Oz

Home sweet home. Only back in Oz 2 days I have been struck by several things.

1. Australia has become expensive. Not helped by the outrageous exchange rates on offer from Travelex at Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne where I sold GBP/AUD at a rate not seen since when. 

£40 got me 49 Australian dollars. 49 Australian Dollars!!!! 3.5 years ago when I left this ''Lucky Country'' 40 quid would get me 100 bucks. It strikes you at every corner. 50 Aussie bucks for brunch at a cafe for 3 of you? 55 bucks for 3 sandwiches and soft drinks from a seaside cafe? 250 Aussie bucks for a two course dinner for 3 where no one drinks more than a glass of wine each? 160 Bucks to get a taxi from the airport to home? 

2. No one but no one dresses up for a good restaurant meal. I've come to the conclusion that the idea of dressing up for an evening meal for an Aussie man is simply to ensure your shirt has sleeves. 

3. The Aussie accent is broad and you know you are home when the waitress says '' Hi guys watchya think you will have to eat?'' and then when you tell her she replies '' good onya'' and raises both thumbs upwards. I kid you not. God bless. 

4. Australia has become a police state. An hour drive to the beach yesterday and I counted more camera's than you'd see in Dixons.

5. Almost every car is Japanese and it's a rare sight when you see something from Europe.

So very similar to the vista at Brighton Beach in the UK...or.....not!

Another crowded Aussie beach

Stainless steel cutlery!

' Heathrow chaos '' screamed The Daily Mail

'' UK at a standstill '' bellowed the The Times

'' A disgrace'' said The Sun

You can therefore imagine it was with some trepidation that I turned off the alarm at 5.15am and stumbled into the study to check the latest update on our flight from London to Abu Dhabi. '' On schedule'' was what greeted me as I logged onto the Etihad website and so to the airport I went with not a lot of confidence that what I had read would prove to be the truth in reality. It was a reservation with some credibility.Stories had been circulating in the press the previous evening of over 500,000 people stranded at various UK airports and of people settling down to their 3rd or 4th night inside any one of the 5 Heathrow terminals. All of this a consequence of some seasonal weather that had included snow over the past 2-3 days.

Arriving at T4 we were greeted with countless number of people bunkered down on the floor wrapped in silver space blankets and long queues of people seemingly going nowhere fast. They all had one thing in common. That desultory look on their faces that told you they were both tired and lost in a vacuous state of mental numbness bought about by a lack of communication from the airlines as to when they would be leaving what had become their temporary home.

With all the deftness of a rally driver on ice I manouvred the trolley cart between hundreds of bodies lying prostate on the floor and approached the Etihad area for check in. Somewhat surprised that we were the only ones in the queue I doubled checked to ensure that we were both in the right area and this was in fact the flight for Melbourne via Abu Dhabi. Correct on both fronts. 

As I slumped my bag onto the weighing tray I expressed my surprise at the lack of queue to the Etihad staff member.

'' We don't do queues at Etihad '' came the curt response. 

Checked in, it was a hurried and almost guilt laden walk through to security lest one of the hundreds of lost souls grappled me to the floor demanding to know how I dare circumvent the misery they had been through. Security was a barren landscape of staff waiting to check the occasional passenger who might have lucked their way into the departure area. 

Elapsed time from kerbside to check in to clearing security? 9 minutes.

Now I have never flown Etihad before but at this stage they were getting all the credit for this dream like and somewhat surreal experience. 

State owned and run, it is clearly an airline that can afford to provide the travel experience we all enjoyed in the past and desperately wished for in the future. 

You might say it was the check in that impressed me. Or you could say it was the friendly nature of the staff. Conversely was it the spacious aircraft or the expansive entertainment system? 

It was all of the above and more. What was the ''more''? 

Stainless steel cutlery with your meals and a meal you could legally call food. 

I haven't eaten with stainless steel cutlery in economy on any airline since the days when you could also smoke on a plane. I remember those days of a bygone era with unexplainable nostalgia. Battling your way through the haze of smoke wafting above rows 49 through to 55 as you made your way to the toilets at the rear has left an indelible mark on my memory of travel. 

Airlines have for a long time passed off the necessity of plastic cutlery on the need for improved security following 9/11. Never mind the myriad of contradictions this policy entails. For instance you still use stainless steel in First Class (what? terrorists can't afford to travel at the pointy end?) and they still serve you wine in minature glass bottles that could easily be broken and used as a weapon. 

Security has become a facade for cost cutting.  

I wonder what excuse then for the often served dross they call food?

Fear no longer though. Etihad's menu is extensive and broad catering for your every need. They even offer a selection of different coffees ( cappuccino , latte or espresso ) with your post dinner chocolates.

You'd think my corporate drooling over this experience was perhaps bought about by a sponsorship deal with the airline. But unfortunately it hasn't. It's just being such an incredible experience that I felt compelled to share it.

