I was running on autopilot.  And do take that literally: I – myself – was running on autopilot; the plane does not have one. That has to be the only explanation that I found myself alone in an airplane 3,500ft (1km) above Florida, almost 200km from “home” and slightly lost.  Let us backtrack a bit though: This was my first solo cross-country. I had again sweated over the charts for a good solid hour and had laid a careful route from Winter Haven to Melbourne to Bartow and back to Winter Haven. When I arrived at 10:00 in the morning to start I was informed there was a “change of plans”.  This was no drill. Melbourne had surface winds at 15 knots gusting 22, which on almost any runway would be a bit challenging to a student pilot in a warrior. So my new route would be Winter Haven to Seebring, on to Arcadia, then to Bartow for three full stop and goes in controlled air space, and finally back to Winter Haven.  Another flight plan junked and with Gerry’s help I quickly put the plan together for the new route and I was off.  While you are flying, you do not think too much about it, but to some extent, it is like the bumblebee myth: It is said that the bumblebee from an aerodynamic point of view is unable to fly. (This is off course nonsense). However, the myth goes, the reason it still flies, is because it does not know.  I had been at the flying school for 2 weeks and was now in sole control of an aircraft flying to an airport I have never been at and expected to deal with controllers, vectors, landings, taxiing and take-offs. The only reason I can see I did it was because I was on autopilot. I knew I had learned a lot the past 2 weeks… but THAT much?!   I found Seebring easily.  The route there takes you past some very recognisable lakes and towns etc.  I joined the downwind leg, final approach and made a nice landing.  I took the first taxiway to the right towards a very impressive general aviation air terminal.  To the left of the main stairs were 20-30 piper warriors and Cessna Skyhawks.  To the right another 15-20.  In front of the building, however, there would be room for maybe 10 but there weren’t any taking up space. They probably left early so I took the opportunity and parked smack bang in front of the building.  When I pushed back the aircraft myself, I was pleased to see I was perfectly aligned with the centre T-mark for tie-down.  I went into the building and to the pilot’s café where I had a cold drink and a light lunch.  I then walked back to “my” Warrior, pre-flight checked it, sat in, completed the checks and was just about to start the engine when four “War-birds” (American WWII fighter planes) came around the corner.  They taxied down in front of me and in perfect synchronisation they turned straight towards me (Or rather, towards the 3-500 people gathered at the outside area in front of the building) 2 on my left side and 2 on my right.  They did their power checks (very noisy) and I assume the 20 odd people gathering to the right and left of my wings were those who didn’t want an old Warrior in the middle of a picture of WW-2 fighter planes.  Urgh. I now realised why there had been some orange cones where I parked and why no one else had. I tried to stare straight ahead on the war-birds and to ignore what must have been very angry looks from the on-lookers and photographers.  Finally, checks over, the war birds taxied to runway 36.  I breathed a sigh of relief and was just about to start and taxi after the birds when 18, yes, eighteen (!) More war birds turned around the corner. Nine on the left of me, nine on the right. They were maybe 25 meters away pointing straight towards me and the whole thing repeated itself. Finally, they scooted off to rw36 and I hastily started my engine and scooted on after them. They made their way to 36 and 2 and 2 they rolled down the runway and took off.  I was about to take off when I heard an incoming Skyhawk being advised on the radio he might want to wait landing until 22 War birds had done a fly-pass at 300 ft over the runway. He did not, as it happened, and landed and was on his final bit of landing run when I lined up on the runway and had the 22 war birds pass straight over me.  I counted very carefully and when I had seen 22, I rolled down the runway and was off towards Arcadia.  The leg Seebring-Arcadia is put into the trip for one reason: There are basically NOTHING between these two places except green forests land and green swampland. This was about finding, calculating and sticking to a course. I knew how to use the VORs and could have cheated but did not want to. I had decided they were for absolute emergencies only.  I tried to follow my planned heading and 5 minute before my planned time, the town Arcadia appeared in front of me.  One basic lesson in human psychology: You see what you want to see. I expected to see Arcadia… I saw a town…. It was Arcadia.  If this was Arcadia, then the airfield would be just SW of the town. I could not find it. I circled around in ever-increasing circles. I looked here, there and everywhere. No airfield.  I could slowly feel panic creep in. If I could not find it, I would have to return to Winter Haven having failed.  I found a large N/S running road. I followed it a little North. There was a racetrack! Great, only one racetrack on the map. I must have been north of my expected track and hit a small village, much smaller than Arcadia. I turned around, went South past my village and there, 10 miles further south was Arcadia and oh joy, a bit further south the airfield. I landed, having wasted 25 minutes in the air looking for the airfield. I had a 10-minute rest and was off to Bartow. Before Bartow, which was easy to find, I contacted the controller and requested permission to enter his airspace and to do three stops and goes. He cleared me to enter right base for 9R. I reported base and was cleared to stop and go.  Again, a right pattern and this time I was very high coming in. I landed long and rolled over half of the quite long runway.  Not having been to Bartow before I requested taxi back to the start of the RW. Another annoyed controller reminded me that I had requested stop and go. I confirmed this and explained that due to my long landing I wanted more runway for the take-off. I was given taxi back to 9L, took off on another right pattern and did 2 more uneventful landings and take-offs. It was then back to Winter Haven. It is almost impossible to describe the joy, when you are 3,000ft up and see your home airfield’s familiar runways appearing in front of you. “Winter Haven traffic, Warrior 32990 is 5 miles south of airfield, flying overhead to join 45 to downwind runway 11, Winter Haven”. I was home and another milestone passed. Tomorrow would be my QXC (Qualifying Cross Country), which is an official test of my navigational and airmanship skills, such as they might be.

