Simon's Flying Training

New blog

2007-01-11T02:55:00.000-07:00

I think a few people haven't realised that there is a new blog at http://davidson-uk.blogspot.com

Alas, I haven't been terribly good at updating the new blog, but hopefully I'll get some decent things on there soon. If only this horrid UK weather would settle down so I could actually fly.... been back in the UK for 2 months, flown twice. Grrrr......

Mission complete, bugging out and going home

2006-11-13T20:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry this is a little late, but it's been a very busy weekend for us. I guess the biggest news is that on Friday I took my Commercial Pilots License skills test. It was quite a day, starting very early in the morning and keeping my nerves on a knife edge until about 5pm.
My test was scheduled for noon, and my examiner was notorious for being incredibly tough. I arrived early in the morning as there was a chance that I could have flown earlier, but in any case I had to be there to sit in on the same briefing as my friend Toddy, who was scheduled to fly before me. The first part of the skills test is a navigation to a destination chosen by the examiner, and asI'd obtained the route the night before, I was able to prepare my plan before arriving at the airport. One of the problems with the route I'd been given was that it wasn't 'quite right'. The destination was an airfield called 'EDS' (how ironic, given I used to work for E.D.S.) - and the normal departure to head down that way would be the 'Gila Crossing transition'. The examiner however had asked for a 'Twin Lakes departure' - and for those who know about these things, know that a straight line from Twin Lakes to EDS takes you perilously close to the Estrella mountains, through the German training area Alpha, and very close to Sky Harbor Class Bravo airspace. I felt I had no choice but to make the journey two legs, with a slight detour south before turning on course to EDS. When I had my briefing I was expecting all kinds of trouble, but he was actually very impressed that I had noticed all these things, and made a PIC decision on where would go. Big sigh of relief...
Toddy went and did his CPL test, which left me with a few hours to kill. Unfortunately for me the winds aloft data was changed mid-morning (a rare occurrence) - which meant I had to re-do all my navigation. Not a major hardship, but slightly annoying.
When Toddy got back (having flown well and passed) - the examiner asked me to go pre-flight the aircraft and get whatever fuel I needed. I headed down, checked everything over and tried in vain to find a fuel truck. None to be found. I trudged back up to dispatch and asked them to radio the fuellers, which they did. Back down to the aircraft, arranged the fuel, and watched while the fueller checked the oil levels - then felt my jaw thud onto the concrete when I watched him drop the oil filler cap inside the engine. Oh My F*cking God! I could have strangled him with the chocks!
Back up to dispatch to tell them what had happened, and to ask for another Seneca - in case they couldn't retrieve the filler cap. I then had to re-calculate the mass & balance, take off and landing distances, and prepare to pre-flight another aircraft. I then found that I was out of CG limits with the new plane, so had to re-do it all AGAIN, accounting for an extra 50 pounds of ballast. All that sorted, and with the examiner being unusually reasonable, I headed down to pre-flight. On the way I noticed a group of mechanics around the original aircraft, and it seemed by fluke they had recovered the filler cap. Woohoo! Back up to dispatch for the original aircraft tech log, and I was good to go. The examiner then showed a moment of weakness in his usual brusque demeanour, and told me to go chill out for ten minutes.
I took the break, then we both headed out for my test. It was pretty hot by then, and the wind was coming from the north east, which meant runway 3 was in use. I never like using runway 3, so wasn't overjoyed by this turn of events, and my worries were confirmed when I made my first slip up when turning downwind after take off. Having only had 10 hours tuition in the Seneca, not all the procedures are automatic, and I found myself levelling off at 2500 feet on downwind, and setting the aircraft up for cruise config. Completely forgetting that in 30 seconds I would be needing to climb up to 5500 feet for the first leg of the navigation. True enough, 30 seconds later I have to change the mixtures, propellors and power back to climb config... damn. At least I didn't leave it in cruise and try to climb...
The Navigation went perfectly I'm pleased to say. Literally to the very second that I had planned, we were directly above where I said we would be. Couldn't have asked for anything better, I was very pleased. When we were reaching the destination he asked me to divert to a small helicopter strip up north. I carried out the procedure for the diversion, then turned on course. This part went really well too, the heading looked good and the distances and times were looking nice too. Unfortunately, at some point during the diversion I lost my folding plotter down the side of my seat, and couldn't retrieve it. This caused a slight problem when he then asked me for a position fix using a VOR and DME. I had to use my pencil as a straight line against the VOR, and get a rough idea of what 10nm was by using the radius of the VOR rose... it worked out ok, but no where near as accurate as I would have preferred.
As we got nearer the diversion area, he was happy that all had gone well, and asked me to put the hood on so I could do some instrument flying. This went ok, not my finest performance but not bad either. I demonstrated turns, climbs, unusual attitude recovery - all that good stuff. As a break to my waffling - here's a short video of an unusual attitude practise. I am flying on instruments, so cannot see outside the aircraft. My instructor takes control and throws the aircraft around a bit to disorient me, then basically sticks it on its side and points it at the ground, then tells me to recover.

After the instrument work was done, it was time to demonstrate some general handling - steep turns, clean stall, base-to-final stall, and final approach stall. All of these went ok - we had a near miss at one point though when I had to break out of the steep turn early to avoid an aircraft on a collision course with us. The examiner hadn't spotted it, and started to chastise me for levelling the wings without him saying so, when the closing aircraft buzzed right past us...
Once I'd finished all those, it was time to use the GPS and navigate to Chandler Airport for some pattern work. Again I made a slight error by calling Chandler Tower a bit too soon, but my instructor had always said to make sure I was too soon rather than too late, so it could have been worse. I entered the pattern at Chandler with no problems, and set myself up for the first approach. This was a two engine approach with a two engine go around. No problems there, so back round for a flapless approach with a touch and go. Again, no problems - only this time on the climb out he covered the throttle quadrant and 'failed' one of my engines. I brought the aircraft under control then identified the 'dead' engine, carrying out the proper procedure. I then flew the circuit asymmetrically, and as previously briefed waited until ACA (Asymmetric Committal Altitude) before flying a single engine go around. I then flew another circuit with one engine, only this time brought the aircraft in for a touch and go (regaining the use of my 'dead' engine for the landing and take off).
We departed Chandler to the south west, and upon reaching 3500 feet he told me my right hand engine was on fire. This time I was required to shut the engine down completely on my own, following the necessary drills. After a short while he then asked me to restart the engine - offering no assistance at all, which makes it that much harder as you need one hand on the starter, one hand on the throttle, and one hand on the control column....
With the engine started, it was time to head back to Goodyear. I made a note of the current ATIS, then called up Goodyear Tower and told them who I was, where I was, and what I wanted. They told me to enter for left traffic for runway 21, which prompted me to question them as the ATIS had just said runway 03 in use. I think my examiner was impressed that I hadn't just blindly followed ATC's instructions. One problem with the approach back to Goodyear was I had to avoid the airspace near PIR (Phoenix International Raceway) as there was NASCAR racing in progress. This meant a direct left base entry instead of the usual downwind entry - which meant no way of knowing when to start the timer and lower the gear and flaps. It all worked out ok as it happens, and I got us back on the ground safely. I was then asked to go back to full power for a take off, and as soon as we were on full power he then adopted the brace position and called out 'STOP STOP STOP' - which had me shutting the power off and bringing us to a halt on the runway (or near enough - he was satisfied I would have stopped us safely and squarely)
Off the runway, and it was back to parking. On the way back to parking I pointed out that I had been receiving intermittent failures on the gear down lights, and he said 'That's your landings son, it's a runway not an aircraft carrier'. Cheeky bugger! I had been instructed to plonk the plane down on the runway and not grease it (When I later told my instructor about this he just said 'if he told you that, you must have been doing something right')

And that was that. Back into his office for a debrief, and to be told I had passed. I could have hugged him! This now means I am a fully fledged Commercial Pilot, and a good step nearer to an airline. I'm so relieved it's untrue, but also a little bit sad. No flying for a few weeks now, and probably won't fly in Phoenix for a very long time, if at all. It's such a good feeling to be done with it all though. I was the fifth guy from our course to finish, and I finished a day earlier than the timetable planned. Considering I started 3 weeks late due to the TSA problem, I'm really pleased. I've really pushed myself these last few weeks, but as a good friend says - 'You only get out what you put in'.

The only damper on Friday was the problem that manifested regarding all of our return flights to the UK. There had been a slight error regarding our return dates, which meant a lot of stress on my part, and me setting my alarm at 4am Saturday to try and get hold of people in the UK to get things resolved.
The rest of Saturday was really nice. We did a quick trip to Walmart to buy a couple of extra cases, then went round to visit Damien, Aine, Joshua and Clare. We all had a dip in the pool, then drove down to TGI Fridays for a bite to eat. Or lots of bites - as the portions are monstrous! A rack of ribs with Jack Daniels sauce later, and I was suitably stuffed.

Yesterday (Sunday) - we did a bit more last minute shopping at Target then headed to Barnes & Noble for the last time. We said our goodbyes, then headed home. Jeroen came round a while later, and we all drove down to Johnny Rockets for some quick tea. We were a bit disappointed to find the table top jukeboxes out of order, but the food and service were up to their usual high standard. We had a lovely meal, then back to our place for a chill out.

This morning I was up quite early, so headed down to the airport to get my logbook stamped and signed, and also handed in all the bits of gear (headset, maps etc)
I called in and saw a couple of guys too. I bumped into 'big' Steve and had a nice chat with him, then headed round to see 'little' Steve for a chat with him. He has his CPL this coming week too, and I'm sure he'll do brilliantly. I feel very fortunate to have been his flying buddy for this last month or so. He's a great guy, and a fantastic pilot. Steve - it has been an honour and a pleasure to fly with you. I wish you all the very best for your last few flights and your skills test, and look forward to seeing you back in Oxford in a couple of weeks.

This afternoon we drove down to Arizona Mills for a wander round, treating Georgia to a ride on the horsey carousel, and also to some Haagen Daaz. We bought a few more things in the outlet shops, then drove back home. We still have a bit of packing left to do, but we should be on time for tomorrow afternoon - when we will say goodbye to our apartment and drive to Phoenix Sky Harbor and hopefully get the BA 747 back to Heathrow.

It's been a hell of a journey these last 20 weeks. We've had some great times and some bad times, but it has mostly been incredibly enjoyable and exciting. I still can't believe I came over here in June having never flown an aircraft, and leave here in November a fully fledged pilot. Or 'Pirate' as Georgia says - 'Daddy Pirate'. I guess she'll be disappointed when I don't bring out the parrot, eye patch and hook...

One thing I do know for sure is I am incredibly thankful to my wife Clare. I couldn't have gotten through these last 12 months without her by my side. She has been my rock - and I can't even begin to say how much I love her. I am so glad we stuck to our guns and kept our family together - it has been expensive, yes - but also so rewarding. I look forward to the next few months, as we take our little adventure back home to the UK. This will be the last entry I make here, but you can follow our progress at my other blog HERE

To all those who have been following us, I thank you, and hope you stay tuned to see what adventures befall us in the coming months.

