We'll the last few days have been extremely busy flying, studying and getting settled (which is why I haven't updated the blog). Yesterday was so hot that I had to study by the pool which was nice (its a hard life but someone has to live it).
I studied at home most of the day as I was due to fly at night. All is going well until I went to school to find my instructor has gone home ill and so no flying yesterday!Today started badly and got progressively worse, firstly my alarm failed to go off. I was due to be flying by 7 so needed to up about 5:20 so I could get to the airport in time for checks, planning etc... at 6:35 I wake up with that odd sensation that I have been to sleep for too long (Anything over 5 hours it seems) and should be up. I managed to convince myself that all was well but to be safe had to check the watch and then the rush began.
Because of yesterdays night flights not happening I managed to cancel my second and third flight and reschedule them for this evening. This freed me up to go look for a car which it has become obvious to me is a must have item when doing this course.
I found a nice 2002 Chrysler for sale only $2500 phoned the dealer who informed me that the car was still for sale. This was good news as the last 10+ that I have phoned about have been sold within hours of being listed. Anyway, the car was available and I had the morning off so decided to take the hour long drive to the dealer to look at the car.
An hour later I pull into the dealership to see a crowd of people around the car I'm interested in. Speaking with the dealer they had just sold the car to another wholesaler, Doh!
On my way to my night flight I had to drop the hire car off, fortunately they are dropped off and picked up from the airport I'm training at. With no car I wandered over to the training center to see if my instructor had made it in but the doors were locked! Eventually my instructor turned up, I started my checks and found the aircraft was empty and needed refueling. This isn't unusual, normally you just let the training center know and they call out the fuel truck. The fuel truck turned up but started to filling the wrong plane because my instructor gave the wrong reg to the operators.
Night flying is an odd thing when you are used to only ever flying during the day, its very pretty as you see cars like ants driving down I75 through the everglade or the sparkle of Naples. Then you fly across to Pahokee which is neer enough east coast Florida and there is noting around you its pitch black and all you can do to find your way is follow a little pointer in the aeroplane which is pointing at a radio beacon at your destination. Once you get to your destination you need to switch on the runway lights and set the brightness. This is quite neat as you do it by clicking the talk button a given number of times and on come the light as if by magic.
It's a funny thing approaching an airfield at night; height is very difficult to perceive and if you go to airports without approach aids judging (as I did) you'll approach thinking all is well but the problem is the little light on the front of the aircraft has about a 30ft range so all of a sudden just in front of you appears the runway markings and you realise you are about 20ft lower than your depth perception had been telling you and you need to pull up or go face first into the runway (which is not good for your health).
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