Summary after 15 days:
Flown:  3 hours.
Total flying time: 42 hours and 33 minutes.
Solo: 8 hours.
Day 1 – Day 13 – Day 14 – Day 15 – Day 16 – Day 17 – Day 23

Based on my experiences yesterday, I did a very thorough job planning the next cross-country. We would fly out of Winter Haven to Melbourne (Florida, not Australia). From Melbourne we would fly to Bartow and from Bartow back to Winter Haven. I made sure that all my visual references points were to the side of the aircraft so I could check when we were abeam. I used the big interstates and only the biggest and most characteristically shaped lakes. After a chat with the weather briefer who today was much more forthcoming than yesterday, I put in the winds aloft, calculated flight time and headings and we were off.  I was nervous but quite happy with how the first leg progressed. The right stuff appeared about where and when they were supposed to and suddenly we were about 12 miles from Melbourne. I had looked up all the frequencies and had noticed something strange with Melbourne: It had two tower frequencies with no explanation why. Sometimes, with big international airports, there are frequencies for traffic inbound from the east and another for the west and/or north and south. In those cases, it normally says in the directory which is which, but there was no such annotations. Well, I listened to my chosen frequency and it was very busy. I waited until it sounded like there was a pause and “Melbourne Tower, Warrior 32990”. He came back immediately: “Aircraft calling: Don’t!”  Woops.  I waited a little while and he came back: “Aircraft calling, repeat”.  “Warrior 32990, 10 miles west of Melbourne, altitude 2,500ft inbound for touch and go”.  He came angrily back: “Warrior-990, turn immediate left onto 010. You are using the wrong freq, call tower on 124.05”. I coolly replied: “Heading 010, frequency change to 124.05, Warrior-990”. Did I hell. I completely panicked. All my practice and careful planning was out the window, my Danish accent is never worse than when I feel under severe stress and man, did I feel stressed. Gerry picked up the conversation and made the calls. However, I needed to get back “on the horse” and called the tower back on 124.05. IT WAS THE SAME F……. GUY! This time he cleared me to enter downwind right for runway 27R report crossing interstate. We were now back on my practiced track and I actually managed to say: “Cleared for right downwind, runway 27 right, wilco”. I made the call crossing the interstate and he requested I reported when midfield downwind. Before I reached midfield, I got: “Warrior-990, you are cleared to land runway 27R”. I did not pick up his mistake (aha!) and instead replied: “Cleared to land, 27 right, Warrior-990”. Besides being my first venture into controlled airspace, it was also my first venture into a right hand pattern. It was not as hard as I had feared and I found myself a little high but on track for 27R. I landed (It was hard not to, the runway is huge), raised flaps, set my carburettor heat to cool, turned power off and within 10 seconds, I was airborne again. That is when the “fun” started: “WARRIOR-990 STATE YOUR INTENTIONS!”. “Departing to the west, Warrior-990” Why was I in trouble?  “WARRIOR-990, IT MIGHT BE HELPFUL NEXT TIME YOU DO A TOUCH AND GO, YOU TELL ME IN ADVANCE!” Now, I knew I had originally told him, but you NEVER argue on air with a controller, so I meekly apologised. In retrospect I spotted where it went wrong. When he cleared me to “land”, I should have corrected him and reminded him that my request had been for a touch and go. Instead, I was so eager to do “the right thing” and correctly read back the clearance, as I am required, that I forgot to actually take the whole clearance on board.  Gerry didn’t catch it either, until we were told off”. Heh, I am going back to Melbourne tomorrow for my first solo cross-country. Out of Melbourne, it was onto Bartow where the controller is very friendly. And then it came from Gerry: “Bartow is closed, divert to Wauchula.” My simulated diversion. I guestimated a heading of 210 and noted the time. I then drew a line from my present position to Wauchula, read off the correct true heading, adjusted for magnetic variance (4°W) and wind. Correct heading was actually 230 and I changed my present heading to that. I then measured the distance, 43 miles and with a ground speed of 88 knots, we would reach destination 30 minutes after I started the diversion. I calculated the expected arrival time handed the figures off to Gerry and assumed that would be it. We would return to our original flight plan to Bartow. The one that I had spent hours sweating over the night before. I had flown for nearly 1½ hour and I was tired. He had to be joking that we were actually going to Wauchula… but he was not.  I read some of the visual references from the ground to the map and I was happy with the progress. 1 minute before I had estimated, we were overhead Wauchula airport. Another diversion, this time to Miami!  “Come on, you must be joking this time!”  He was. I did, however, have to do another diversion back to Bartow from Wauchula. I found Bartow, contacted the controller, did my touch and go and was off again.  This time I could take off on a planned heading back to Winter Haven. Was I happy when I saw Winter Haven airport appear? You bet! I joined downwind and landed. Completely exhausted. At night, we were going to do patterns night flying, but the landing light on 990 is really bad so after one circuit Gerry suggested we switched to 401. I suggested we called it a day. This is very hard work.