Adios Amigos

Simon.

Final Week

2006-11-08T22:43:00.000-07:00

Well peeps, we are now into the final week of our time in Goodyear. Last weekend we finally made it over to Phoenix Zoo, which was really nice. It was a very hot day (32 degrees and bright sunshine - nice for November eh) - but it wasn't too oppressive. The rest of the weekend went really well, it's been nice having a regualr weekend off these last few weeks. We of course found our way to Barnes & Noble, letting Georgia play with the train set there, and topping up at Starbucks :-)

Back on Monday for more flying in the Seneca, and the pace started to heat up. I had two lessons on asymmetric flying, which was pretty cool. We had a long briefing beforehand where Tom explained everything that would happen, then we headed out to the practise area and gave it a go. Basically the exercise involved shutting an engine down in flight, controlling the aircraft then identifying the dead engine (Tom covers the throttle quadrant when he pulls the throttle on one engine). I've got some good pics and vids of that flight, I'll try to put them on my website at some point.
The rest of the flying in the Seneca has gone pretty well; both Steve and myself have been flying every day, often twice, and are thoroughly exhausted. On Tuesday my last flight of the day over-ran slightly, which saw us coming back to Goodyear as the sun was setting - it was truly awesome. I feel pretty lucky to have seen that, as it's always been clearly day or night flying, not in-between.

Today I took my good buddy Jeroen up as passenger (Steve wanted time off to go study the checklists). Jeroen enjoyed the flight I think, and was good for me to listen to how he thought the flight went. Tomorrow I have my very last lesson in the aircraft, which should be about 2 hours long. I also have to squeeze in 3 hours in the simulator too, and if all that goes well then I have my CPL skills test on Friday. If that goes well, I'm finished, and we'll be heading home shortly afterwards.
Time to dig out my jeans and fleece :-(

Ah, almost forgot - the simulator. The sims are notorious for not being entirely accurate, and this is really apparent first time in the Seneca sim. First time I had a go I found myself weaving all over the runway on take off - partly due to uneven power on the separate engines, but mainly thanks to the hyper sensitive rudders that have zero feel. Anyway, here's a clip of Steve's first ever take off in the Seneca Sim. Sorry Steve....

Unlucky with aircraft - first flight in the Seneca

2006-11-03T21:04:00.000-07:00

Something I forgot to mention about my PT2 the other day: The last week or so has seen Steve and myself squawking plane after plane for some fault or another - a pattern which has followed me to PT2 and also onto the Senecas. For my PT2 I arrived at the airport very early and went to pre-flight N203F. I had flown that plane the previous day with my instructor Scott, and was aware that the Pitot heat was inop, and also the front tyre was very worn. When I went to preflight it also turned out to have a missing oil dipstick (later found lying in the bottom of the engine bay), and also incredibly stiff controls and trim. I told Tom (examiner) that as PIC I was happy to fly, and he concurred so off we went. What then happened was on the take-off roll, just as the airspeed reached 60 knots the airspeed indicator starting fluctuating wildy between 40 and 80 knots. I called out that I was aborting the take-off, but as I started to reduce the power the ASI seemed to smooth out. I told Tom that given we had plenty runway left I would apply max power and try again, which I did. This time the speed held steady, and I kept a close eye on it as I pitched for 80 knots for the climb out. I think Tom was fairly impressed that I made both decisions so quickly and decisively, I think maybe some other guys may have either not aborted the take off in the first place, or if they did abort they would have not been brave (foolish?) enough to try again when things looked ok. Anyway, I was just glad that I appeared to have made the right decision. Interestingly the fault re-appeared later in the flight when I was carrying out stalls - on the recovery back up to cruise speed the ASI went mad again when passing 60 knots. Also on the way back into Goodyear I had quite a challenge - numerous aircraft in the pattern, a few inbound from the north and east, and an airship departing Goodyear at low level. It meant I was diverted quite a lot from the normal arrival procedure, and actually flew right over the top of the airship at one point. Tom was again impressed that I wasn't phased by any of it, and just got on with the job in hand, then landed safely back at Goodyear once cleared to. Steve and Scott were waiting for the aircraft when we got back, so we told them about all the problems before they flew. As it was Steve's last two missions before his PT2, and having already had a flight cancelled that morning, they did fly the plane but later took it to maintenance when they got back.

So, as previously mentioned yesterday was my first flight in the PA34-200 Seneca. Tom Armstrong (chief flying instructor) is my new instructor, which is fantastic news for me. Things didn't run quite according to plan, my 9:30 flight became a 14:30 flight due to various problems. After having carried out the pre-flight on one aircraft the lesson was cancelled due to Tom being needed in a meeting. A couple of hours later we tried again, but had to take a different aircraft, which meant a fresh pre-flight, but the battery turned out to be dead, which meant a trip back to Dispatch to get yet another aircraft. Third time a charm, and having gone through all the checks I was soon taking to the skies in N555L. What a fantastic aircraft! So much nicer than the Warrior, as you would expect - much heavier, but with 2 x 200hp engines instead of 1 x 160hp engine, the acceleration on the take-off roll is pretty impressive. Especially when those turbos kick in....
My first flight was a basic introduction to the handling and feel of the aircraft - we flew out to the practise area and pretty much just threw the plane around the skies for a bit. Cruise speed and rate of climb are much better than the Warrior, so you get to where you want to be much sooner, which is nice. It's also much less susceptible to being thrown around by thermals, which makes things easier and more pleasant. We came back into Goodyear, and Tom demonstrated the new landing technique required. It was a great flight, and thanks to Tom's infinite patience and superb teaching technique, left me feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

This morning I was scheduled to fly at 08:00, but noticed that the barely trained monkeys who do the schedule has put Tom down to do a navigation test at 08:30. This unfortunately for me meant my flight was moved back (so much for AP256 getting priority...) - and it was nearly 11:30 before we were good to go. I bumped into Steve in the crew room and asked if he wanted to back seat, and he jumped at the chance. It later turned out that Steve also has Tom as his instructor, so we will be staying as flying buddies for this last part of the course.
We headed outside and carried out the pre-flight, then went through the much longer start up procedure. Just as I rolled the aircraft forward to taxi, I noticed that we didn't have three greens for the landing gear - so no fly. Circle round, park up, shut down, stomp over to Dispatch to get another Seneca....
Finally sorted, into N555L again, and off we went. This second lesson was an introduction to pattern work in the Seneca, so with my first class passenger (and part time cameraman) comfortably seated down the back, I took us off and flew round and round in the pattern. It was very enjoyable, despite the much higher workload, and I soon started to feel pretty comfortable. There are a couple of pictures here, and also a video of one of the landings as viewed from the aft passenger seat. You can see how much faster, flatter, and steadier the approach is, with a very positive touch down as the extra weight settles down.

End of the day, end of the week, and things are looking good. If all goes to plan I'll have my last flight next Thursday with my CPL test on Friday - and if that goes well we could be on the plane home on Saturday. More likely to be Monday I would have thought - we're not in a rush to get back to sunny England, that's for sure.
This could be our last weekend here, so we are hoping to make the most of it!

Single engine flying complete

2006-11-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had my PT2, which is the last test that is carried out in the single engine PA28-161 Warrior. The test requires you to track towards an NDB, enter the hold as published, fly the hold then fly the approach to the airfield. All of this is done with the foggles in place, so you are flying on instruments only - making it pretty tricky. Once at the missed approach point you fly the missed approach procedure then the examiner gives you further instructions so you can carry out some instrument procedures. For this part of the test the examiner covers over some of your instruments and asks you to carry out some turns using just a compass, then takes control and puts the aircraft in an unusual attitude while you look away - then asks you to recover. Experience some pretty good G-forces while doing that, it's good fun.
Anyhoo, that all went well and I'm pleased to say I passed with a good mark, so am now finished flying the Warrior. I've changed instructor again, and now the CFI himself is my instructor (he was also my examiner yersterday). This morning I had my first lesson in the Seneca sim, going through the new checklist procedures and what not. Dispatch for some reason had me scheduled for a solo sim at 20:00 instead of 08:00, and a solo flight in the airplane at 21:30 instead of 09:30. Would have been interesting, my first ever flight in a Seneca done solo at night.... useless muppets.
My session in the sim went pretty well - it's considerably trickier to get the take-off roll right due to the imbalance between two engines, but once airborne things went pretty well. After the sim we headed out to the aircraft and carried out pre-flight, but the actual flight has been delayed due to Tom being needed in a meeting. There's a new instructor just joined here and he will be spending time back-seating my flights, so I showed him around the place for a while before heading back to the crew room to get a coffee and update my blog.

Back on the home front things are ok. We went to the 'trunk-or-treat' for Halloween the other night, Georgia had a great time scaring people into giving her candy.
One nice things G has just started doing is copying our parenting techniques. If I ask her to do something and she refuses I tell her I will count to 5 then help her to do it. Last night I had my PSP and she wanted it - so she said "Dadd, share! Count three - one, two, three, go!"
I was laughing so much, I can't believe she could have picked up on that and be sooooo cheeky! She must get that from me :-)

Well, I need to go read some more about the Seneca and hopefully take to the skies soon!

Laters

S.

Halloween Party

2006-10-30T16:32:00.000-07:00

We had another nice weekend off - on Friday I was in the sim til 9am then that was it until Monday. On Friday afternoon we took Georgia to a place called Lilliput - a nice place just up the road that lets kids play with loads of arts and crafts, and generally splatter paint all over the place without worrying about cleaning up afterwards! Georgia had a great time, and we came away with quite a few things that she had painted.
On Saturday we had planned to go over to Phoenix Zoo, but unfortunately Clare has been suffering with really bad tooth ache, and didn't feel much like going out anywhere as she hardly slept the night before. We pretty much just chilled out around the place most of the day. We went down to the pool but it's just a bit too chilly in the water now. The hot spa is still very nice, but not ideal for Georgia, so we ended up coming back to the apartment. I spent a bit of time reading through some Comms stuff as I still need to do a test before returning to the UK. I also started going through my log book, writing all my flights up in pen. I've done just over 100 hours flying now! Georgia kept trying to 'help', so I ended up having to distract her with my PSP!

At about 4pm we started getting ready to go out to the Halloween Party in Goodyear. We had picked up a nice little outfit for Georgia, so we got her dressed up and headed out. It seemed really odd to be going out for Halloween and have it still be really bright and sunny outside - not what we're used to in the UK that's for sure. We got up to the park quite early so it was nice and quiet, but after about an hour the sun had gone down and a lot more people had turned up. It was a really great event - all put on by the City. There were a lot of activities for kids to do, and Georgia had a nice time going from game to game winning candy for her halloween bag. We even got to pick a pumpkin then decorate it with marker pens and stickers. When I took Georgia into the pumpkin area she sat herself down and just kept saying 'dis one' - and pointing to all the pumpkins.... I think she thought they were all hers!

