Flight Test
Trip Start
Jul 06, 2007
1
8
12
Trip End
Sep 05, 2007
Ormond Beach, Florida
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
An eventful week by all accounts. Last week started with a change in the weather, and the haze finally moved, so Russell and myself headed south solo to Melbourne International Airport (in Florida...not Australia), and this was a great flight because we flew firstly over Daytona Airport and the famous international speedway, as you can gather from the pics.
Further south, we were flying parallel to the Kennedy Space Centre, and the shuttle runway, which is one of the longest in the world. My photos turned out s*** of the rest of the trip so I haven't posted them here. Russell was waiting for me on the ground at Melbourne, but I decided to head straight back to the runway and took off for Ormond, and won the race lol. All in all, it made a welcome change to be flying south for a change.
Later in the week, we went to Gainesville once again, and to Craig Airport, which is in the suburbs of Jacksonville, and it was pretty cool to be flying into an urban area like that. So I managed to get quite a few hours in last week, and most importantly, managed to venture further than the circuit at Ormond.
A guy called Paul Davidge was here for a week hour-building from Gatwick, and I went up for a few hours with him in a Cessna, which was good to observe someone else fly. After his last landing, Air Traffic Control (ATC) told him to taxy off the runway at Bravo, to which Paul replied, just as he had threatened to all week, in the campest way imagineable, "Super, Thank You Very Much." You could visibly see other planes quivering as all the lads were pissing themselves in the circuit, and ATC asking, "sorry, repeat...".
On Sunday morning, I went and did just under two hours in the circuit, and felt the wind increasing a little, so decided to land and wait a while to see if it would die down. Later that day, the supervisor on duty told Russell and myself that he wouldn't be 'signing us off' to go cross country because the weather wasn't too good.
So we sat down to plan a few routes for later in the week. About five minutes later, I was walking across the reception area when my instructor Kevin practically jumped over the desk shouting a Liberty had just crashed. As he tore out the door, I followed about two steps behind and saw flames in the grass close to one of the runways. I ran back inside and roared for the others and we all darted across the airfield. Kevin and another guy who works at the airport got across first, and I saw someone limping away from the plane.
The pilot, James, had only gone solo the previous day. He is still critical in hospital with 60% 3rd degree burns, and wasn't expected to make it this long. We were all obviously very shook at seeing one of us like that.
There is always a risk in aviation, but seeing a plane I flew only three days previously now in flames, and a house mate being airlifted to hospital really hits hard. It so easily could have been anyone of us. Seeing our airport and the pictures of a burning plane we had all flown as the main news item on television was not something any of us were expecting to witness.
The following day, Monday, the mood was pretty somber. Only a few of the guys flew, myself preferring to remain on the ground. Mike from Kildare decided he had enough and was packing it in.
On Tuesday, I arrived at the airport, and the Chief Flight Instructor, Ken, asked if I had my flight test planned, which I had, as I had been waiting around a week to do it.
So off we went early on Tuesday morning, flying to the north of Ormond, bound for Gainesville and Clermont. The first part of the test was simply one circuit, a take off and 'touch 'n go'. Part two of the test involved abandoning the flight plan for an alternate site, which I found no bother, then a demonstration of a stall and recovery, managing an engine failure, flying with a visor to demonstrate ability to fly on instruments alone, steep turns and back into Ormond for a landing without flaps, which is pretty damn fast. Anyway, the relief was palpable when I landed 'flaplessly'.
Ken turns to me and says 'well done', and with that I had completed everything for the Private Pilot's License. The initial celebration was to go to our resident Chef's canteen, Barbara, and have a greasy breakfast. After that, the duty fell to me to pack up James's things from the house so they could be brought to the hospital.
As the winds were also high on Tuesday, a few of us rented a car for the day and went to Daytona, the 'mall', Walmart, and basically escaped Ormond and the airport for a few hours.
The remaining two weeks will have me trying to get in as many hours as I can. I don't envisage getting all the course finished at this stage, but I'm very happy indeed with finally getting the license, and sure I can do what I can't get done at a later stage.
The investigation into the crash is on-going, but we have a rough idea what had happened. And again, it could easily have been any of us.
Talk to you soon, and at this stage I can say I'll be seeing you soon too.
Dave x
