Much to do about nothing

Having finished my Instrument Rating I have a few days break then start my Airline Transport Pilots Licence (ATPL). The ATPL is a must have if you wish to fly large carrier airliners or be able to charge money for working as a pilot.

The course is a total of six months. It is broken into into 2 modules each lasting 3 months and covers 7 subjects in each module. This means one thing, 14 more big and heavy books to read.

This all starts on Monday so I'm sure I'll give you more details then but for now it means I have a couple of days rest, calm before the storm if you like.

Unfortunately due to money being tight there is very little I can do on these rest days because most things cost too much. That said today I had to do something as I'm going a little stir crazy at home (having done all the cleaning and ironing) and from the sounds of things so are my colleagues on the course. Initial ideas were to drive to South Beach in Miami but after 2 of the guys got very very drunk the night before and were not able to stand until late afternoon the next day that idea has been shelved.

We ended up going to a crazy golf course followed by the Cheesecake Factory and finally rolled to the Irish pub to sit outside and relax.

The crazy golf was good fun and is certainly different from any I had played in the UK with its waterfalls, caves etc but I was satisfied with my final score and coming a close second out of the 4 of us that went.

I love the Cheesecake Factory, the food is always great but the portions are just stupidly large, no wonder half of America is obese if this is their normal portion size.

The portions are so huge that I could imagine them doing some sort of charity advert. "Just donate $16 dollars and we will donate one main portion to the feed somewhere obscure appeal, that's enough to feed a small country for 1 year".

I struggled through my main but couldn't believe there were people sitting across from us that had managed starters, mains with sides and desert!

All of us thoroughly stuffed we decided to go and relax on 5th Avenue (the main high street in Naples) at the Irish pub called "Paddy Murphy's". This is the typical hangout for most of the students and instructors at the flying school and within about 20minutes our numbers had swelled from the original 5 of us to 25+.

Because I was driving I wasn't drinking just sitting back relaxing joining in the conversations. Then it struck me, when growing up my mum always complained to my dad that if they went out with flying friends the conversation would be solely dominated by flying and she would be bored stiff. I had always found the conversations intriguing even if I had not fully understood them at the time but today here I was doing just the same thing as my dad and couldn't help but think how bored my mum would have been had she been here (but I was loving it).

Instrument Rating Exam

Its the 19th May I'm tucked up in bed, fast asleep and enjoying the last hour and a bit before having to get up and get ready for the day ahead.

Today is the day of my final instrument flight exam, the flight is booked for 4pm, in preparation for the exam as usual there is some forms and paperwork to be completed. Unfortunately the paperwork is booked in for 10am which was the only free slot left so I'm going to need to get up at 9am at the latest, nerves have kept me awake for most of the night but I'm finally asleep and so was going to rest as much as possible to be ready for the exam.

7:45am RING RING! My cell phone goes off, rudely awakening me from my sleep. I look at my phone and see its the Air Center calling. Trying to snap myself awake so that I don't sound like I have just woken I answer the phone. A voice drones, "Good morning Mr Knight, we have you booked into do your exam at 4pm this afternoon would you mind coming in to do the paperwork before then?" Trying (but probably failing) to sound awake and as polite to the person who had just abruptly woken me to tell me I needed to do something that I already had booked to do, I informed them that it was already booked said goodbye and forced myself to get up. If I went back to sleep now I would probably sleep through my alarm.

The paperwork takes about an hour but is eventually signed off ready for this afternoon all I have to do now is wait. I decided not to go home but to stay at the Air Center as there were thunderstorms in the region and I wanted to keep an eye on the weather to see if I would actually get to do my test, it didn't look promising. The weather did slowly get better as my nerves rapidly got worse.

An hour before I'm due to fly the examiner pokes his head around the door and asks if I fancy going a bit early. The next hour was surprisingly relaxed, Steve (the examiner) would ask me to demonstrate something then would pretend to look back at his newspaper. The reason I say "pretend" is when I glanced over I noticed the page he was supposedly reading was a big advert with very little text on plus the fact that the paper was upside down was also a give away. Everything seemed to go well apart from the 2 instruments that failed on me while flying. After landing Steve informed me I had passed! I felt as if a great weight had been lifted and spent the rest of the day grinning inanely.