We left the party and headed home, calling in at Panda Express on the way to pick up some orange chicken, sweet & sour pork and chow mein. Yum!
There's a Trick or Treat event here at our apartment complex tomorrow night which sounds like fun. I think I have a late flight tomorrow so will possibly miss it, but Clare will take Georgia along and hopefully have a nice time.

Advanced Instrument work

2006-10-26T23:38:00.000-07:00

It's been quite an intensive couple of days. Our instructor, Scott, now only has Steve and myself to teach, which means more flying time for us. Yesterday morning we were scheduled to fly very early - two flights for Steve and one for me.
Steve took to the air first and flew over to Mobile airport to practise the holding pattern and NDB approach for runway 9. It was a very nice flight - a few Germans for us to dodge over Mobile, but nothing too scary. Steve landed at Mobile and I jumped in and took control. Unfortunately there had been a build up of cloud in the area:

October 25th. Sunny weather, 80 degrees. Love it.

The clouds were very low down, with a base of 3000 feet in some places, which dashed our plans somewhat. We left that area and flew over to the east, to try the hold over the Stansfield VOR, for the Casa Grande runway 5 approach. There were low clouds here too, but I managed to carry out the hold and the approach, but when I flew the missed approach and headed back to the VOR, the cloud condition was much worse. We should have landed at Casa Grande in order for Steve to have his second flight, but instead I just took us back to Goodyear. At least we both got to have a flight, which is more than some of the other guys did. We also ended up taking the plane to maintenance as there was a problem with the primer and the magnetos.

Today I was scheduled for two flights and Steve for one. We almost ended up not flying as the aircraft had a problem with the carb heat, but it mysteriously sorted itself out. I took off and headed over to Mobile and flew the NDB hold. It was very windy this morning, so it made for an interesting flight. Also the instruments in the aircraft were all in disagreement - the compass and GPS seemed to agree with each other, but the HSI and RMI each read something different. This also seemed to affect the ADF - so the non-precision approach was very much that, something not helped by my rather dismal performance.
I landed us at Mobile (barely) - and Steve took over. Steve flew much better, and did a nice job of flying the approach, and subsequent missed approach with a departure over to Buckeye. We landed at Buckeye, took on some fuel, then I jumped in for my second flight. The winds were still quite high, but were predominantly from the north which means a headwind for landing, which is ok.
I flew the VOR hold over Buckeye a few times then flew the approach - went missed approach then took us back to Goodyear. The flight went really well - much much much better than just a couple of hours previous. My approach into Goodyear went really well too, topped off with a very tidy landing. Scott was very happy with everything, and with 3 flights left to go before PT2, he seems confident that all will go well.
Needless to say Steve and I were both completely knackered when we landed - the advanced instrument work we are doing now is much more intensive than any of the other flying we have done - and to do two of those flights in one day takes its toll.

Tomorrow morning I am due in the sim at 6am - my last ever simulator session for the Warrior. Can't say I'll be that sad....

Back online - sane again

2006-10-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

Service restored at about 10:00 today, and not a moment too soon. I fear another afternoon and evening with no internet connection would have driven Clare totally insane. Thankfully I had a day off today, so was around to let her have time to chill out and browse the web.
Clare was actually out at a friends house this morning, I was staying in the apartment trying to sort out my flying hours. I've got everything in order now, and have almost 100 hours flying time now. I should bake a cake or something...
I haven't flown an aircraft since last Wednesday. Last Thursday and Friday I had sessions in the simulator, Saturday and Sunday are our Instructor's day off (and also the airshow meant flight restrictions. Yesterday I was scheduled to fly - the plan being Steve would fly first, we would land at Casa Grande then I would take control. Unfortunately the aircraft's ASI was under-reading, and Steve aborted the take off. I have to say I'm very impressed by this - a lot of guys wouldn't have spotted that the ground speed was higher than normal and would have carried on. Steve noticed that we were literally thundering down the runway but with the ASI reading 50 knots. The GPS showed our ground speed to be about 70 knots, maybe more, and he was able to bring the aircraft to a controlled stop.

There was nobody in the Warrior sim, so we grabbed the key and each had an hour in there, so the morning wasn't a complete wash-out. Steve did manage to break the sim (one of the projector lamps went pop) - so that made 2 for 2 for him :-)

Back to business tomorrow all being well. I have 5 flights left to do in the Warrior before Progress Test 2, then hopefully move onto the Seneca. If all goes to plan we'll be heading back to the UK in under 3 weeks... time to order a couple of big boxes to ship all our stuff back.

No TV and no Internet make Clare (something something)

2006-10-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

Go Crazy?

Most definitely!

Last week we lost our telephone connection at our apartment. Somebody somewhere decided to cancel it, but after a couple of days we were reconnected - with a different number - just in time to have cable TV and internet die....
We're still waiting to get it sorted, in the meantime I have to come down to the airport and use the wireless internet here to send mails and the like - but it's driving Clare up the wall as she can't connect with her friends on the various forums, and also can't keep up with local friends via email. Hopefully it'll be sorted today.

Other business... it was the airshow this weekend as you have already gathered. The Blue Angels put on a pretty good show (not as good as the Reds though) - I've uploaded a gallery or two to my website. I have some great video footage too, I'll try and put another video sequence together when I get chance.

I'll update this entry once we have internet back at the apartment, and I'll try to remember about the other things that have gone on, such as Steve's abaorted take-off, Georgia painting a masterpiece, destroying the sim, and formation flying with the Angels and Goodyear Blimp....

Signing off for now

S

Angels arrive

2006-10-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

A quick post

http://www.davidson-family.co.uk/angels1.wmv

:-)

Enchanted Island

2006-10-16T20:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we all headed to Phoenix to visit Enchanted Island. It was a beautiful day (as usual) and we all had a really great time. Georgia got to have a ride on loads of great attractions - most of them on her own. I was so proud of her - she happily wandered off and sat on the rides all on her own. She really liked flying in the plane - she was yelling 'Flying!' and 'Weeeee' for the whole ride, it was so gorgeous.
It was a really nice place to be - all the rides were really great for little ones, and the staff were nice and friendly too. There was a little train that ran around the place too, which was really pleasant. Georgia has taken an interest in Thomas The Tank Engine lately - probably thanks to playing on the little train set in Barnes & Noble.I don't mind this at all as I loved Thomas the Tank Engine myself - it's really brought back some nice memories :-)
After a couple of hours, and several goes on all the rides, we headed back home. On the way back along the I10, I noticed an airship in the distance that appeared to be headed for Goodyear. As we got closer, I noticed it was the Goodyear Blimp itself - on it's way to Goodyear in preparation for the big football game on tonight. I managed to get a photo of it parked up at the south end of the airport. I think it'll still be around this weekend when the big Airshow hits town. I'm hoping we will get to go see some of this, as it looks like it'll be quite a show.

As for flying - things are still going really well. I had an early morning flight this morning - I backseated one of the guys over to Casa Grande, then I flew us back. I practised some hold procedures and instrument approaches from a VOR and an NDB, which all went really well. It's amazing how much harder you work when you put the foggles on and fly just off your instruments, but I do really enjoy it. When we got back to Goodyear it was Steve's turn in the sim, so I sat in the passenger seat and watched him track the Eagle NDB to Mobile then fly the holding pattern. I'm starting to appreciate the sim more now, which is good as we'll be doing a LOT more flying in the sim when we get back to Oxford. Only another 4 weeks or so and we'll be back in the UK. Aside from my uniform, I haven't worn long trousers since 26th June.... god bless the valley of the sun :-)

JAA Navigation Test completed

2006-10-12T19:49:00.000-07:00

Finally managed to get an examiner available today to test me on my navigation ability. It was the chief flying instructor Tom Armstrong that was available to test me, so that raised the nerve level a bit, but fortunately he is a really nice guy so it helped calm things down somewhat.
We were delayed slightly but eventually made it out just after 3pm, and after a nice take off from runway 21 I took us out towards the south-east, heading towards Lake St Clair. The conditions were very favourable, and I was only slightly off course at the start of the first leg, but noticed it and corrected it accordingly. We didn't quite make it to the lake, Tom decided to give me a diversion when we were about 10 miles out - taking us back up towards the Goodyear area. I did the calculations for the diversion and they turned out to be pretty accurate, and at one point I'm sure he nodded off a little - the aircraft was trimmed out nicely and there wasn't much going on for quite a while.
We reached the diversion point, and he asked me to carry out a practise forced landing after a simulated engine failure. This also went really well, nice and calm and relaxed, and we would have landed on the dirt strip I had nominated. We then headed back to Goodyear, had a nice chat on the way in, then parked up and headed in for a debrief. There were a couple of things he pointed out but I reasoned them out with him and he was very receptive and understanding. I came away from it with a very good mark, and also having learned a few things too. It was a completely different experience to my PT1, that's for sure.
Hopefully now things will go a little smoother. I've changed instructors as I'm now starting the more advance instrument work, and my first flight with him went really well yesterday morning too. I've changed flying buddies too, and am now paired up with one of the guys from the course who already has a PPL, and whom I really like and respect. Not to say I didn't like or respect Toddy.... but it's always beneficial to see how other people do things, and try to learn from them.
Anyway, it's been quite a long day and I'm due in the Simulator tomorrow morning bright and early - but at least I will approach it a little bit more relaxed and happier than I have been all week.

Pumpkin Picking and Corn Maze

2006-10-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

I know I've been really lazy (unlike my industrious husband) and haven't kept up with blog entries but Simon informs me that I have to do this one myself.

We're in our 16th week out here in Phoenix now, have had a fantastic time but its drawing to a close so we're trying to fit in all activities possible in the last few weeks. On Monday we went Pumpkin Picking at Tolmachoff Farms. Georgia had lots of fun running around, eating ice cream and climbing on hay bales. Then we went into the corn maze, which was vast, but Georgia did great, just kept running on and on while we got thoroughly lost and eventually pushed our way out through the side and went back to the farm :-)
She had a ride on the little train, which was just a lot of barrel carriages pulled by a quad but it was fun too, if a little bumpy for Mummy's back. Georgia thought it was great though and true to form shouted Whee!! and giggled all the way through. My little thrill seeker.

Lastly we wandered into the pumpkin patch and searched for a great pumpkin. Georgia had a good run around in the plants and sat on a larger pumpkin (or buptin as she calls them) and picked up and carried around some smaller ones and then we decided it was time to call it a day. We found a nice round little pumpkin, bought it for $3 and then headed to Trader Joes (aka Bubby Trolley Shop) and did our weekly food shopping before heading home.

All in all a lovely day out, the weather was great, about 85-90F which is really pleasant, if a little warm for running around too much.

