then continued to explain the finer points of cross-cultural sharing at which point the airwaves really got blue.  Until a guy going downwind, obviously hoping to avoid explosions on ground, had to remind them that there could be ladies present on the frequencies.  Anyways, I was now sitting with Yannick. We would be going trough the same things as I did day three so I won’t bore you with the details.  One thing was interesting in two different ways:  There were a number of subtle differences in how Yannick wanted me to fly compared to how Gerry wanted it. Yannick wanted a 5-knot higher rotation speed. Climb at 70 knots instead of 80 (Meaning a better angle rather than a better rate), no power manipulation during steep turns and a circuit height of 1,000ft above sea level instead of Gerry’s 1,000ft above ground level (=ca. 1,100ft amsl). I am happy to say I was “smart” enough not to mention the differences in instructions and just take the corrections and follow them as told. I then later checked the details with Gerry and we have figured out some good compromises.  The circuit height, btw, was changed recently from 1,100 to 1,000 above sea, which is why Gerry had been flying at the wrong height. 100ft in circuit is not going to kill you anyways, neither literally nor metaphorically.  One last final interesting point I took away: It is an easy trap for students to lock onto the instructions as rules, as a fixed way to do things. What this little experience showed me is that you learn to fly safely, fluently and efficiently. Exactly how you do, it is not that important as long as you are comfortable with your chosen technique. It is the resulting quality of flying that is important. From the training itself, I can only say that I felt I got better and I felt a lot happier at the end of the day.  My Welsh mate from the student’s house took and passed the final FFA skills test today as well.  I immediately went and quizzed him about the examiner, as she would very likely be my examiner as well. The future will show if it was useful but he informed me that she was very focused on the human performance aspects. Emergency scenarios, planning etc.  Not so much a gadget person who wants to know the path of fuel from tank to carburettor as someone who wants to know what you will do if that fuel-flow is interrupted.  At some point, so goes the plan, I will take the FFA test and the day after the CAA test.

At least Yannick was of the opinion that I would be going solo “in a couple of days”. My own revised target is end of Thursday.

Summary after 4 days
Flown: 2 hours and 48 minutes.
Total flying time: 10 hours and 20 minutes.
Solo: 0 hours and 0 minutes.
Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Day 23

Today we planned to take off around 8:00 and we were not too far off schedule taking off at 08:15.  Again, I did all checks and taxiing under Gerry’s watchful eyes. Radio call to ensure everyone in the pattern (or circuit) knew we would be taking off from runway 11. Rotating at 55 knots and keeping the runway heading, I was instructed we were going to start by doing a few touch and goes. We did 2, focusing more on sticking to the pattern than me getting the landing part right.  It was then off to the training grounds for steep turns, stalls, S-turns and turns around a point.  I only really have problem with the latter. The other exercises seem to come along quite well. The important bit being practised is the ability to do the exercise where you have to consider the effect of the wind when determining the turn-angle for a uniform ground pattern WHILE you maintain constant altitude.  In the stall you also have to maintain constant heading and in the turn around a point you have to maintain a constant distance from the point.  After about 1 hour we turned back towards Winter Haven for 30 minutes in the pattern with me having to do as much as I was able to.  This was very very tough; hard work indeed.  Take offs and initial climb OK though I get a feeling I’m moving too fast. I guess I instinctively want to move slower so I have more time to consider all the stuff I need to do. Turn onto cross-wind leg. For runway 11 there are not many visual reference points so I do this on heading. 11 minus 90 is 020. Nice 15 degrees climbing turn to a heading of 020 and if I don’t watch it, I start to lose climb before reaching 1,100ft. 980ft and it’s time to turn to downwind. 020-90 is 290 (and not 190 as I did the first time!). Level off at 1,100ft, reduce power to 2,100 RPM, R/T call downwind, keep altitude, watch runway threshold, keep look-out, go through BUMPFICH checks (Brakes, Under-carriage which is a bit of a moot point in a Piper PA-28 with non-retractable), mixture – 2 part vermouth to 1 part gin, pitch which is another moot point in a Piper with fixed pitched propeller, fuel sufficient and fuel pump on, instruments OK and Ts&Ps, carburettor heat and hatches and harnesses secure), 10 degrees of flaps and in the US start descent but in the UK just turn onto base.  Call base on the radio, 1,700 RPM, 25 degrees flaps, airspeed 75knots, look for anyone long final (no mid-air collisions please) 30 degree turn into final, full 40 degrees flaps, keep airspeed at 70knots, point nose before runway, keep aircraft aimed at centre of runway and ensure you are on the right glide-path. That’s really it… how hard could it be? Well, as with most things if you know how to do it, it is probably not very hard but this was really draining.  I went through 8 full patterns with landings and touch and goes. My take offs really improved and though I could slowly feeling my landings being more controlled the quality did not improve much.  I do not have a problem in general holding off the flare so I hope I am going to click into this really soon. In one of the patterns just as I was going to call downwind someone else did! That threw us a bit as it means someone is at the same height going the same direction as you on pretty much the same track… and we could not see the plane!  The smug bastards could see us and told us to look over our left wing as they were flying a tighter pattern than I was (Yeah, he’s doing his checkout ride tomorrow – I’m on my third day; what do you expect, eh?). The problem was, we still couldn’t see him.  He then called base. Now we knew around where he would turn from downwind into base and were both scanning as mad (now having re-joined downwind ourselves) but we still could not find him. Very embarrassing though we mutually agreed that it was either a stealth Cessna or it was equipped with a Klingon cloaking device.  They uncloaked on final when I finally spotted them.  Seeing the other aircrafts in the circuit is also hard work.

