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.