On Tuesday Georgia and I went to another La Leche League meeting, our third since we missed the September meeting through being in Vegas, and Simon went to the airport for the day to catch up on some paperwork. I think he needed to alter the way his flights were entered in his logbook so he was stuck in all day doing most of that. LLL was great as always, the meeting was about "Baby's First Year" and we talked through some common concerns with breastfeeding and parenting baby through the first year and then had our usual social time afterwards.
The weather has cooled down so much that the children were able to play outside and one of the leaders stayed outside to watch them while we held the meeting indoors and superconfident Miss Georgia was only too happy to leave me while she went off to play which made me very proud of her. The only hiccup came when a little boy kept trying to tickle her and she was worried because she didn't know what he was doing, once I explained he was just tickling however then it was hilarious and all the children had a mad ticklefest which was so much fun to watch.
We've really been made to feel very welcome in the Phoenix West Chapter of LLL which has been fantastic, its been great to be part of a LLLUSA group even if only for four months but I will have more experience to take home and help with my Leader application back in Oxford.

Lots of love to everyone, only another 5 weeks or so until we're home and we'll see you again.
Clare
xxx

CPL Cross Country

2006-10-10T22:09:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I carried out my CPL cross country flight, which took me up to Bullhead City, down to Yuma, then back to Goodyear. A distance of well over 400 miles, which ended up taking most of the day. There were 3 of us that carried out the trip, with 2 other guys doing their CPL but a slightly different route.
The day started at when I arrived in the crew room at 5am, ready to start planning the trip. Toddy and Mandeep were there too, and soon we had our route planned, weather brief, and flight plan filed. We were late setting off as we needed extra fuel in our planes, and Toddy had a problem with the parking brake on his, but shortly after 8am we took off and headed north.
It was a great trip - the weather was perfect, and the three of us had a nice easy flight up to Bullhead City. The door on my plane sprung open at 6500ft, and despite my best efforts I couldn't get it to re-latch properly, but it stayed in place until I landed safely at Bullhead and met up with the other guys.
We parked up, then took the free shuttle over to one of the Casinos on the other side of the river, and had a spot of lunch. After a while we headed back to the airport, and were soon on our way down to Yuma. This was a nice part of the trip, as the Colorado river runs all the way from Bullhead down to Yuma, so we pretty much just followed the river south. It had gotten a bit bumpier as the day had gone on, and we struggled to find calm air for this leg, but it wasn't ever too unpleasant. We contacted Yuma approach and were guided in one by one, and soon were parked up next to Steve and Lee, who had arrived from Ryan airport shortly before us.
We stopped there for an hour or so, grabbed a drink and chilled out while the refuel truck went to work. Soon we were heading back out for the flight back to Goodyear, which went really well.
All in all it was a great day, albeit a very long one. I've got some good pictures and videos of the trip - in the interest of health and safety it's best if I don't put them on my blog, but feel free to email me for the link to them ;-)

Meanwhile, here's a good pic I took of one of the big jets from Sky Harbor that flew overhead the other day, marking out a large 'S' in the sky.

Foul weather

2006-10-06T06:04:00.000-07:00

So I get up bright and early, and there's a thunderstorm outside. I'll head down to the airport anyway on the off chance that there's an aircraft available and the storm dissipates... but right now things don't look too peachy...

******** Update ***********************
Arrived at airport, obtained an aircraft (they aren't letting solo flights go) - planned my route etc, then sat and waited for my examiner to arrive. When he did arrive he said he wasn't prepared to fly, so I had a dual lesson flight with Gilbert instead. It was pretty bumpy, but we managed to have a good flight. We had an 18 knot crosswind on landing, which was good fun. Now off to plan for my Commercial Pilot License Cross Country flight tomorrow - have to do at least 300nm with 2 full stop landings. There are 5 of us scheduled for it, starting at 6:30am - should be a good day!

Screwed over, AGAIN

2006-10-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

Today I was supposed to carry out my JAA Navigation Test. It was originally planned for 14:30, but in typical OATC style was changed to 15:30, with two hours notice, and no-one informing me.
I headed down to the airport for 14:00 hours, to give myself an hour and a half to do all the planning. Unfortunately, OATC had scheduled the examiner to fly all day, right up to 15:20. This would give me a maximum of 10 minutes briefing time which needs to include the flight planning. Terrific.
What actually happened was that his flight landed late, at 16:00. This meant my navigation test was cancelled, to be hopefully done tomorrow. One thing my examiner did say was that I was supposed to report to him at 08:00 this morning for a briefing and to get my route info, but this information had not reached me.
So, now I have my route information, I am due to meet him at 07:30 tomorrow morning and hope that an aircraft is available. I can't see for one second how tomorrow can go well...

Trip to Yuma for bird watching

2006-10-01T21:17:00.000-07:00

Today I had another back-to-back flight with Toddy and Gilbert, so we decided to head over to Yuma - a fairly large International airport just on the Arizona/California border, that is also home to a US Marine Corps fleet.
We had a pretty good flight going over (I flew us over there) - had a couple of laps around the hold then flew the VOR approach to rwy 17. All went pretty well, and soon we were parked up and heading in for a sit down and a drink. But not before Toddy demonstrated to Gilbert how much bigger the British are over the Americans (and Mexicans)

When we came back out we spotted an Osprey coming in to land, and as it happens it parked up right next to us to get fuel. It kept the rotors spinning while it fuelled up, which meant we couldn't leave the parking area until it cleared off. This delayed us, but meant we got some good piccies:

It eventually buggered off, throwing up a huge dust storm in its wake, and we headed back out fo rwy 17, with Toddy in control.

Once we took off, we were able to see all the military aircraft lined up: F-16s, C130s, Harriers, Apaches, FA-18s - it was awesome.

We left the area and headed back over to Goodyear. Toddy had a practise at the NDB approach at Mobile airport, then back for a full stop landing at Goodyear. All in all it was a pretty good trip - and the good thing is we have to go back there solo as part of the cross country trip for our CPL test. Magic!

Little ol' me and an International Airport

2006-09-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I managed to get two of my solo navigation flights back-to-back on the same aircraft (N268ND) - so I planned a route that would take me north up to Lake Havasu and Bullhead International Airport. It was a fantastic flight - flying over areas that were new to me, and upon reaching Lake Havasu my breath was taken away. What an awesome place, and from 4500 feet up I had a good view of the lake, the city, and the old London Bridge. For those not familiar with the tale:

In 1962, London Bridge was falling down. Built in 1831, the bridge couldn't handle the ever-increasing flow of traffic across the Thames River. The British government decided to put the bridge up for sale, and Robert McCulloch, Founder of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and Chairman of McCulloch Oil Corporation, submitted the winning bid of $2,460,000.
The bridge was dismantled, and each stone was carefully marked. Everything was shipped 10,000 miles to Long Beach, California, and then trucked to Lake Havasu City. Reconstruction began on September 23, 1968, with a ceremony including the Lord Mayor of London, who laid the cornerstone. On October 10, 1971, the bridge was dedicated.
This first photo is a view of the city and the lake as I approached from the south.

I transitioned over the top of Lake Havasu airport and continued north towards Bullhead City International. I called them up and asked permission for a full-stop landing, and when granted a straight in approach I began my descent and prepared for landing. Fortunately everything went really well, and the ATC ground controller was very nice and gave me excellent directions to the parking facility. I parked up, and while tying the aircraft down a guy on an airport buggy came over and offered me a lift. I hopped on, and was driven over to a building where I could arrange fuel, grab a drink, and have a chat with some other pilots. Once the fuel was taken care of, I got a lift back to the Warrior and got everything ready for departure. ATC were again very good with me, and in a matter of minutes I was airborne again, heading south back to Phoenix. I took a different route back, travelling down the west side of the lake - here's a pic of the lake, showing London Bridge:

Another great picture I took was this next one, it's the Colorado river as it runs south out of the lake. It's a great picture, it looks kinda like an artists impression to me - too flawless to be real. Maybe I'm just getting all emotional in my old age:

I made it back to Goodyear safe and sound and only ten minutes later than I should have been. Quite an achievement in itself that, especially as I was late leaving due to me needing full tanks.
I'm really glad now that I planned this trip - it let me take in some awesome scenery but also gave me the opportunity to do a full stop landing at a busy airport - something I have to do again to get my CPL in a couple of weeks time.

I've taken all the video clips I took and put them together into one clip, unedited. Feel free to take a look, but it's probably a bit dull apart from the view.

One last thing. The other day I was playing with Play Doh with Georgia, and knowing how much she likes my laptop I made her a little one. Her reaction shows she didn't think much of it compared to mine:

Takes after her mum

2006-09-24T21:23:00.000-07:00

So we buy Georgia a great big tub of foam shapes to play with, and she tips the whole lot all over the floor. Fair enough, no worries. Does Clare struggle to get her to tidy them back up? Does Georgia use diversionary tactics to avoid tidying up? Does she therefore take after her mum? Oh yes... :-)

Border run

2006-09-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

As planned, Gilbert, Toddy and I had an early morning flight this morning that took us down to the Mexican border at Nogales International Airport. I arrived in the crew room just before 5am, and started printing out the necessary paperwork: local weather reports, winds aloft data, airport data and instrument approach procedures. Toddy arrived soon after, and we set about organising everything.
After a slight delay (change of aircraft needed) - we took off from Goodyear at 06:50, and got handed over to Phoenix Sky Harbor Departures, who gave us radar vectors towards Tucson. Here's Toddy and Gilbert looking (almost) convincingly as if they know what they're doing...

The flight down went really well, and when we arrived at Nogales Toddy did a couple of test runs using the approach procedures. We then landed, parked up, and headed inside for a coffee refuel while the Warrior was also refueled (not with coffee, although it might have helped the poor performance....)
Here's a shot of Nogales International Airport main building. It sounds impressive, but I've seen bigger sheds in B&Q...

Once refueled, it was my turn to hop in and drive. I took off on runway 21, then followed the missed approach procedure before heading back in on the correct radials, then executed a touch-and-go before heading back 'oop north' towards Goodyear.
All in all it was a great flight for Toddy and me, and a great laugh for the three of us. I can honestly say I will be gutted when we move onto another instructor for twin engine training.
Mind you, the take off performance upon leaving Nogales does make me wonder if Gilberto hadn't smuggled a couple of immigrants over the border...

Grand Canyon by helicopter

2006-09-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned earlier, after the helicopter flight at the canyon we got to take away a DVD of the flight. I also took my camera along, and have just hastily patched the clips together to make one video, and here it is. You can occasionally make out some of the sounds from the cabin, but the proper DVD is better as it had the intercom patched in.