Not QANTAS or BA or Cathay for me going forward when I have to do the London-Australasia trip. Etihad all the way baby. Can't recommend it highly enough.

and so to home...with some after thoughts

38 days in Florida comes to an end.

38 days in which I saw two days of rain.

It did get marginally cooler throughout the month but for all intents and purposes every day was the same. Cool morning, clear skies, warm to very warm afternoons and mild evenings.

It was all conducive to flying and plenty of it.

Thoughts?

There are plenty and here is a brief synopsis.

Naples is an 'unreal' town. It is flat.Most of the residents have migrated from the midwest or upper east coast and you would be hard pressed to find anyone that has resided there longer than 10 years. It is a town of very old money and very very large and somewhat ostentatious houses. It is a town whose airport lays host to a tremendous amount of private jets.It is a town of gated communities of which there is an abundance. There are few to no African-Americans in the town.There are plenty of Baptists. It is spread out and lacking in any meaningful infrastructure. The result of which is that everyone drives everywhere. There are no nightclubs or any visible form of vice. Its town council is ultra conservative. Its biggest tourist attraction is its Zoo. Its second biggest tourist attraction is its pier. I found its most attractive asset to be its beach and in particular its beach at sunset. Ending the day with a beer in hand (wrapped in a brown paper bag), gazing westward across the Gulf of Mexico facing a setting sun was something I did often and thoroughly enjoyed. Would I go back? Only to visit a good friend and his wife. I could never live there.

The flying school I used was disorganised and lacked structure or any meaningful schedule. This despite a pre-course sit down discussion with one of the owners where we outlined my goals and the timeframe I had to work within. Given what happened 9 years ago (9/11) I was astounded at the lack of attention to detail and more so security. Especially in regards to accessing the tarmac.The only time the owners (who were also the senior management and therefore responsible for the day to day running of the operation) interacted with the pupils was to ask for more cash. All the students there had the same gripes and very few if none said they would use them again. That said. You couldn't fault the location to learn to fly. It was top shelf.

Florida itself seems caught in a time warp and I wasn't surprised to discover it has one of the poorer performing state economies with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the USA. It is ignorant to paint the entire country with the same brushstroke dipped from the easel of one solitary state but I saw plenty that goes a long way towards explaining why the US faces the challenges it does today and in a broader sense some of these points illustrate why the western world is struggling.

1. There are too many big cars, either SUV's or saloons guzzling way too much fuel.

2. There is no visible, reliable public transport infrastructure in any of the towns or cities I visited and this even applies to Miami where I was shocked at what little was on offer

3. Waste. There is an absolute abundance of it at every turn. Supermarkets continue to bag everything once or twice over in plastic. But where the word waste reared its head largest was in restaurants. The amount of food served and not eaten is simply mind boggling. Portions are beyond ridiculously large in size. The amount not eaten and binned even more so. Gardens and public parks were watered at the height of midday(admittedly with bore water) and there seem to be no conscious effort made whatsoever to preserve any form of energy or natural resource.It got me thinking that surely there is an opportunity to re-distribute the food waste to the poor and homeless. There just wouldn't be any money in it.

4. The state of public highways and particularly bridges is very poor.

5. There was an overzealous local highway patrol in Naples as there was in Key West as there was in Miami. I saw more people pulled over by police in my 5 weeks than I have in my last 45 years.Despite this everyone seems to drink drive quite regularly and the highway speed limit of 70mph is treated as advisory only. (In the state of Florida you can buy a clean licence if you rack up too many demerit points)

6. The incentive for good service (ie: the lure of a good tip) is fast disappearing. Many of the restaurants now add a 18.5 % service tip to your bill. The bit I love most (not) is that it works like this. Your food and wine bill is say 100 USD. You then get lumped with state taxes and it goes to 111.00 USD. They then add 18.5% service charge (ie;tip) on top of the 111.00 USD. But the best bit? They still leave the ''tip'' column empty for any unsuspecting person to add even more. I asked several people about this and was told they do it for two reasons. It allows restaurants to now control the amount staff get for tips and many use it to subsidise the minimum wage they are expected to pay the staff who are now worse off. Furthermore the IRS now can tax on tips earned by the staff as it is all documented. There goes your incentive for good service. If a waiter knows they are in for 18.5% regardless of how they treat you then your concerns are not theirs anymore.

7. Homelessness and mentally ill destitutes is a very real and sad issue. There weren't that many examples in Naples but aplenty in Kew West and more in Miami where the gulf between the haves and have nots was eye opening.

The irony of it

8. Bank owned houses and businesses are too many to count. I'm told that most banks will now accept anywhere between 20 and 30 cents to the dollar on the houses and buildings they now find themselves owning as a result of the massive amount of defaulted loans over the last 3 years.