After nearly two hours of flying, it was a full stop and 1.5 hours relaxation before next session. I was soaked. The sun had been on the whole time and it’s 25° Celsius but we have plenty of fresh airflow and the concentration and hard work just soaked me through.

The second session was more or less a duplicate of the first except I didn’t do any S-turns of turns around points.  I was so tired (and soaked again). I had all these grand plans of flying 3 sessions a day, 5-6 hours and I was ready for bed at 15:00 after a hard days work.  I just popped into the learning centre to finish off the second of 11 mandatory videos I have to sit through.  This was on special manoeuvres and quite relevant to the training I am doing right now.

I have to admit, at this point only my confidence in the system and my general learning abilities being at least that of the average student, convinces me I will succeed at this.  Getting all those techniques right at the right time and with required accuracy seems so hard and so far away, I am beginning to realise the size of the task ahead. Two students at the school quit their training half way through over the past month.  However, neither could apparently overcome really basic stuff, so I am still cautiously optimistic.

Gerry is off to a big airport tomorrow for a full day of “Fire training” so I am flying 4 hours with a replacement instructor. He is French and seems a pretty calm and OK guy but we will see.

I have had my Cross pen nicked from the school, which really pisses me off.

Summary after 3 days
Flown: 3 hours and 30 minutes.
Total flying time: 7 hours and 32 minutes.
Solo: 0 hours and 0 minutes.
Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Day 23

I should have had an idea today wasn’t going to turn out normal. I couldn’t find my pen in the morning as I was packing and it annoyed me. I knew I had it late last night as I was filling out my log-book but now it was gone. I still haven’t found it which means someone must have nicked it. Irritating. It was a nice pen (Cross).

Today, another 2 flight-sessions were planned: 1^st session from 10:00-12:00 and another from 16:00-18:00.  Our plane from yesterday was still being looked at, but was due to be ready “real soon” so rather than switching we waited around.  Gerry informed me it was part of the training, as that is a signidficant part of what pilots do. Wait. At 11:00 I wandered over to the mechanic, a great old stereotypical American, who informed me the plane would be ready in 5.  Naïve and inexperienced as I was, I assumed he meant minutes where obviously he was running on something like IT time as it was 12:10 before an instructor and his student entered the plane.