Summary after 14 days:
Flown: 2 hour and 30 minutes.
Total flying time: 39 hours and 33 minutes.
Solo: 5 hours.
Day 1 – Day 12 – Day 13 – Day 14 – Day 15 – Day 16 – Day 23

We had planned to push off on an early cross-country after yesterday’s late night solos. I had done the preliminary flight planning the evening before; all I needed was to call “my friend” at the weather briefing office to get the winds aloft so I could calculate our headings and flight times.  Before I did this, I did two very scientific meteorological investigations: First, I pulled back the curtains and looked outside.  Whoa, that did not look good. Fog. I then called the airfield’s automatic weather reporter. It’s an automatic weather station linked up to a speech computer.  Winds were 4 knots, sky overcast with cloud layer starting at 100ft!  I was not too concerned though, as that sort of weather typically clears up quickly when the sun gets to it.  It was then on to my weather-briefer for a personal forecast. They ask for your aircraft ID, your routing and your planned altitudes and off they go.  More bad news:  Thunderstorms forecast for whole area, heavy rain, visibility down to 2 miles etc. He ended on the dreaded phrase: VFR not recommended.  It is a bit of a “funny” thing this.  You think that air traffic controllers, tower personnel, Flight Center people, Clearance Delivery people and aviation weather forecasters could tell someone: “You can’t fly”.  However, none of them can.  An air traffic controller controls a piece of airspace and can tell you if s/he will let you fly in that particular space. There is in the end one, and only one person deciding on whether to take off or not: The pilot in command.  So when a weather briefer tells you “VFR not recommended” it is a euphemism for “You are a bloody maniac if you fly VFR (Visual Flight Rules as opposed to instruments) in this weather”. Before leaving for the school, back in England I read an interesting book going through about 40 case studies on light aircraft crashes most of them fatal. The books title was: “They called it Pilot Error” and it referred to the conclusion on the investigation.  Almost all accidents are in the end down to pilot error. Even when the aircraft mechanically fails, the pre-flight checks if performed properly would typically have identified the issue.  Another typical “pilot error” is flying when a weather briefer states “VFR not recommended”.   So I spent the morning and lunchtime studying for my written and oral FAA exam and in the afternoon, I went over to the school where we could follow the weather on the internet. There were radar images and forecasts etc.  We could see at that point that the squall line (line of thunderstorms) had moved (and was moving) away from us and our route and we set sail. It was again a very educating experience. I think it is a public secret that my navigational abilities at the best of times leave a bit to be desired. Well, it does not get any easier at 3,000ft where there are no town signs, no road signs etc. On a 1½ flight between four airports I managed to get us really lost only once. I also learned not to fly straight over my visual reference points (you cannot se them – it is not a glass bottom aircraft!). One issue is, I am really having problems visualising headings of ground objects such as roads or runways.  Conceptually I understand what needs to be done but I just do not seem to be able to do it in practice. I sure hope that will come.  I felt tired, but not too bad when we returned home early evening. Tomorrow will be the second dual cross-country, this one into controlled airspace and on Friday it will be my first solo cross-country, which will also be into controlled airspace. Saturday is set up for my qualifying cross-country where I have to fly at least 150 miles, visit 2 airports I have not been to before and get signatures from an official at each airport to document that I was there. All without crashing, annoying the FAA or worst (and most likely) of all: Getting lost!