9. Mexican migrant labour does all the menial jobs.

10. English is not the first and most widespread language spoken in southern Florida. Spanish is. If you wanted to operate any business in this part of the world you would need to know how to speak Spanish if you were to give yourself a realistic chance of being successful.

11. Ever restaurant has at least one TV.

12. The best place to get a breakfast is still the ubiquitous ''American Diner''

13. The weather is truly great and the people very friendly 

All that said its a good state to visit. Key West in particular was a highlight. Laid back, liberal, small enough to be quaint but large enough to be interesting and it is somewhere I would definitely go back to. I'm told June is the best month.

Not sure where I go to with my flying next but am leaning towards firstly my instrument rating and multi engine ratings, then see where that leads me.

Am off to Oz on Tuesday the 21st and may even blog from there.

Take care y'all and have pleasant xmas.

North to South beach

Key West to South Beach Miami is a pleasant drive. A range of Keys (small islands to anyone else in the world) bound together by a series of bridges and a single road. The I-1. The overall impression is of an area stuck in the late 1970's to early 1980's when money came flooding into town but has since long dried up. This must surely be powerboat capital of the world and given the glut of supply surely it must be one of the cheaper places to pick yourself a nice run about for a cheap dollar or two.

I-1 heading north to Miami

Then Miami. Now let me correct any misperceptions you may have (as I did) about South Beach Miami.It is not a part of Miami city proper. It is not a southern beach of Miami. And in no way does it represent true Miami. South beach is in fact a small island off the east coast of Florida linked to Miami by 3 bridges. That is where the connection and similarity stops.

South Beach is all about ''beautiful people''.

South beach is all about image.

South beach is about ostentatious displays of wealth and owning a bright yellow Lamborghini. Or a white one. Or a black one. Or a red one. Hey! Let's buy a pink one !! Seriously. I almost wept.

South beach is about art deco hotels and buildings.

South beach is about the beach itself and colourful life guard huts.

South beach is about working out on the boardwalk and trying to make it look effortless and good at the same time.

South beach is about people watching.

South beach is about having brunch at the Delano Hotel and having Susan Sarandon sit down at the next table!

South beach is expensive.

South beach is about having brunch at Jerry's 24 hour diner the following day for 1/10th the cost!

It all makes for great theatre and great fun for a couple of days.

I could never live here though.

South beach lifeguard HQ

The photographer getting photographed

North on the I-1

If San Francisco is the city of choice for the gay population of the USA then Key West must surely be where they go for holiday. There is a massive gay presence in this small city slash town and their very being makes for a more lively, charismatic, colourful city slash town with a genteel feeling lacking in most other cities in the USA. I would recommend Key West to most but moreso those with an interest in anything to do with the water. If you do come to KW then make sure you do lunch at Louies Backyard (http://www.louiesbackyard.com/). I've had the privilege to eat at many great restaurants and this ranks up there. Take a table on the Wisconsin aged pine balcony with views out over the crystal clear and warm waters of the Atlantic towards Cuba. Do nothing more than imbibe upon one of the great wine lists of the world and gorge yourself on the freshest of seafood menus. When they come to request my last meal on death row I'm going to ask for the menu from here.

The view from Louie's

Key West was one of the homes of Ernest Hemingway and primarily so because of the great fishing here.  Little wonder then that he penned " Old man and the sea ' whilst residing here. Some other interesting, or not, facts about Mr Hemingway.

He supported the wrong side in both the Spanish and Cuban civil wars. He was married 4 times. He fathered 3 children of which all were boys. He loved cats and gave protection to the local 6 toed cat which still reside in his house (all 44 of them). His house in Key West is 40 metres from the local lighthouse which he used to navigate himself home to each night after an evening of booze. He promoted several professional boxing fights in his time and set up a boxing ring in his back garden for young aspiring boxers to train in. He committed suicide in 1961 after being exiled from Cuba when Mr Fidel took power and he lost most of his manuscripts. His fortune is administered by his oldest son out of Idaho.

From Key West today it was north up the I-1 to Miami.

Several questions for the panel and for you to ponder.

1. I walked past a shop front today and it said Psychic readings done here  . I was wondering. If I walked in would she say '' I've been expecting you '' ???

 2. I also walked past an adult entertainment house (cum brothel) and on the billboard outside it said Live Adults. Well there is a relief

3. I drove past a a billboard that said Cafe-Bakery..Made to order. Either that is one very industrious family of carpenters or a gross misrepresentation of the truth.

Miami. You have to see it to believe it. It is the city (and particularly South Beach)of the beautiful and if not naturally blessed with looks then there is a lot of people trying very hard to be so. It is also the cruise ship capital of the world. Little wonder then that everything here seems to have a 30-40% premium over anything that you can buy or order in Kew West or Naples.