A tough week

2006-09-23T19:50:00.000-07:00

As some of my family and friends know, it has been a very tough week this week. After a great week last week, everything went rapidly downhill shortly after saying farewell to my dad on Tuesday as I headed down to the airport to do my Progress Test 1.
Without going into detail, let's just say that the test was a complete farce, and I came away from it madder than I have been in a very long time. So mad, it prompted me to compose an email to OAT's Managing Director/President, Anthony Petteford - something I had not had to do since starting the course.
Fortuntately, some of my grievances have been addressed - Anthony was very receptive to my complaints, and even phoned me at home in Goodyear to discuss the matter in detail. There are still a couple of issues that need sorting, one of which hasn't been brought to his attention yet - a matter regarding a certain member of staff and her opinion on how I manage my family/career.
A very good friend of mine recently joined us out in Goodyear, and after only a few days here he had posted an entry on his blog concerning this woman (and also one of the guys in Dispatch) - so I know it isn't just me that thinks she is a stony faced, condescending, ignorant, obtuse little oxygen thieving witch who for some reason has managed to hold onto her job despite numerous complaints.
Moving on.... with all the stress I've had this week surrounding OATC, this has also had an impact in other areas of my life. While taking the mini van back the other day I cleared all of the (numerous) pockets and cubby holes, except for one. And what was in that one? My PDA case, SD card, charger, and compact flash GPS receiver. Balls balls balls. Fortunately the guy at Hertz tracked the minivan down at Sky Harbor airport, and retrieved all the items except for the GPS receiver. I am really gutted about this - I only bought it a couple of months ago, and know I have no way of getting it back, even though it's pretty clear that someone at Hertz has pocketed that but returned the other items. I really hate myself for being so forgetful - it's not something I normally do, but this event coupled with losing my Ray Bans has really bugged me. :-(
One half decent thing was that Hertz had failed to arrange a replacement vehicle (Vee-Hick-Ull) - and all they had was a Dodge Charger - normally very expensive to rent due to the spec (5.7 litre Hemi V8, 350hp, 390lb ft etc) - but I pointed out it wasn't my fault they had no cars, so I have ended up with the Charger for the same money I was paying for the cheaper cars. With Paul Herbert renting a yellow V6 Mustang, all we need do now is organise a time to go recreate the car chase scene from Bullitt - but it looks like someone beat us to it. Review here, video here. Maybe I'll just see if I can get it resprayed to look like a modern day General Lee and get a Dixie horn fitted. Dammit, someone has already done that too!

On my list of toys to get when I have money again is a General Lee, Knight Rider KITT, an A-Team van, and possibly Street Hawk (but if I'm honest Street Hawk bike is a bit pants). I'll settle for a replica Airwolf instead then. Clare just looks at me funny when I tell her this, but I don't think it's too unreasonable, is it?

Yesterday I was due to have a solo nav flight in the afternoon, but winds in the area were gusting to 30 knots, so the flight was cancelled. I carried out the flight this morning at 6am (good old Gilbert, still getting me the prime slots) - and it was really hazy, very poor visibility. Fortunately my navigation planning worked out really well, and the flight overall was very enjoyable and relaxing. Here's a pic of the area east of Phoenix, heading towards Kearny:

Family-wise everything is still going good. The pool where we are living has been out of use for the last few days, but is ok now I believe. Clare has been extremely supportive this week, and I again feel incredibly lucky to have her on side through all of this. I really couldn't have done it without her help.
Georgia is still having a great time here. She was missing her Grandad for a couple of days, but is now happy that she'll get Grandad for Christmas (or 'Mismas' as she says). She also keeps asking for a bike, so we'll have to see if we can have a word with Santa about that. Here's a picture of her taken the other night - ready for bed but posing with her new sunglasses on. Rockstar!

Clare and I just finished watching Dave Gorman on DVD. We went to see the show live at Bolton a couple of years ago with my good pal Gareth - and even though we know what happens it still makes us howl with laughter. Anyone in Goodyear who reads this can borrow my copy if they like, and anyone in the UK (or Ireland) should go obtain a copy - it's top stuff. Mr Gorman, you owe me advertising money :-)

I have another 6am flight tomorrow - back to back flights with Toddy, which means we should be heading somewhere further afield similar to our trip to Payson 2 weeks ago. Can't wait!

Adios

Simon

Vegas, Canyon, Route 66

2006-09-19T21:31:00.000-07:00

It's been a very hectic last week or so! After the shambles surrounding OATC it was really nice to jump in the minivan and hit the road. We had a really pleasant drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas, stopping half way for a spot of lunch, and taking in the awesome sight at Hoover Dam on the Arizona/Nevada border. We unfortunately didn't have the opportunity to stop, which was a bit of a shame.

Once we arrived in Vegas we took a drive along the strip before heading to The Mirage, where I had booked us a couple of nights. When we checked in however, we were told we could have a complementary upgrade to the Penthouse Suite if we wanted - all 2000 sq ft of it, complete with living room, bar, bedroom with motorised TV built into the bed, bathroom the size of our house.... utterly awesome, and what a result!

We had a great time charging around the suite for a while, before heading out for a look around. My dad headed into the Casino to try his hand at Blackjack (he won loads, the jammy bugger) - while Clare, Georgia and I went to get some refreshments. We all met up again a while later and headed out for a wander outside to watch the Volcano outside the Mirage, before calling into the Venetian for a wander along the canal - ending up in a mock-up of St Marks square where we treated ourselves to nice italian sorbet. We then took a stroll along the strip, taking in the awesome sights along the way - The Wynn Hotel, Treasure Island etc.
The next day we had a lazy morning in the suite before all heading out down the strip the other way, past Caesars Palace, Bellagio, New York New York. Clare and I had a ride on the rollercoaster that takes you around the Manhattan skyline - a really good trip that even I enjoyed, and I normally find rollercoasters duller than dishwater.
At least now I can say I've seen the Statue of Liberty etc, and save myself an expensive trip to the real big apple. :-)
That night Clare and I went to watch the Phantom of the Opera at The Venetian, leaving Grandad on babysitting duties. We had an incredibly time - it was an utterly amazing show that really took our breath away. We both agreed the trip to Vegas was worth it just to see that show, let alone anything else.
The next day we packed up and headed back out of Vegas and onto Route 66, for a long drive along the famous highway for 100 miles from Kingman to Ash Fork, via Peach Springs. Another 'thing to do in life' ticked off.
We arrived at the Grand Hotel, just south of the Grand Canyon - checked in then jumped back in the car to drive up to the rim, just in time to catch the sunset. I won't even try to explain it, but hopefully some of the pictures I took will save me a few hundred words of (more) waffle. Here's a picture of the three of us on the south rim, just as the sun was setting.

That night we stayed in the Grand Hotel, which true enough did look pretty grand from the outside, but wasn't really anything special inside - especially after a couple of nights in Vegas...

The following morning I set my alarm for daft-o'clock, dragged my dad out of bed and the two of us headed up to the canyon for sunrise. We found ourselves a really nice spot, and hung around for a while watching the sun rise majestically over the Canyon.
Dad and I headed back to the hotel, grabbing an early morning coffee then sat around chilling out (I whupped him at chess) - waiting for Clare and Georgia to wake up. Once everyone was up, and Georgia was dressed in her new Grand Canyon clothes that her Grandad had bought her, we all had a nice buffet breakfast before checking out and heading back up the Canyon. All four of us had a nice wander around the main sights at the south rim, thankful that the weather was perfect - and had warmed up a little from the 3 degrees it had been at 6am.
We then headed down to the Grand Canyon Airport, where we checked ourselves in for a helicopter ride with Maverick Helicopters. We were obviously all a bit concerned with how Georgia would handle the flight, but as it turned out she absolutely loved it! It was an incredible trip - so much better than just standing at the edge, and we got to see so much more of the canyon. We also got a DVD of the entire trip - multiple camera angles and sound from the headsets (Georgia making airplane noises and saying 'weeeeeeee' a lot)
Here's Georgia with her David Clark headset on, looking cool as a cucumber:

And here's a shot of the Canyon from overhead the Colorado River, 1 mile up:

More pictures to be uploaded to my website in the next day or two.
Georgia actually fell asleep in the helicopter for the last ten minutes, which bodes well for me taking her flying next year when back in the UK. My dad loved it too, and I really can't wait to be able to take him flying as well - I'm under orders to teach him how to fly once I'm qualified!

We left the Canyon at about 15:30 - heading along the top road via Desert View, then back home to Goodyear via Flagstaff and Sedona. I drove all the way back, a mere 260 miles and 4.5 hours - I guess I was still on a high from the whole trip.
One note is how Georgia took everything in her stride so much better than we all expected. She was brilliant for the long car journeys, loved seeing all the bright lights in Vegas, had a great helicopter flight, and most importantly got on amazingly well with her Grandad. All in all it was a fantastic trip, and although it was nice to get back to Goodyear and chill out by the pool, it was also quite sad to leave all that good stuff behind.

Back to reality and I had a solo navigation flight yesterday and my PT1 today. Unfortunately my dad was also due to go back today too, and thanks to crappy scheduling I couldn't take him to Sky Harbor and say goodbye there. After waiting 3 weeks for my PT1, and despite officially still being on leave, I couldn't take the risk and cancel it in case it was another 3 weeks before I got another one. As it turned out, I wish I had - but that's another story.

Dad: I hope you had a good flight home. Thank you for everything you did for us while you were here - we all had an amazing time and will miss you. See you in November.

Love

Simon, Clare, Georgia

x x x

Still waiting for PT1

2006-09-12T23:16:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last entry, the delay mainly caused by the arrival of my dad - visiting here for 12 days. We've all been really busy this last week - filling our days trying to see some of the local sights, but mainly fitting everything in around my flying.
We've been up to Wildlife World Zoo again, which Georgia really enjoyed, and to a couple of Malls and the like. Today my dad and I took Georgia over to Arizona Mills, leaving Clare at home to chill out. This afternoon we all headed up to Circuit City so my dad could look at buying a new laptop (I thought the staff at PC World were useless, but these guys take it to a whole new level - but he did end up coming away with a new joystick). We then headed to the cheesecake factory - which was absolutely incredible.

I've been flying a fair bit still, in preparation for my PT1 which was booked - finally - for today at 11:30. A few days ago I found out that there had been a change to students and instructors with the arrival of AP258 - and one of the changes was that Mal and Nilay were now being paired up and changing instructor, but Toddy and myself would be paired up and staying with Gilbert. On Sunday morning Toddy, Gilbert and myself picked up Warrior N994T at 6am and headed out. We filed an IFR flight plan, heading up to Prescott, then over to Payson - where we landed and had an awesome breakfast at the airport cafe. Toddy flew that first part of the flight, and after breakfast I hopped in and flew us from Payson up to Winslow, where we got fuel. We then took off again and headed west to Sedona, flying over the Meteor Crater, getting a few decent pictures and videos on the way. I'll do a proper photo album soon, but here's a quick taste:

Toddy and Gilbert at Payson

Gilbert with his monster breakfast - flaps 25 needed on take off after this!

Meteor Crater. Huge. Just huge.

Sedona. Incredible site from ground level, but at altitude - something else.

We made it back to Goodyear at about 12:50 - 50 minutes later than planned. Oh well, it was worth it. On Sunday evening I had a night solo too, so it was a very tiring day. I've had a lot of flights cancelled lately, and this seemed to show a turn for the better. I did a brilliant solo general handling yesterday - my last one before PT1, and it went really well. Unfortunately - when I arrived at Goodyear this morning to do my PT1, I found that my flight had been cancelled. As usual, nobody had thought to let me know this, so I had wasted a hell of a lot of time preparing for it - and had screwed up plans with the family in order to fit everything in. I was absolutely fuming - it's now been 2 weeks since I was ready for my PT1, and it's going to be another week now before I can get it done as I have booked a few days off for a trip to Vegas, Grand Canyon and Route 66.
What also annoyed me was the reason my flight was cancelled - being told that the instructor was sick, yet having seen said instructor in the crew room laughing and joking with others 6 minutes earlier. This is simply not good enough, and now my performance at PT1 is going to suffer as I won't be able to have a practise flight beforehand to prepare for it.