Summary after 13 days:

Flown: 1 hour and 48 minutes.

Total flying time: 37 hours and 3 minutes.

Solo: 5 hours.

Day 1– Day 11 – Day 12 – Day 13 – Day 14 – Day 15 – Day 23

Today was the day I was going to crack through the 5 hours mandatory pattern/landings training so we could push on with the cross country/navigational training.  In the morning, we flew dual for ¾ of an hour in mist or near fog to go through some of the different approaches and landings and I then flew solo for a further ¾ of an hour. I was due a 2 hours break before completing my solo time with a 2-hour session. However, the engine on the aircraft we are mainly flying, 990, had twice conked out on us as we were braking hard on the runway. All though that is obviously not such a serious place for an engine to die it does make you a little uneasy flying it at 900ft above trees, roads and houses as you approach the runway. An instructor who took the plane for a spin while I had my break was not at all happy with the sound and it was turned over to our magician mechanic.  So I was out of an airplane and could instead use all afternoon planning and plotting tomorrow’s cross-country. As it happened, 990 was made ready just before sunset but 401 returned home at 17:30 and I quickly pre-checked it, had one ride with Gerry and off it was to the circuit. It was raining lightly but still with 10km visibility. Not a lot to report except for one interesting thing I took away: Checklists are good. I had never flown solo for more than one whole hour before and the evening session lasted 1:42. Towards the end, I obviously started to get tired and I lost concentration. The landings themselves did not suffer, they are pretty much there now, but the approach and the small things slipped. Once I found myself on base without flaps extended and ended up way too high and made my first decided go-around. I was actually straight over the middle line and the runway is very long so I would have made it somewhere long down half of the runway, but it would have been ugly and it gave me a chance to practice go-arounds. For the last 20 minutes, it was getting darker and the runway lights was turned on. I knew I had to do at least two more circuits to make the whole 5 hours in total. The penultimate pattern was OK, and it was off to the last. I tried to remember everything while keeping an eye out for another Warrior that was just one leg ahead of me in the pattern. I was downwind, having done my checks, extended 10° of flaps and the other warrior had called final so at my turning point I started my turn and called left base. Two things suddenly struck me: 1) I had no idea where the other Warrior was and 2) on the previous patterns they had a tendency to do very long downwinds and thus very long finals. In other words, they could at this very moment be zooming towards me from the right doing more than 100mph and I did not know.  Rule 1: Always have aircrafts before in the pattern in sight before making turns. I was feeling very uncomfortable for at least 10 seconds while trying not to panic. I gave full throttle to climb above final altitude so at the very least they would creep under me, when I finally saw them about 100ft and 20 seconds away from the runway. Panic over, I headed towards the last rays of the sun over runway 22 and enjoyed the pretty view of runway lights and approach path guide lights. I landed, taxied to the parking area and wrote down the numbers. I had, right on the exact minute, achieved my 5 hours solo flight.

Summary after 12 days:
Flown: 3 hours and 18 minutes.
Total flying time: 35 hours and 15 minutes.
Solo: 5 hours.
Day 1 – Day 10 – Day 11 – Day 12 – Day 13 – Day 14 – Day 23

Yesterday had been a good day with respect to getting up this steep learning curve and today was a bit of a let down.  I had, for the first time, dreamt about flying during the night. Specifically landings.  In my dreams, they were going really well.  With all that practice, you would think I would pick up in the morning and just do it.  Well, up she went, around and down again… and not very well. Typically either too high, or too much to the right etc etc.  Not my day.  After an hour and 30 minutes in the pattern, that is about 15 take-offs and landings – but using the word “landings” in the widest possible sense – we called it quits for the morning session. My sunglasses had broken too so I was flying without sunglasses.  Besides the fact, it makes you look distinctly un-cool without, sunglasses are actually really necessary because you fly a rectangle and at one point or another, you will be flying and looking into the sun. I had forgotten to wear my baseball cap as well so I was sweating into my eyes and when I walked away from the aircraft, I was feeling a bit miserable.  I knew, however, that I had learned something (albeit just a little) up there, that I was getting even a little better and (though it sounds funny) I took some comfort from the fact that all though my landings were poor they were consistent(ly poor).  At least I had a few specific points I had to work on; I was not all over the place.