More on Miami tomorrow.

A floating apartment block departing Miami (aka Norwegian Epic)

Go figure

U.S. Route 1 is a major north–south U.S. Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs 2,377 miles (3,825 km) from Key West, Florida, north to Fort Kent, Maine, at the Canadian border. U.S. 1 generally parallels Interstate 95, though it is significantly farther west (inland) between Jacksonville, Florida and Petersburg, Virginia. The highway connects most of the major cities of the east coast, including Miami, Florida; Jacksonville, Florida; Augusta, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina; Cary, North Carolina; Raleigh, North Carolina; Richmond, Virginia; Washington, D.C.; Baltimore, Maryland; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Newark, New Jersey; New York City; New Haven, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; Boston, Massachusetts; and Portland, Maine.

So no prizes for guessing where Captain Nick is then. Key West! Departed Naples yesterday and drove 6 hours down through the Everglades National Park to a small town called Homestead which is where the 'Florida Keys' commence. 'Keys' denotes island. There is no shortage of them here and if the Maldives and Kiribati people are worried about global warming and a possible oceanic flood then so too should these folk. The highest point of elevation is the bridges you cross to get from one key to the next with the highest point of most islands (keys) seemingly inches above the high tide mark. At one point a disused bridge connecting two keys is now the longest fishing pier in the world at seven miles in length.

Key West is everything that Naples is not. Liberal, easy going, laid back, has an abundance of character, possess a soul, and you can walk everywhere to where you want to be. There is seemingly a lot of people here who are running away from lives gone awry in other parts of the USA and the world. No one I have met was actually born or raised here and there are plenty of 'drifter' looking types. There also seems to be a healthy sprinkle of artists and 'alternative life' seekers residing here and some of them have gone to the extent of stamping their possessions with what they perceive to be their own artistic talent (see below). I imagine that if you did the same thing in Naples you'd find yourself locked up in either a cell or straight-jacket pretty smart-ish.

Key West also proclaims to be the southernmost point of continental USA. I contest that on the grounds that you cross 22 bridges and 9 islands to get here. Can it still be part of the same continent? There is a large land based buoy (pronounced ''bu-ee'') here stating that you are at the southern most point of the USA. Yet 3 metres away is a large fence ringed naval base that extends another mile southwards.Go figure. Interestingly a few years back I went to Hawaii and travelled to the 'Big Island' which is also called Hawaii and then took a car trip to the southern tip of the island and there I read the same proclamations.'Southern most point of the USA.'

Again.Go figure.

Who's your daddy ?!!?

That would be me! Captain Nick!!!

Amongst several things that piece of paper says is

 ''..the above mentioned applicant has been found to properly qualified and is thereby authorized (sic) in accordance of issuance or the reverse of this certificate to exercise the privileges of : Private Pilot...''

Two words - Wooooooo Hoooooooo

Tire (sic) Plus

Let me just preface what I'm about to type with a little bit of a self perspective reality check. If what happened to me today is the worse thing that occurs to me this year I will be a happy boy. I'm living the dream so a good dose of reality is required and no sympathy sought. However it makes for an almost comically absurd day.

The day started badly and only went downhill. You recall the final exam and check ride I was due to do Friday got pushed to Saturday ? Then it was pushed to Monday (today) because of incorrect birth dates on documents ?

Well I awake this am and get into car t 8.30am. Flat tyre (spelt tire in the USA). I drive down to Hertz with a temporary wheel now attached and with greased and blackened hands and jeans. Hertz tell me to go to Tire Plus to get a patch on the wheel. Tire Plus tell me the tread on aforementioned tyre is now below legal Florida standards for a patch and I have to purchase a new tyre. Cost ? 185 USD. Time it takes for me to converse them through the issue and have tyre replaced ? 1 hour and 20 minutes. During this time I have the joy of watching the in house reception TV and a show called ''Paternity Test''. Primarily a show whose participants are clearly from a socio economic class lower than that even found in trailer parks who are invited to appear before a live TV audience and discover whether they are in fact the real father of the child their partner has borne. Quality TV. One woman had 3 of her cousins on a couch opposite her claiming that one of them was the father of her child but she was not sure as she had slept with all 3. Yes. Her cousins !!!!!!

 The host has the DNA documentation in his hand and it goes like this.

Host - (addressing the 3 men ) ....'' Dwayne.....you are not the father ! '' At this point Dwayne gets up and high fives half the audience and jives around the stage as though he has just won lotto.

Host - '' Shawn.....you are not the father ! ''  For Shawn's reaction read above for Dwayne's.

Host - '' Alfonso....you are not the father !'' For Alfonso's reaction read above for Dwayne and Shawn and mulitply by 5.

Cries of disbelief from the audience. Woman runs from stage in hysterics and host follows her off stage to where she is being consoled by her sister.