OK. Time to start thinking about the time off I have planned. I've booked us all into the Mirage in Vegas for a couple of nights, I managed to get excellent tickets to see Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian, and have booked rooms at the Grand Hotel at the Grand Canyon. Hopefully we will all get to have a great time over the next few days.

Yours disgruntled

Simon

That's not a hat....

2006-09-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

See what happens when you leave Georgia alone to eat a yoghurt....

Vandals attack

2006-09-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

On the way down to the airport shortly after writing my last update, I noticed that four cars in the car park where we live had been vandalised. Each one was a white car or pickup, and each one had been sprayed with black spray paint - with choice words such as 'B*tch', 'Sl*t' and 'Wh*re' emblazened down each panel.
One of them I recognised as a friend of mine, a rental car from Hertz. When I got back from the airport (flight cancelled, shock horror) just now, the place was swarming with cops, so I went and woke up Paul and told him what had happened. Suffice to say, him and his mate James who had rented the car were not too pleased. You expect this kind of thing in Liverpool, but not here....
I'm just thanking my lucky stars I swapped out silver Impala for a dark grey Sienna. MInd you, some of the other dark cars had had their number plates sprayed also, and my car was only two cars along from theirs. I just hope they don't return with some white paint - the problem for us is that we don't have insurance on rental cars to cover us, it's an extra $25 a day for full insurance cover, which is another $600 a month on top of the $1100 a month rental.....

Lemony Snicket has nothing on me

2006-09-07T05:06:00.000-07:00

A series of unfortunate events - pah!
Yesterday I went to the airport for an afternoon solo flight. Upon arrival I found that some goon had moved my flight from 14:45 on N686J to 15:30 on N268ND. Two problems with this: Firstly the Mass & Balance sheet I had prepared was now scrap, and I needed to do another; and secondly when I did eventually get down to N268ND, I discovered it was buggered. I did the pre-flight check, untied the aircraft, ran through the pre-start checks, started the engine - and watched as the Low Bus light came on, and the alternator output stayed at 1 amp. Marvelous. Shut the aircraft down, oack my stuff away, tie the plane down, and stomp back to Dispatch.
Back home for a good rant, then wandered down to the pool to cool off a little.

Flights for today - the solo navigation that was cancelled on Tuesday now at 6am this morning, followed at 8:30am by the solo general handling that was cancelled yesterday. Last night spent ages planning my route to Ryan Airfield near Tucson - got everything all hunky dorey as I didn't want to do the whole plan at 4am... get up this morning and it's pi$$ing down, with a massive thunderstorm thrown in for good measure.

Grrrrrrr!!!!!

I've used the winds aloft data for Phoenix and Tucson and completed the rest of my plan, just in case. I'm now all ready to go, but when the ATIS for Phoenix is showing 17 knot winds gusting to 24, it's not looking likely that I'll fly.

Time to grab some Weetabix, then head down to the airport and see what's happening...

No flying

2006-09-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

Typical that after having Friday, Saturday, Monday off, and spending an hour preparing everything for a cross country solo today, the wind was at 15 kts when I was due to fly, therefore cancelling my flight for me. My crosswind limit is 10 kts, and the wind was 110/15, rwy 03 in use, giving a 14 kt crosswind. Bummer.
Gilbert is off work at the moment too, which means: a) He hasn't left me solo permission slips, creating a problem when I go to fly, and b) he isn't putting bids in for my flights, which means I'm not getting decent slots.
It's just sucky that I'm not flying now, when in a weeks time I'm going to want to take a few days off to go to Vegas etc. Oh well, such is life.
Still waiting to do my PT1 - doesn't look like it'll be tomorrow, so more time being wasted when I really could be moving on with things. Look on the bright side - if I end up going back to England late it's not a bad thing. Do I want to stay in Phoenix in November when it's still hot and sunny, or go back to England where it's guaranteed to be raining cats, dogs and small frogs? Tough one....
Anyway, just got back from Barnes & Noble, bought Georgia a couple of books and let her play with the train set there - and gave our new hire car a check ride - so far I'm pretty impressed.
Why Toyota don't import the Sienna into the UK I don't know, as it seems like good competition for the all-conquering Renault Espace. Clare really likes it, so it must be good ;-)

Blueberry muffins, Pioneering, Tucson, Cloggy!

2006-09-05T08:33:00.000-07:00

Hi all

Been a bit of a break for me these last few days. I was feeling quite ill on Friday so cancelled the early morning solo I had planned, moving it to Sunday. I was already due to have Saturday, Sunday and Monday (Labor day holiday) off, so moving the flight to Sunday broke up the break... but we still had a nice time chilling out.
On Friday we stayed in while I recovered, I don't think I left the apartment at all.... but it meant that on Saturday I was feeling better, well enough to head over to Pioneer History Village, north of Phoenix. This was a pretty smart place; an old style pioneering town that had been recreated using salvaged and renovated buildings brought in from various areas in the midwest. It was shockingly hot though, and we all soon overheated - which meant a break for lunch in the restaurant and some much needed water. After a nice cooling break, we braved the heat again and saw some more of the place, checking out the mule, pigs and goats.
On the way home stopped at Walmart and got the ingredients together (read: bought a packet mix) to make blueberry muffins - and let Georgia help with the mixing and preparing. We even bought her some 'Dora the explorer' cake cases :-)
Here's a few pics of her helping mix, stealing the mix, icing the muffin, then savouring the results:

On Saturday night we were hit by another massive storm - and this one deposited a huge amount of water down on us. I got soaked running from the car to our apartment after I'd gone to the airport to see Gilbert - and when I got in Clare decided to take Georgia out in it so she could feel what it was like...

On Sunday I had my early morning solo navigation - taking me down to Tucson International Airport - my first touch and go at a 'proper' airport. I'd spent quite a lot of time on the preparation, and it paid off - my headings and timings were all pretty much spot on, which left me time to relax a little and enjoy the view. Once I was nearer Tucson things got much busier - firstly avoiding a load of parachutists falling out of the sky, then going through the procedures for contacting Tucson approach and getting clearance to enter their airspace. Thankfully it all went really well, although the landing was a touch rough - but then we haven't ever been properly briefed on the procedures for arrival. One thing that was surprising was the altitude - Tucson is 2000 ft higher than Goodyear, so descending from 5500 meant I was very close to the ground at what I thought was 2000 ft above it!
The departure went well, listening out to the big jets arriving in the area - then I managed to get Flight Following for the journey back to Goodyear, which makes things even easier as you're on radar all the way, and have someone else look out for other traffic for you.

Yesterday was Labor Day holiday here, but most places stay open so we headed up to Metrocenter Mall, just off the I17. He called in at Toys R Us on the way and picked up a pack of cards - ready for my Dad arriving on Thursday.
Just as we were leaving Toys R Us my good buddy Jeroen pulled up outside! It was great to see him, after having parted company in the UK a couple of months ago. He followed us up to the Mall, and hung out with us for a while before heading back to Goodyear with some of the other guys from AP258. Last night however I drove down and picked him up and brough him back to our place, and we all had a good time catching up on things (and fixing his laptop - fortunately I brought repair discs with me)
And that brings us up to date I think. I'll put a proper photo album together on my Website at some point, but now I have to go give Baby G some breakfast, then go swap out hire car, then plan a flight for this afternoon.... no rest for the wicked!

Adios for now

Simon

Ladybird

2006-09-02T00:24:00.000-07:00

Just a quick blog entry - yesterday after we finished drawing pictures, we all headed down to the pool to try out our digital camera in a waterproof bag. Got a few decent pictures, but also got a nice video of Georgia playing with a lady bird...

Today we headed north to Anthem to look at Pioneer Living History Museum, which was like stepping back in time. More about this to follow...

California here I don't come

2006-08-31T15:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was due to do a cross country solo to Blythe, California. Unfortunately Blythe is just over an hour away, but I only had 1hr 45min to complete the entire flight, so I ended up turning back before getting there. It was a pleasant early morning flight, but also a bit of a waste of time. The route was a very simple one - depart Goodyear, turn west, keep going, then turn back and head back to Goodyear.
Ah well, it was nice to see some more of the amazing scenery if nothing else.
This morning I had an early morning dual flight with Gilbert - the last one before my first progress test. The flight went really well, I put in a good performance with steep turns, stalls, practise forced landings - and generally had a really good flight and a good chat with Gilbert.
I was hoping to get my PT1 done tomorrow, but due to a lack of available instructors I now have to wait until next Wednesday. I can continue with solo navigation flights, then do a couple of solo general handlings just before the test. I'm also planning on having a couple of days off, as I've had a flight or two every day for the last 10 days.
Had a nice lazy day today, spent mostly playing games with Georgia this afternoon while Clare caught up on some sleep. Also been looking on some places to go next week when my Dad comes out - trying to plan something involving the Grand Canyon and Vegas. Not too easy when you have a five hour drive with a two year old to plan for.
Apart from a dogfight with an F-16 which saw me gunned down in flames (yeah, cheers Gareth) - not much been happening. Maybe when I have a couple of days off we'll get out and about.
Time to go draw some more pictures of cats, methinks!
Bye for now
Simon

Crash at Oxford

2006-08-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

From the BBC: Warrior crash at Oxford
Not much to say about this one as all I know about it is what the BBC have printed. Amazing that the Instructor and 2 students walked away from it...

Solo Cross Country

2006-08-29T21:21:00.000-07:00

Today I carried out a rather long and incredibly hot and bumpy cross country solo. After a few problems upon arrival at Goodyear (namely the schedule being completely buggered, again) - I took the keys and tech book of N460X and headed out. Unfortunately N460X is one of the older warriors, and is therefore a complete piece of sh*t. This, coupled with 39 degrees and more thermals than you can shake an aileron at, made for a rather bumpy ride. It was nigh on impossible to get the aircraft trimmed for hands off flying, so it was quite difficult to do the navigation part of the flight. The lack of a timer in the aircraft also made things more difficult.
Not to worry, I pressed on and made it round all the airports I was supposed to, taking a few interesting photos along the way. Check out the giant hole in the ground near Casa Grande - taken from 4500 up it gives you an idea of how large it is.
I then passed over a set of fields that look like a set of giant targets for the Gods/Giants/Cloud people - not sure what the explanation behind these fields is, but I bet it's a good one.
I eventually made it back to Goodyear after 1 hour 45 mins - a little later back than I should have been, but a crappy old aircraft coupled with a very long climb to 6500 feet meant I didn't spend much time at the 100 kt cruise speed.
When I was taxiing back after landing I saw an F-16 having some work done on it - I had heard before I departed that an F-16 was due to arrive, but to taxi past it was pretty smart.
Overall - I fairly good flight and a really nice day. Tomorrow I am due another 2 hour cross country solo, but I have a feeling it will not go ahead, but we'll see...