A long way from here to there, longer if you dont have your papers

A fortnight ago I came home for a brief break. The flight home was the most uncomfortable flight I have ever been on; because I was traveling on concessions and the plane was fully booked so I was given a crew jump seat. A jump seat is a temporary chairs that fold out on an aircraft for the crew to sit on. Imagine sitting on one of those old wooden benches the school gym used to have and you have the idea of how comfortable they are, now imagine sitting on it for 9hrs! Arriving back in the UK felt great I was back where the English people were not some oddity that stick out due to our accents (most anyway) it had a real I'm home feeling to it, I found it funny how everyone was telling me how great and warm the weather was at a sunny 18'c as I was shivering after being used to 28'c.

After 24 hours I realised I was missing Naples but just wished I could just somehow fit everyone into my suitcase and take them with me. The first few days I spent seeing friends and with Loren visiting London etc then off to Devon to spend time with the Family and play on the boat.

All too soon the 10 day visit was over and it was time to head back to Florida. This time the aircraft was empty and thus I got a very nice seat and the flight went smoothly, once we landed I texted my housemate who was picking me up from the airport to let him know that I have landed so should be out soon (or so I though).

I was first off the aircraft and one of the first to customs, I was called up to the desk as normal to give my fingerprints and passport checked etc as normal. The customs agent looked at me a little odd then asked me to go wait in a queue at the other side of the room, took my passport and docs, slipped them into a red folder and handed them to another office to be whisked away! I didn't know what was going on but I have been through enough airports to know this isn't normal.

Once my special queue had a few more people in it we were all led off to a holding room full of people (mostly Mexican and Hispanic) and heavily armed officers and were told to find a space to sit and wait until we were called. As in the US embassy all cell phones, PDAs and laptops were banned so I couldn't even let my housemate know what was going on. Still not knowing what was wrong I was left to wait in this room for 3hrs until I was eventually called to an interview room.

I was then informed to my surprise that my VISA had been automatically canceled as I supposedly hadn't turned up to my course when it started which was a surprise to me. The officers then asked me to prove I had turned up and that the system was wrong. This seemed simple enough with the things I had on me so I pulled out my new FAA pilots licence which I had gained that at Naples Air Center, I also had several docs that had been signed and dated by the school owner just days before I had returned to the UK and photos of me being at the air center etc but the officers claimed that none of these things proved anything as they could all be fake!

I suggested they call the Air center to confirm it with them but by now the air center had closed for the day and everyone had gone home. They then tried to test my knowledge on my training which went fine except I cringed when I herd myself answer the question "What do you plan to do with you licences once you have finished your course?" with "I plan to bomb around Europe" Bomb! not a good word to use at an airport in America but apart from another odd look they took that no further.

As I was taking my foot out my mouth I was then informed that they will shortly pick one of three options to decided what they would do with me:

1. If I could prove that I had been training and the system was wrong then they would let me into the US with no further issue.


2. Charge me $500 cash for a 30 day pass which would allow me to get the paperwork sorted


3. Deport me back to the UK and ban me from having a VISA for 5 years!

Obviously I wanted option 1, Option 2 wasn't really possible as I don't carry a spare $500 cash with me and option 3 would have ended my training as I must have a VISA to train.

I gave the officers the numbers for everyone I knew in Florida as they needed to get hold of the school owner and i figured someone must have the owners number. I watched with baited breath as the officers slowly work through the numbers most only going to answering machine. When they ran out of numbers they said that's it and started trying to decide option 2 or 3. Tapping away on their computer suddenly the phone rings, its Nicki the owner of the flight school who confirms that I had turned up and sent a fax to confirm this in writing. I was finally free to go, the time was 8:10pm, I had arrived at 3pm, at this point I'm exhausted and very hungry just another 2hr drive to get from Miami to Naples and I'd finally be home!

Im back safe and sound now ready to get back to my course but have just found out it had been delayed 2 weeks!