Host - '' I'm so sorry. But when you think you have discovered who the father in fact is, we would love to have you back on the show.''

It was actually pretty sad to watch.

More on the 185 USD later

So I arrive at airport and the day gets worse. Go into exam room for a little one on one time with my FAA examiner who asks to see my documentation again. His furrowed brow has me break out in a visible sweat.

Examiner- ''Err. Your ground theory exam which you did 2 weeks ago and passed has your name as Nicholas David Waite on the document. Your pilots licence however has your name as Nicholas David Aaron Waite. Thus we cannot proceed.''

His hair brain idea to get around the problem was for me to drop the name Aaron from my licence. I quickly pointed out to him that this would come back to bite me in my rotund behind when the next spot check was done by the FAA on my documentation when I was in the plane and my licence showed my names as being Nicholas David Waite whereas my passport and other supporting ID proof all showed it to be Nicholas David Aaron Waite.

Several words spring to mind here none of which I can use.

So he calls the FAA to get resolution on the issue. All of the FAA is at lunch and the 4 different people we call all have phones that ring out and we get voicemail. So examiner tells me to come back at 1.30pm.

I return at 1.30pm. FAA states I can either re-sit the massive ground theory exam for free under my full name or pay 200 USD  to re-submit the documentation.

1.45pm start the exam some 2 hours late. Get 1.5 hours into it and the examiner tells me he has another appointment to go to and with all the bureaucratic issues this morning we have to adjourn the exam until tomorrow. Tuesday.

So the exam that was set for Friday, pushed to Saturday, pushed to Monday, now looks set for Tuesday.

100 bucks says the weather tomorrow is unflyable.

Again I cannot mention the words running amok in my mind at this stage. Needless to say I' m sure you can well imagine.

As for the Hertz tyre ? Well by days end I was ready to fight anyone. 65 minutes in the Naples Hertz office and after several discussions with the manager about exactly what was included in my car insurance he agreed to a 150 USD rebate. Transpires the insurance I took out covers absolutely everything except the tyres and the rims. You couldn't script it.

Quality with a capital K

I have access to 375...yes 375 channels of TV...

Here's a summary...it is all quality

Channel     Whats on it

2    Perfect Health
3    Judge Brown
8    Body makeover
10  Marketplace wisdom
11  George Bush Library (yer kidding me right ? )
12  Great Gifts
19 Electronic Gifts
20  Shrek
21  SwingVote
26  EL! Married to Rock
28  Pretty in Pink
33 Credit and you
38 Make yourself rich
46 Snoopy come home
49 Anger management
51 The millionaire matchmaker
52 Getting the best out of your gutbuster
56 Rocky ( this channel gets my vote....all 5 Rocky films..one after the other...24/7 )
57 Girls high school volleyball
67  Too many babies ?
68  Confessions - Animal hoarding
69  Dangerous Drives
79  Diners, Drive-ins and Dives
80  18 and Pregnant
81  America's top model
83 Plastic surgery gone wrong
89  Shopping on demand
92  Anti aging Fountain of youth
94  Python Hunters
97  Getting the best out of your viagra
111 Deadly women
113 WWII in colour
114 Stranger in my bed
118 America's next top model (not to be confused with America's top model)
130 Muppets from space
134 Police - True stories from the nations crime busters
137 American Gladiators
150 Confessions of a shopaholic
162 Where the hell is that gold?
174 Why did I marry her?
183 My worst habit


And so it goes on and on and on.....I think you get the story.....

Sadly I think I have watched at least half of them !

The perils of Bureaucracy

So the psychological rollercoaster continues. After my instructor assured me last Saturday that I would be ready to do my final check ride and exam on Friday he then pushed it back to Saturday when he realised he had forgotten to teach me something. So. I turn up on Saturday all mentally prepared and the exam doesn't get past 5 minutes.

Here in the USA your pilots medical doubles as your student pilot licence and the Dr who examined me when I arrived was responsible for its issuance.The examiner(Chief Flying instructor at the school) looks at my student pilot licence and notes that the birth date on it says 02/03/65 as the Dr issued.

Examiner - Err when is your birthday ?

Me - Err, March 2 1965 (Yes I know. Getting old)

Examiner - Well on this document it says 02/03/65 which in any country but this one would be correct. According to this document then your birthday is February 3rd, 1965 and that is what the Dr has input into the system. To enable us to even get started we need to have the right birthday in the system. So I'm afraid you will have to wait until Monday and get the Dr to change the certificate and put the correct birth date into the system

Me - (initially relatively restrained) Well that's a hassle. How bout we just do the exam now with the check ride and we do the admin on Monday ?

Examiner - No can do. I'm sorry it is totally out of my control

Me - (not so restrained) So you are telling me that I have been enrolled and flying at this school for a month with an illegal document ?