Great flying, and huge shops.

2006-08-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

It's Monday night here, about 21:30. I've just got back from the airport having gone down to do my last solo night flight - but unfortunately the stall horn on N157ND was inop, so flight cancelled.
I already flew today, so it's not really a big deal - but it is a shame to go down there and plan the flight, start the pre-flight checks then have to lock everything down again and come home.Last night I did the night navigation flight. We combined my lesson with Mal's, which meant I flew us from Goodyear to Glendale, then to Deer Valley, then Scottsdale, a transition through Phoenix Sky Harbor class B airspace (see pic), then down to Casa Grande for a full stop, via the holding pattern and ILS approach. We took on some fuel then Mal hopped in and flew us back to Goodyear, doing the route in reverse. It was a really nice flight - the scenery is simply amazing, and although it is still very warm (it was 37 degrees at midnight) - the ride is much much smoother than during the day.
It was Mal's first night flying though, and he really struggled with the landings. I guess a combination of first night flying, unfamiliar airports and flying at 01:00 doesn't help. I thought my part of the flight went really well, and when I checked my grades for the exercise today I saw that Gilbert seemed to agree, as he'd given me some really top scores. I got home at about 2am, struggled to get to sleep before 3am, then was rudely awoken by my alarm at 5:30 as I had a 7:00 navigation flight. I had to get up and plan the flight, work out headings etc etc. I'm happy to say that it went really well, we flew from Goodyear to Casa Grande, then back to Goodyear via Ak Chin. It was the first time I'd been down that way, so it was all unfamiliar scenery. I again thought the flight went really well, Gilbert was asking me various things such as 'what heading would you set if you had to divert to Falcon Field airport now, how far is it and how much fuel?' - and despite the lack of sleep I was on the ball with it and got everything spot on. Same goes when he asked what would I do if I lost all my electrics, and so on. When we got back to Goodyear he didn't really have a debrief for me, he just said it was the best flight I had ever done - and the scores again reflect that. Really pleased - it's a great feeling when you have a good flight and your instructor agrees. Nice to know it's all coming together.

After I got home this morning we decided to head up to Arrowhead Mall - picking Tony up from the airport on the way so he can relieve some of the cabin fever. I needed some new shoes as my leather soled Loakes have worn right through, so I decided to just get some plain black trainers, as they'll be comfier and lighter for flying. I bought myself some New Balance ones which were just the job, and a good price too - but in the process left my Ray Bans on the bench where I tried the shoes on....
What a complete muppet. I realised ten minutes later, but by then it was too late. I feel really bad about it, not so much that they were £100 sunglasses, but mainly because they were a present from Clare for my 30th birthday in May. Gutted gutted gutted.
I crawled back into bed later in the afternoon and grabbed an hours kip before heading to the airport for the night flight and subsequent disappointment. I guess it gives me time to write my blog and update the photo albums...
Tomorrow I have a solo navigation that takes me on quite a long trek round south east Phoenix area. It's scheduled for 12:30, so it's gonna be a hot one, but should be interesting as again it's all new territory for me. Just hope I can manage ok without my shades...
Seeing as my flight is later in the day I've decided to have a couple of drinks tonight - and have splashed out a fortune on a bottle of Port. $2.99 for a bottle of Port, complete with screw top - you know it's gonna be good stuff! The AVGAS we put in the aircraft smells better....

Ah, nearly forgot... Gilbert has asked me to help him build a PC, and he told me about a big electronics store in Phoenix. Yesterday we took a drive over, and he wasn't kidding - imagine all the PC World, Comet, Currys and Dixons in the UK rolled into one giant store, and you pretty much have Fry's Electronics. What an awesome place - so many great PC bits, TV's, cinema kit, you name it. And soooooo cheap too... Dad, you could get yourself some awesome PC bits when you come over - bring a spare suitcase!
I restrained myself to buying a headset for my PC, which Georgia has since commandeered for herself. Speech recognition ATC for flight sim has a problem understanding her though....
Which reminds me - Happy Birthday to my bestest bud Andrew. Hope you had a great 30th my friend. Looking forward to seeing you again when we get back to the UK.

Night flying

2006-08-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

On Friday I had my first night flight - five days later than originally planned, but worth the wait. Unfortunately there were also a lot of other people having night flights, and the pattern was full of Oxford and Lufthansa students. There were about five aircraft all lined up at runway 21, waiting for clearance to take off - when a certain Nilay Patel decided to charge down the outside of everyone and cut in at the front... nice manoeuvre, but our instructor was less impressed...
While I was holding short at Alpha 1, Gilbert and I noticed that ATC were landing everyone instead of doing touch-and-go's - but unfortunately for Nilay he didn't pick up on this fact when ATC told him 'cleared to land' - and he went and did a touch and go. Big trouble... but no one was killed or maimed, so no harm done, lesson learned.
I asked Gilbert if there was anywhere else we could go, as the way things were going we would manage about 2 circuits in the hour fifteen we were allocated. So after take-off we turned off to the left and headed up to Glendale Airport - a nice 5 minute flight to the north. ATC was closed up there, so we had to just give position reports on the frequency and listen out for other traffic, but there was no-one else there. We turned the runway lights on remotely from the air (click the radio 7 times) - and settled in for some nice quiet pattern work. It was awesome - the view at night is fantastic, it's such a shame we don't get more night flying time.
Last night I had my first solo night flight, and as it was Saturday the pattern was very quiet - in fact only Nilay and myself were flying (he was doing his solo lesson again...)
I managed to get some videos of my circuit work, here's one of a standard approach and landing to runway 21:

Yesterday I also had my first solo navigation flight, which was pretty good. It was really hot, and the ride was pretty bumpy, but my headings were accurate enough so I didn't get lost. I'll be having a LOT more solo navigation flights now, and they'll be quite long too, so I'll get out and about and see more of the area. Just wish the planes weren't so damn slow...
I have no flight today except for a night navigation flight tonight. Mine is due at 21:30, and my flying buddy Mal has a flight at 23:00 - so we're going to head over to Phoenix Sky Harbor area. I'll fly us out there, we'll do a full stop landing somewhere and Mal can fly us back. Looking forward to that!
As for the rest of the day - nothing much planned. I'm sat on the couch playing games with Georgia as I write this (Dora the Explorer on her Leappad). I need to go out and buy some new shoes as my Loakes have worn right through the leather soles - gutted. Other than that - I think it'll be more time in the pool. It's a hard life.

Congratulations to Jeroen, Steve, Sander and Koen - who have all passed their resits and will be coming out to Phoenix next week. Be good to see you chumps again :-P

Ciao for now

Simon

Dinosaur Eggs?

2006-08-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

Well we've had another uneventful week. Lots of lying by the pool and Georgia and I have been doing collage pictures today. She's learning her colours now and is really interested in learning her shapes so we've been cutting shapes out of different colours of felt.

I've discovered that the soft fruit here is fantastic! I've been filling my fridge full of Nectarines, Peaches, Plums and Dinosaur Eggs.. yep, they're a hybrid fruit of about 70% Plum 30% Apricot also known as a Pluot or a Taste Explosion and they really are yummy. Much more like a plum than an apricot as you might expect but so sweet and juicy they surpass all but the nicest plums!

Videos

2006-08-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of videos that can be played directly from my blog. One is of a solo landing from 11th August (an early morning flight on my wedding anniversary - a great way to start the day) and another of the storm from the other night. Hopefully by doing this the video files can stream and play rather than having to download them in their entirity first. Anyway, if people can let me know how this works out I would be grateful.

Cheers

Simon

P.S. Paul: Here's your chance to get your revenge and comment about that landing. My only defence is that I was in N268ND - before they sorted out the sticky yoke, you can hear the yoke creaking as I flare. ;-)

Storm at Goodyear, 21st August. View from our apartment.

Early morning solo landing at Goodyear Airport, runway 21.

Best laid plans of mice and men

2006-08-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

A couple of disappointing setbacks the last couple of days. On Sunday I was supposed to have my first night flight, but as mentioned previously this was cancelled. Last night I was due again to fly, but the arrival of a bloody great storm put paid to that flight too. I was all geared up for it too, had been out during the day to buy a new torch and other stuff, had an early tea with Clare and Georgia then headed down to the airport. My buddy Mal was due to fly at 18:00, so I was going to back-seat his flight then do my night flight at 19:30. Upon arrival at the airport I was told Mal had cancelled his flight, so I then had to hang around for 90 mins until I was due to fly. After 45 mins Gilbert called from home asking me what the weather was like. It wasn't too bad at the airport, but the radar picture looked horrific - two very large storms moving down from the aouth. Five minutes later I was back in the car heading home, and five minutes after that I took the photo above.
Georgia was really sweet - not phased at all by the thunder and lightning, she just kept asking for more. I've a couple of videos that I'll put on my website soon. When I got up this morning it was raining outside, with more thunder and lightning - first time it hasn't been sunny during the day since we got here in June. It brightened up at about 10:00 though, and then it was business as usual. I've no flying scheduled for today or tomorrow, and we had planned a trip to Tucson but something cropped up which meant we have stayed local. We had a day at home today, venturing out briefly to buy Georgia some new swimming stuff, before heading down to the pool to try it out.
No flying tomorrow, so more chill out time with the family. It feels more special when it's a mid-week break for some reason, hopefully from here on in the days of boring 9-5 Monday-Friday jobs are gone.

Instrument flying, and that sneaky Gilbert

2006-08-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

Had a busy weekend of more flying... doing some instrument flying on Saturday that went pretty well. Gilbert failed my attitude indicator and direction indicator, meaning I had to fly using the turn co-ordinator and compass only. I was a bit worried about this as I couldn't really remember the rules on compass undershoot and overshoot, but with the application of 'UNOS' (undershoot north, overshoot south) - I soon had it sussed. The practise I put in the other day on the sim was time well spent, I was holding altitude pretty well and doing nice precise rate one turns.
One of my other flights was a dual flight that we used to practise general handling - I went through steep turns, stalls and practise forced landings - and Gilbert commented that my solo sessions had obviously been put to good use. It made me feel pretty good, and I was actually surprised myself how well things went, but my last couple of solo flights had been midday, and were really bumpy and unpleasant.
Gilbert tried the 'pull the circuit breaker' trick on me on take off, but I noticed straight away that my T's and P's were dead, so no problem :-)
I was supposed to start night flying last night, but it was cancelled just beforehand, so I am due to fly tonight. Looking forward to that - I haven't seen Goodyear from the air at night yet. I did have a flight this morning at 7:30 - Navigation flight 3, over to Gila Compressor, Paloma, then back to Goodyear. This went reasonably well; I was off course a couple of times but corrected it OK I thought. I feel a bit more confident with the actual flying so I can concentrate on looking out for landmarks. I'm still not quite as creative as Gilbert, but then he does know the area a hell of a lot better than me. The main thing is I don't get us lost!