I knew I had to be in charge from start to finish with Gerry telling me (off) when I was doing something wrong. After the walk-around checks and the inside start checks I got to the exciting part where you open the little pilot window, yell “Clear the prop!”, wait for a response (very much like when a priest ask if anyone objects to a wedding… you never expect a reply) and start the aircraft.  Our plane started and (from the inside) sounded quite good.  I went through the pre-taxi checks when another instructor came over and gave the marshalling signal for cut the engine.  He didn’t like the sound of it.  We got the mechanic over, restarted without our noise cancelling headsets and sure enough… there was a distinct put-put sound intermittently.  Check left/right magneto… 75 rpm drop on each.. shouldn’t be a dead cylinder then, and the noise wasn’t weird enough for that anyways. Lean the mixture slowly but more and more and ooops, what’s the smoke coming out of the engine?  Lean cut, full throttle, quick go through shut down procedures and suddenly a walk back to the club-house seemed like a good idea.  The mechanics were swarming around our poor N32990 and we were just glad we never made it into the air.  We re-booked ourselves into N32401 which would be available at 16:00. I have to go through 9 hours of videos on various manoeuvres etc. so this seemed like a good time to make inroads in the private study rooms.  At 16:00, after 2 long and tiring videos on procedures and manoeuvres, we were in 401 ready to go.  401 starts like a dream and I was taxiing down to the holding point making my first official real radio call: “Winter Haven Traffic, 32401 Warrior taxiing to runway 04, Winter Haven”. I did the run-up checks and continued to the runway line-up all without assistance or interference from Gerry. Final check of T&P (Temperature and pressures), full throttle, keep straight on the runway while watching speed, 55 knots and rotate… we were airborne and the first take-off without assistance from an instructor. “Climb to 1,000ft and while continue to climb, turn us onto 310”. I did as told and had us on 310 at around 1,400ft. “Change heading to 360, continue climb to 3,000ft”. While this was going on Gerry attempted to utilise the maximum effect of our noise cancelling headsets and the squelch controls so we could cut out the noise coming over the mikes.  We both suddenly realised we couldn’t hear ourselves never mind each other. Gerry kept playing with the controls and settings but nothing would bring back the radio.  This was (almost) funny. Before I can fly solo I have to complete an open book test with 50 questions and one of them were “what do you do if you want to land and you are experiencing a total radio failure”.  I assumed I was soon about to find out. It was pretty obvious that unless Gerry was in line for an Oscar he was not doing this to test me and all though I knew most of the English variants I could have picked up a whole lot of Dutch expletives were I inclined to do that.  We had reached 3,000ft altitude keeping a steady heading of 360 in rather turbulent air and I was pretty proud but Gerry took control and headed back to the airfield.  Before joining the pattern we kept a really good lookout for any traffic as they wouldn’t know we were coming. Short downwind leg before turning on to base, very sort final, down to the runway, very very short run and back to service.  The landing run was indeed so short it reminded me about Paddy and Ciaran, 2 pilots from Ryan Air.  Approaching an airport, Paddy (The captain) says to Ciaran: “Ciaran, this is a very short runway”.  “It sure is, Paddy… as short as I’ve ever seen one”.  “Ciaran, I’m going to give full flaps and side slip down. The second we hit it, I’ll reverse thrust and you hit the brakes and pray”.  “Paddy, I’ll do that… and I’m already praying”.  Well, the aircraft approaches very steeply and hits the runway. Immediately, Paddy applies full reverse thrust and Ciaran is on the brakes.  With the engines roaring in reverse and smoke shooting up from the wheels and tires the plane comes to a halt just centimetres away from the end of the runway.  “Sweet Jesus” says Paddy “That was a very short runway”.  “That it was” says Ciaran… and looking out the side windows “But look, Paddy, it must be at least a mile wide!”  So anyways, we parked at the garage where 990 was happily parked with another cousin (A Cessna-152) (One that we didn’t wreck.  “Radio inop”.  “Really?” was the quizzical response from the mechanic. Back to the terminal building. No more flying that day, I headed back to the student quarters where I had dinner duty. It would be asparagus as starters with Lasagne as main course. While I was preparing, Gerry arrived red faced. While he had played with the squelch he must have pushed the button as well and that turns the radio off. As he put it himself: Something you expect a student to do but not necessarily an instructor. I then found out that Gerry is an ex-chef and 2 of the other students were Italian. Great. I’m cooking lasagne for a chef and 2 Italians.  Well, the 2 Italians, on discovering I was doing Lasagne, made a panic dash to the local Chinese restaurant. Those two Italian students are a bit crazy anyways.  Not having a good aircraft to fly, they took 990 out before she had been completely signed off.  ½ way the RPM dropped to 0!  Luckily only the indicator not the actual engine, but still….  According to the instructor the Welsh student and myself who stayed for the whole meal, it was a success. They don’t know it yet, but I’m a one trick pony. I can cook dinner all right as long as you want and like lasagne.

Waiting for me tomorrow are another 2 sessions in 401 (with a fully functional radio). Both sessions planned to last 2 hours containing steep turns, S-turns, turns around points and lots and lots of touch and goes.

Summary after 2 days
Flown: 0 hours and 36 minutes.
Total flying time: 4 hours and 2 minutes.
Solo: 0 hours and 0 minutes.
Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Day 23

The flight over to Florida was uneventful.  Some turbulence at the departing end (hah, I’ve flown in worse myself) and looking out the window trying to guess base and ceiling of cloud layers and the cloud types.  Check the altitude and temperature indications on the entertainment system… how far away from ISA standard?

Orlando airport was much harder work.  25 queues to chose from for immigration and I, together with 40 other idiots, chose the one with Officer Jobsworth.  A guy who came out of the aircraft just after me and joined the neighbouring queue got through 25 minutes before me!  When I got through I had 5-6 people behind me (everyone else having joined other queues as we went along) and no other queue had more than 2-3 people.  The same thing happens to me in super markets. If anyone can tell me the technique to pick a good queue I’d pay a nifty ransom. Through immigration, pick up suitcases and check them back in… ‘scuse me?  Yep, hand over the suitcases again, go through security with your carry-on. Take a shuttle to the main terminal building and pick up your suitcases a second time.  There’s got to be a good reason hidden somewhere but I’ve yet to think up what it could be.  It took me a total of 2 hours to get from the airplane to the free world.  I had feared that my address in the US (Being that of the flight school) was going to set all sort of alarm bells off.  Not a batted eye-lid, not a single question.