Examiner - Yes you could say that and I'm not sure how that has happened which is something I will have to look into.

I cant even begin to type what I said next. So Monday it is. Supposedly.

Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff..............

http://www.wambergam.com

I do not know what exactly these guys do but they do seem to have the right approach to enjoying the fruit of their labours. Every day I have walked past this nondescript door in the airport carpark  and wondered what was behind it. Today they had their main door open. Inside were two small planes and a private jet that had just been rolled out onto the tarmac. Also in the hangar and parked in the corner and out of sight of my probing lens was a red Ferrari - 1956 500 Testa Rossa. 

Wamberg toys

Wamberg ''get me anywhere fast '' exec jet

The Americans are observing Thanksgiving day tomorrow so it is a day off from flying despite my instructor being English and me Australian. He also had the gall to tell me today that my final check ride and exam was now to be scheduled for Saturday and not Friday as previously planned. So collective crossing of fingers and toes on Saturday please. Given it is an 'observation of Thanksgiving' tomorrow here are some of my own observations of late.

1. No one in this town rides a motorcycle with a helmet. (When asked why I was told '' it is your constitutional right in the state of Florida to have the right to choose)

2. There is a Macdonalds that I pass every morning at 6.25am en route to the airport. It is a stand alone building in the middle of a car park. I counted 17 cars parked outside it this morning and 3 cars in the drive-thru bay. At 6.25 am. Mmm

3. You can legally use your mobile phone to make and receive calls whilst you drive. Again '' it is your constitutional right in the state of Florida''

4. You cannot text and drive

5. If you want to eat at the best table at any restaurant simply book it for any time past 8.00pm. Absolutely no one eats late. Zippo. Zilch. None. Zero. Restaurants here resemble a cemetery at 8.01pm. When I asked where people go, I was told '' home to sleep''

6. Because you have to drive everywhere no one drinks at meals and if they do it is one glass of Californian chardonnay.

7. Most of the people I have seen eating, regardless of socio-economic background do not know how to hold a knife and fork. I sat across the bar tonight from a guy whose parents look loaded. She was dripping more gold than the furnace at the Xstrata plant in Kalgoolie and his father was googling private jets for sale on his ipad. Regardless he was clasping his fork like he was trying to choke a chicken and his knife with a meat cleaver grip. It was gruesome to watch, but a scene played out multiple times that same evening in the same restaurant. 

8. One of the local radio stations which used to play half decent music is now xmas tunes and songs only 24 hours a day. You can listen to jingle bells sung 45 different ways and I think I have heard 33 of them...rap,soul,jazz,harmonic,country,indie,home,classic,opera, etc etc...

9. Another local station ''Fox 4'' has done nothing but debate the furore over the introduction of pat down security checks at airports and the infringement of your 4th amendment rights this process imposes. These being the same guys of course who then complain that the security of the USA has been weakened by its lack of security. Go figure. I have an idea. Why not just ask everyone to walk through a bomb proof capsule that pulsates out a signal designed to trigger any explosive device you have on you. 

10. No one. I mean absolutely no one walks anywhere

and finally

11. Every country song has the same melody and storyline and goes something like this

If it is sung by a guy... 

I was tempted by the bottle and I got home late

I stunk of cheap perfume and you kicked me out of the house

I drove my truck back out of the garage and ran over the cat

I turned up to work late and my boss sacked my ass

I'm now broke and lonely and got no life

I hunker for the days when life was better

I hunker for the days when you and me were straight

Im asking you for forgivness and so too that of the lord

I know I can do it but I need your help

 etc etc etc blah blah blah

If sung by a girl

You were tempted by the bottle and you got home late

You stunk of cheap perfume and so I kicked you out of the house

You ran over my pet cat that I have had since I was 5 

I heard you were late for work and yer boss whupped yer ass

My life has been better since I pawned that diamond ring you gave me

I'm loving living with the quarterback who I should've married before you

You can ask me for forgivness but there aint no way yer getting it

My life is full now of love and the lord

etc etc etc etc blah blah blah

Blue rinse country

Flying a plane across country with multiple airport stops on your own is one sure fire way of attaining a ''heightened level of anxiety.'' Especially when your first attempt to do so on Saturday had to be aborted 10 nm (nautical miles) from your first stop because of thick bushfire smoke. So I set off today to attempt the same route again in order fulfil one of the requirements of the standard FAA qualification process. That being ''solo cross country navigation to 2 separate airports with a total travelling distance of more than 150 nm (172 miles or 275 KM ).'' Took off from Naples, headed northwest to a small town called Pahokee. 70 nm in distance. Encountered rain and haze enroute. Landed. Just.  Polar fitness equipment don't make a heart rate monitor with an index high enough to measure mine when I got out of the plane. Got one of the local FAA administrators to sign a document testifying I had landed there and was by myself. Go to toilet.Took off and headed west to Charlotte County airport. 52 NM in distance. Landed. How, I don't know as there was a fierce cross wind blowing and at one stage I thought I was going to park myself directly into the Hertz rental car park outside the perimeter fence as opposed to landing on Runway 15. Again get an administrator to sign a document. Again go to toilet, and then took off for Naples. 70 nm away. Land. Go to toilet.