I was moving residence from a student’s house about 10 miles away to some student flats virtually next to the flight school.  My clothes etc. took about double the space compared to when Jackie packed it… ah well. The reason for the move was the departure of a number of students. There was the Welsh housemate Allan. After passing the FFA skills test, where he said he did terribly and the FAA examiner phoned the school up afterwards to congratulate them on such a perfect student(!), he did a cross country on his new license and was today flying back to Gatwick to drive Thomas the Tank Engine somewhere in Wales over the Easter Holidays. It appears he was also a steam engine locomotive driver.  Yesterday while driving back to the house we had to wait at a railroad crossing.  He got out his camera to photograph the engine pulling the 1-mile long monster.  I asked him if he wanted me to note down the number for him and he declined with the comment: “I’m not sad!” Right. However, I hope he will write me next time he drives Thomas so I can fly out there with Hans. An English guy who had come for his IMC (and gotten it) went back as did another Brit who was “hour-building”. Many of the guys flying from the school have their certificate but are building up hour so they can get enough experience to go for the next level up towards a commercial air-traffic license.

When I passed one of the otherwise always shut private hangars on the way to the plane, for the first time it was open!  In this huge hangar, about the same size as the one at Fairoaks holding all their aircrafts was one Citation Jet. It was beautiful. I walked in and there was a guy standing with his head in one of the jet engines. Gerry informed me discretely that it was the pilot/owner!  I asked the guy very politely if I could take a look and surprisingly enough, I was merrily permitted.  It was unbelievable.  It was so polished on the outside that it was only matched by the inside.  Seating for about 10-12 passengers in first class leather seats with mahogany tables etc etc.  It was obvious from looking at it, he never flew it, just nursed it, but man was it nice.

In the afternoon, we took off and flew north to Lakeland. Next week will be a nightmare there, as they are expecting ½ million visitors to “Sun’n’Fun”. On the runway in front of us was… the citation jet from earlier! It flew all right, with the same guy who had been messing with the jet engine earlier, at the controls.  If he flew that aircraft AND had it in an inside/outside pristine condition as the one we were looking at, he must spend his whole live in that hangar. Before dream went into overdrive: A normal lottery win would not help here; we are talking double if not triple roll over!  After the citation, we scurried down runway 04 towards Lakeland. Lakeland is a Class Delta airport with some pretty big machines and we called the tower to announce our intention to land.  A very cheerful voice came back on the radio instructing us we should report back 5 miles south of the runway. We did and were given clearance for long final landing. On the ground, changing to the ground frequency, we requested taxi to the shop, this was cleared, and we parked the airplane in the shop’s airplane parking area. Hop out, walk in, and I found myself in a very big showroom with all the gadgets and gizmos you could possibly imagine.  I did my shopping; we looked around the new terminal building and hopped back in to fly back to Winter Haven. When we called the ground to request taxi with the intention to return to Winter Haven we had a cheerful: “Fancy that, Warrior 990 returning to Winter Haven”.  990 is the aircraft used for instrument training and Lakeland is the closest airport with full ILS and VOR instrument approach utilities so they probably see more of 990 than anyone else. Back at Winter Haven we did a few pattern for good measure, I had not improved significantly and that was it for the day’s flying.

Gerry had offered to drive me out to Tampa to meet Jackie and the family as they arrived. He would have flown but it takes a little preparation as Tampa is Class Bravo airspace and it is faster to land instruments and that requires various documentation etc. So we drove, met everyone as they arrived, helped collect their luggage and saw them off on their way to their hotel. On the way back we stopped at a redneck bar for a great burger and two pitchers of beer.  I had 1.5 glass of beer, Gerry the rest. I drove him back to his place and took myself back to mine.  I promised myself not to dream about landings and I went as easily and quickly to sleep as I had the other nights.

Summary after 6 days
Flown: 2 hours and 29 minutes.
Total flying time: 15 hours and 43 minutes.
Solo: 0 hours and 0 minutes.
Day 1 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Day 8 – Day 23