For my first day of pilot training they had laid out a slightly out of the ordinary schedule: Normally a student who has just arrived overseas only get 1 flying session on the first day but since I was such a wise-guy who had taken all the written exams in advance, already done 14 hours of flying and had requested to do both the FAA and JAR/CAA they scheduled two 2-hours sessions.

Before getting this far I had spent 3 hours with the instructor who had been assigned to me for the duration of my training, Gerry. A Dutch commercial pilot 1 foot taller than me with the width and breadth to match. Man I’m glad we were going to fly in a PA-28 and not a Cessna 150!  This could get very cosy. He had trained at the school before but this time around he arrived at the school the same day as I, but he had arrived from Las Vegas where he had a job transporting freight into Las Vegas from various locations on the west coast.  Gerry had yet to lose a student (either by flying death or failing) and I’m sure we are going to have fun with his Dutch English and my Danish English.  “Set throttle 1,100ft”.  “When you turn at a low speed you can make the turn more…erm… narrow..” “Tighter?”  “Yeah, tighter. Much better word. Thanks”.  The important thing, though, as with everything in life, is trust.  I trust he can teach me to fly and I trust he’s not going to get me killed, ‘cause he obviously knows what he’s doing and he has a sensible practical approach to the whole venture.

Gerry informed me that today we would do basic manoeuvres but I wouldn’t do take-off and landings until tomorrow.  In our first sessions we did Steep Turns which are 45 degree turns to the left and the right. In these sort of turns the passengers get the feeling they are 90 degrees in as much as the wing appears to be perpendicular to the ground. From a technical point of view the skill is to fly a constant rate of turn (i.e. 45 degrees) at a constant altitude while mainly looking out the windows and not at the instruments. Having failed at enough of these we went on to stalls; with and without flaps or as “we” say: In clean and landing configuration.  Stalls have never phased me and the most difficult is to get a safe General Aviation aircraft like the Piper into a stall. One hour and 35 minutes of fun and it was back to the airfield for a delayed lunch.

After lunch it was off again for another late afternoon session.  “My” aircraft N32990 had been flying while we had been eating and the instructor had reported a fault with the engine so it was already on to a replacement aircraft. Interestingly enough, though this aircraft worked fundamentally like the previous and the one I flew in the UK all 3 were different in material way and all had their own peculiarities that had to be taken into consideration. I guess that’s why ships and aircrafts are “she”. The first of undoubtedly many surprises came after the run-up: As we taxied on to the runway for take-off Gerry leaned back in the seat, let go of the column and said: “You have control”.  My first take-off. I kept her nicely on the centreline and rotated (took off) at 55 knots. We climbed quickly to 1,000ft and left the pattern (circuit in the UK) which is the holding pattern for aircrafts flying in close proximity to the airport. We did more steep turns, S-turns and turn around a point.  After a few (intentional) stalls we went back towards the airport.  Having disclosed to Gerry that my lowest score was in the Navigation exams, that I couldn’t find the airport to fly from when I did my written flight-plan, that I came from a family where my mum have got lost in the parking area in front of my sisters house AND that I had got lost that morning when I went for a jog he was well aware this might be a problem during training. He asked me to point out where the airport was.  I thought I recognized one lake (of the thousands in the area) and pointed in the appropriate direction which happened to be correct. He had me go through all the checks on the downwind-leg and the base and when we were on final he asked me to pay attention to the details as he did a touch-and-go. Up we went again, cross-wind and “I had control” turning downwind. Do the checks again, turn onto base, a bit slow starting descend, turn onto finale, too high, full flaps, still too high… you still have control, watch the 10 knots 30 degree crosswind, lower the nose, too high, you’re off the middle, watch the wind, you’re too slow; lower the nose, cross control by turning left and right rudder and we’re close, closer, closer, back pressure on column – flare – and we’re down. Flaps up, full power and do it again.  Another 2 touch and go landings with less and less help from Gerry and after 2 hours of flying we finally went for the full-stop landing. 1 hour of debrief, 1 hour of shopping (Jeez, it’s cheap here!) and it was 21:00 before we sat down at the house eating Domino’s pizza and philosophising about today’s events.

I was shattered. 3.5 hours flying in one day and I had begun to learn 3 completely new manoeuvres I hadn’t even heard of before, I had taken off for the first time ever and I had landed (albeit with help) for the first time ever. I’m still bitten and can’t wait until my first solo. I guess in 3-4 days time, but we’ll see.

Summary after 1 day:
Flown: 3 hours and 26 minutes.
Total flying time: 3 hours and 26 minutes.
Solo: 0 hours and 0 minutes.
Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Day 23