Supposedly all this is done by pure chart reading and plotting. Well it was in part but I was certainly grateful for the Garmin GPS sitting alongside the instruments.

What makes landing at these airports a tad more difficult than at Naples is that both Pahokee and Charlotte County are non control tower monitored meaning you self announce your intentions as you descend and do battle with every other jockey out there as to who is landing when and where. Charlotte in particular was interesting because it is the budget airline centre for the southwest coast of Florida. There sitting in front of me on the taxiway and self announcing his departure was a 737 from an airline I have never heard of before. One second I'm going to google it. Allegiance or something. Close. www.allegiantair.com

All in all an interesting experience and another box ticked.

Now all that remains is 2 hours of night flight and then I'm ready for my final exam and check ride.
This involves sitting with a FAA examiner for 2 hours or so and he verbally tests you on your knowledge of the aircraft and procedures then you take him for an equally long flight and he tests your ability to fly the thing. That is going to happen on Friday. Gulp.

Observation of the day- The only people who own Cadillacs in this part of the world, are 85 or older, can barely see over the dash, sit hunched over the wheel 3 inches from the front windscreen and drive as erratically as a rabbit with myxomatosis runs.

Oh, and have a wife with a blue rinse.

Sometimes the best view is behind you

5.37 pm looking westward over the Gulf of Mexico the sun begins to sink below the horizon

5.37 pm and sneaking up behind the 400 or so people standing on the beach looking westward the moon begins its evening patrol over mother earth.

Im starting to scare myself.

Lions and gates

The presence of a zoo evokes an interesting internal debate with me. On the one side the animal lover in me sees them as cruel and degrading of animals and their right to roam free. Whilst the pragmatic side of me sees a worth in their ability to afford those less fortunate a chance to see fauna that in all likelyhood they will never see in the wild. There is of course the child educational value to them as well. I'm more inclined to be a believer in their worth if they also embrace a breeding program for endangered animals such as the Panda.

Why the introspective start to the blog ? Well, given it is a Sunday and my one day off for the week I was struggling to think of things to do when it struck me that I had driven past the Naples Zoo countless times enroute to the flying school. Which animals would it hold I thought and so on another warm cloudless Florida day with the temperature a pleasant 27 degrees I ventured downtown to find out.  This thought process in itself gives you an insight to the not so exciting make up of Naples. I mean seriously. There can't be much to a town if going to the zoo by yourself is one of the last entertaining things you can think of doing. I should have given myself a left uppercut for even entertaining the idea and stayed at home to watch some sport. However I did not and off I ventured.

Here is quick synopsis of what I saw. As you can imagine there is an alligator enclosure. Sadly also a collection of big cats who all looked a long way from home and very very bored. Lion and Lioness , Bengal Tigers x 3, American Cougars x 3, Black Bears x 2, Giraffe x 6, alligators x a gazzillion,  primates x alot, Hyena x 2 and lo behold over in ''Kangaroo Corner'' was a lazy looking Skippy looking very bemused by the attention it was getting. 60 minutes is all it took before I found myself bored and so I headed back home to my own gated community. The irony of that did not pass me by.

Two very bored looking big cats

One very tall and bored looking Giraffe

Skippy and rather industrially sized set of ......

A rather regal looking Bengal Tiger

Gated communities. Now there is a subject that I have had plenty of time to think about this last week or so since I moved into one. Below are two snapshots that give you an insight 

As far as I can ascertain there are two types of gated communities. There is the stock standard one as per above where I'm residing with automatic gates and then there is the gated community with security manned gates where you basically have to carry a passport to gain entry. So to mine. Every house is the same colour, same design, with the same facade, and the same exterior lights. But for planting an American flag on your porch you are not allowed to change the external makeup of your house in any way shape or form. Entering these ''communities'' gives you the  impression you have just walked onto one of those sets for a TV series like Melrose Place. As far as I can ascertain the average age of resident here is 102 (not a typo), I have yet to see a child and the car of choice is a Cadillac. I find it somewhat bemusing that despite the imposing looking gates the entire complex is surrounded by a 7 foot hedge. Now this hedge does not mask a fence and nor does it provide an impenetrable barrier. This I discovered last night when staggering home I couldn't be arsed walking around to the gates so I simply walked through the hedge. So let me get this right. Surround yourself with gates to give the impression of security and yet enable any would be burglar or car thief direct access through the hedge. Whatsmore let's assist that car thief by making the exit gates open automatically when a car approaches. It seems to me to be almost representative of American society as a whole today. All facade, no solidity. 

Living in these communities comes with a whole set of rules and regulations you must abide by and the list is long believe you me. I just don't get it. If you moved here from a large house in the midwest why would you give up that space to live in such close quarters with someone that you can hear what they are watching on TV and smell what they are cooking. On the other hand if you are coming down here to live from a major sized city where your life has been spent in an apartment why wouldn't you buy somewhere with space of which there is plenty down here and very affordable.

Gated communities ? Not for me.

The Sahara

Some of you may recall I did a cross country navigation a few days ago from Naples to Venice beach with my instructor. Well. Today it was my turn to do it solo. 2 hours of pre-flight planning and I had the keys to N954AC and the plane to myself. Flying somewhere sounds pretty simple. You would think you just get it up in the air , point it in the general direction and from that height be able to see relatively easily ahead of yourself to where you want to go. 

There is a bit more to it. Just a bit more. 

There are factors such as wind, fuel consumption , altitude, true course heading, magnetic course heading, wind variation component, other aircraft traffic, and correct radio frequencies, correct RPM, airpseed, ground speed, amongst others. In between all this it is not as though you have an instructor with 1,500 hours of flying time sitting next to you who can correct any mistakes. You can therefore probably understand why as I taxied down Alpha taxiway towards Runway 5 my knees had the shakes. Just smalls. My mouth was dry and trying to swallow was harder than trying to eat a Carrs water cracker in the Sahara in summer whilst standing in front of a air dryer. 

The flight was from Naples to Venice a distance of 65 nautical miles ( 76 miles ), a brief touch down, continue rolling and take off  and return. 152 miles there and back. 2 hours flying time or thereabouts.

The route takes you north from Naples and you follow the coast to Venice passing the main approach corridor for Fort Meyers International Airport where you get to communicate on the same frequency as the big boys in their 737 and 777's. There is something mildly amusing about being on the same frequency as a commercial jet liner descending from 15,000 ft at 400 knots while you putt putt along at 3,500ft at 102 knots. The heart goes up a bit when you see him straight ahead and level with you passing across your vision from right to left and Fort Meyers International Control asking you to descend to 2,500ft to give him some room. 

The return leg from Venice to Naples seemed to take half the time of the outward leg and it was not long before I was receiving clearance to land from Naples tower on the very same runway I had departed some 2 hours earlier.

I even found the time to take some photo's thinking that if they fished me out of the Gulf of Mexico at least there would be proof I went down enjoying myself !

Self portrait of boy with sh*t eating grin at 3,500ft.  If you could see my left hand which was clasped firmly on the yoke you'd notice the knuckles were whiter than a Utah salt pan. 

On the homeward leg I took this. (Below)

Do you think this property developer is re-thinking his idea that turning 2,000 acres of swamp into a residential development  was a money spinner ? My instructor later told me that those roads and subdivisions were all completed 3 years ago and not a sod of earth has been tossed since. I wonder which one of the many banks I see in Naples is holding the title deed to that development right now.

My pre flight planning papers (below)

The top paper is for the first leg from Naples (KAPF) to Venice (KVNC) and the second is for the return leg. You will notice the return leg is 0.5 mile shorter. That is because I took a more direct route home. I think !

Take the top sheet and middle row from N.I. to KVNC.  

N.I. is Naples Inlet and a starting point for geographic reference once I had climbed out of KAPF (Naples).

2,500 ft represents my cruising altitude. To the right, 060 represents the wind direction at that level and 19 represents the wind velocity in knots at that level. Under them is 9. That represents in degrees centigrade the temperature at that level. Moving to the right you see 104. That represents my true airspeed at that level. 327 represents degree of the true course heading I have plotted from N.I. to KVNC. Under it is 11. That is the amount of variation in compass degrees I have to take into account for the wind which is blowing from the right. I add that to my true course and it gives me true heading. I then have to add 4 degrees for magnetic variation and that finally gives me my mean heading. Some aircraft have a magnetic impact on their compasses so you would also have to take this into account (this plane did not) to finally give you CH . Course heading. This is the final heading you aim the plane along. 

57.5 represents the amount of NM form Naples Inlet to Venice and 103 represents my ground speed taking into account the wind. 33.5 is my estimated elapsed time in minutes for that leg and 5 is the amount of fuel in gallons I expect to burn during that time. All those numbers in the bottom right are various radio and navigational codes that I will also use. 

Remembering of course this is simply one leg of the outward trip

Easy huh ?

The good news is that tomorrow, weather permitting I get to do it all again but this time with multiple airports where I have to stop, get out, get some paperwork signed and then head off to another airport. I hope Florida SAR (Search and Rescue ) is up to speed with their locate and recover skills.