Family-wise everything is going well. Georgia and Clare are really happy - I still have a good portion of the day to spend with them, which is really nice. To anyone with a family or partner that is thinking on bringing them out to the states - do it. Ignore what ever OAT tell you about them getting in the way, it simply isn't true. Maybe in the later part of the training I'll be away for more of the day, but if you're used to working for 8 hours a day and being out of the home for 10 hours, this will all feel like a holiday.
Georgia has been really lovely lately - she is speaking more and more every day, but we do feel bad for her that she isn't getting to play with other children. I guess it's a small sacrifice, and hopefully it won't really make much of a difference - once we get back to Oxford she will hopefully go back to the play groups and friends there. I know I'd much rather have her spend time with me than with other kids, even if it is slightly selfish on my part. I do know I'd be absolutely gutted if I'd come out here on my own, and missed her growing up over these last few months.
The other day at Paradise Vally Mall I spotted a little summer dress in Macy's, and couldn't resist buying it for her. Here's a piccie of her posing in it:

That's enough rambling for now. Gonna try and have a lazy day by the pool today, then hopefully get that first night flight done later.

All the best

Simon

A good flight

2006-08-18T22:23:00.000-07:00

My second navigation flight was a great success! The winds at 3000 ft were very light, and the headings I had computed turned out to be bang on the money. Every leg of the flight went perfectly, and the actual flying went really well too. It was a very early start and a hurried set of calculation and planning so I am really pleased with my performance. Half way round the route Gilbert went through the procedure for diversion to an alternate, and we effectively cut the flight short and diverted back to Goodyear. My landing was a flapless approach, and a really nice touchdown - gaining praise from Gilbert.
Mal was the next to fly, and he'd stayed up all night (in a strip club) and did his nav calcs at 3:30am. He wasn't as lucky with his headings as I was, so he was off by quite a bit on some of the legs. Half way round Gilbert again diverted us back to Goodyear, and very sneakily pulled the circuit breaker for the gauges while no-one was looking. When Mal did his top of descent checklist he didn't spot that the oil and fuel temps and pressures were zero, but made the call "T's and P's in the green" anyway.
"You sure?" asked Gilbert, innocently.
Busted!!!
All in all, it was a nice morning. The three of us had a few laughs while flying, and I really feel like things are loosening up now. It's a shame that in a few weeks we'll have a different instructor when we move onto the Seneca.
I was back at the airport in the afternoon for a general handling solo, which went pretty well despite the 40 degree heat, lack of engine performance and extreme bumpiness. Getting the hang of being thrown around the sky like a rag doll.

Today I was due a dual session in the FNPTII simulator at 12:00, so I decided to get there early and have a solo session in the FNPTI simulator. The pic below shows what a technological tour-de-force this machine is. Basic cockpit layout is all well and good, but being controlled by a 10 year old PC running windows 95.. omg...

Earlier on in the course I managed to acquire a copy of 'Pattern B' - the series of turns, climbs and descents that we have to do in the sim. Unfortunately Gilbert had my copy, but I did my best to recreate it from memory. In a previous post I mentioned how twitchy the FNPTII is, and the FNPTI is pretty much the same. I managed to get used to it after 15 mins though, I certainly felt more relaxed than I had been when doing a proper lesson. After flying what I thought was a close replica of Pattern B, I paused the sim and checked the pc - see below for a copy of the required pattern B, and a printout of what I flew. I'm really pleased with this - it doesn't really do justice here but it hopefully shows that I was making nice steady turns, and keeping the required heading. The extra turn from westbound back to north is because I couldn't remember whether I needed to do that or not.

Anyway, after a nice performance in the little sim, my lesson in the big sim was cancelled due to Gilbert's prior flight being delayed, so I put some more time in the solo sim then headed up to the crew room to plan for a proper solo flight I had at 13:00. This also went well, it was very hot again and the aircraft struggled to climb from 3000 to 4000 ft, but it wasn't a major problem. What was a slight problem was the stall horn not working in flight - it had worked ok when I checked it during my walk around (and worked again when I later checked it when I landed) - but in the air it didn't work. This meant that when I went to do some practise stalls it was only when the aircraft actually stalled and nose-dived for the ground that I knew to recover. Makes things a bit more interesting, especially on the 20 degree bank base-to-final stall turn.

Not sure what flights I'll have this weekend - I have a dual instrument flight tomorrow, and possibly a dual sim flight on Sunday, but that's not confirmed yet. Hopefully I'll find out tomorrow and then I can make plans for the rest of the weekend.

If hadn't been for them pesky winds...

2006-08-16T21:40:00.000-07:00

My first navigation flight is now complete, and what a complete load of tosh it was too. I did all the right planning, scribbled all over my map, headings calculated to within an inch of their lives, and off we went. The flying part of the flight went really well, but as soon as I made the turn south towards Gila Bend I knew immediately I was going to be way off course. I stuck with the planned heading, and we followed the correct drills for looking out, identifying where we were, and coming up with a new heading. We even called Prescott Radio service and got them to verify the winds aloft data (if you ask me, I think Gilbert doubted my planning :-) ) but they confirmed the data I had. The winds given were 280/16, and as a result I had a heading turned into the wind to correct for drift. Trouble was, the wind seemed to be more like 190/16, and as a result we were flying off towards California.
We made it safe to Gila Bend airport where I attempted a touch-and-go. I say attempted, because although my approach, base turn and final were all very nice, the actual flare ... well, it didn't happen. Under the dictionary under 'hard landing' is a big picture of me in my not so shiny Warrior with smashed undercarriage. It wasn't *that* bad, but we did bounce a little bit. I blame the narrow runway, and had Derek in ground school not gone to the trouble of warning of the effect of small runways, I might blame him too - but he's off the hook :-)
The rest of the flight went really well I thought. Once we knew any planned headings were a better work of fiction than the bible, we got on with the business of actually flying and navigating for real, which was pretty good fun. We made it back to Goodyear nicely on time too, which is always good for keeping the guys and gals in dispatch happy.
Gilbert then said that he was off work on Wednesday, so he would put me in for two flights on Thursday and let me have a day off. Winner!
Back home for just after 9am, with the rest of the day and the whole following day free. I called Tony up and arranged to meet them up at Imagination Avenue, a nice little kiddy play area near Scottsdale. It's a really nice little place that's done up like a mini-town - with a fire station, school, shops, cinema, and a bouncy castle. The kids can trash around in mini cars, or dress up as firemen (or women), or just bounce around the place. It was great fun, and I am sure Georgia and Daisy had a great time.
Here's a few piccies of Georgia: cooking lunch, putting out the fire, then bouncing around!

When we got back home I headed round to Hertz, as they'd called earlier in the day to say they needed their car back. I got round there and paid the bill for the last month or so, and took the keys to another car. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a even higher spec model than before - still a Checy Impala, but one with even more toys. Unfortunately, it has heated leather seats - and when it's still over 100 degrees from 8am to 8pm, they are more of a hinderance than a help. The sunroof in this car adds to that 'fresh-baked thigh' feeling that you get when you jump in. It does still have the remote start feature, which means you can have the engine running and air con on max for 10 mins before you get near the car, but that leather still stays nuclear hot. Might have to go back to Hertz some time.... see if I can wangle another upgrade ;-)

Today (Wednesday) was my day off, and we decided to head over to Tempe Town Lake. This is an outdoor area for little ones to splash around, and stay cool under the baking sun. We all had a good time here, Georgia had a couple of falls and a couple of disagreements over ownership of toys, but it didn't dampen her spirits too much.

Here's a quick pic of her arming herself, and blasting anyone who came near!

Just before 1pm we decided to head into Tempe and look for somewhere for lunch. Clare had spotted a Greek Restaurant (called 'My Big Fat Greek Restaurant') on the map of Tempe we had, so we went there. I have to be honest and say it was one of the nicest meals I have ever had. We shared Zuccini cakes for a starter (Georgia scoffed nearly half of one all by herself) - and for main course Clare had Pita Falafel, and I had mixed Souvlaki - chicken and angus beef. It was fantastic, we will definitely go back there sometime. Gianni - if you're reading this, you will love it!
After our meal we had a brief wander around Tempe, taking in "Rula Bula" Irish Pub, "Corleone's" bar, and Hooters bar, before heading back home. It's been a really great couple of days - lots of fun things for Georgia to do, and some nice quality time for mummy and daddy too.
Time to go get some kip - have a flight at 5:30am tomorrow, then a solo flight at 13:00. One of the places I am supposed to fly to isn't on my map, so I'll have to wait until the morning to do my planning - setting alarm for just before 4am. It's just not natural!

If I don't get lost somewhere in Mexico, I'll update my blog with my progress...

Bye for now

Simon

Navigation, Charity, bumped head. Never a dull moment.

2006-08-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

This morning at 7:00am I was due to do my first Navigation flight - a dual with Gilbert from Goodyear - Pierce - Gila Bend - Mobile - Goodyear. I made a note last night that my flying buddy Mal was also due to do the same flight but at 5:30am. I arrived at the airport for 5am, giving myself enough time to get the current winds aloft data so I could calculate my route, and then be able to back seat Mal on his flight. I met Gilbert in the crew room and when I told him about Mal having the same flight he was a bit worried, as he hadn't warned Mal about the Navigation and therefore didn't expect him to have anything prepared. Gilbert went off to Dispatch and cancelled Mal's flight... meanwhile Mal arrived with all his route pretty much planned out (with some help from Toddy). Gilbert came back and rather sheepishly told Mal he'd just cancelled his flight..... oops.
I decided to offer Mal my 7:00 flight - I was more than happy to back seat and soak up the scenery, so the two of us sorted out our route data then had a briefing from Gilbert on filing a flight plan. It was nice and relaxed, and at 7:00 we got the keys to N268ND and headed out to pre-flight together. Mal got us off the ground a little while later, and he got stuck into the flying really well. Gilbert was great as usual at pointing out things as we went along, and the three of us had a really pleasant time. After a hard touch and go at Gila Bend, we headed over to Mobile where I got a really nice shot over the wing of the runway below.

We then headed back into Goodyear for tea and medals, Gilbert tried to demonstrate how to do a proper landing despite our complaints about the sticky yoke in this aircarft.... unfortunately he wasn't quite on the numbers, but still impressive. Video clip HERE (84.7Mb). When we got back into Dispatch I noticed I had a solo General Handling planned for 4pm. Still feeling charitable, I offered this slot to Mal as he is quite a bit behind on solos now, whereas I only have three slots left before PT1 and I want to leave at least one for just before the test.
This obviously meant I didn't actually fly today, but I did get to spend the rest of the day with Clare and Georgia. We decided to head over to Tempe area to a childrens play place called Toy Town - only when we got over there (30 miles trip) the place was shut. Gutted. Fortunately Arizona Mills (huge shopping mall) was just up the road so we went up there. Not as great a place for Georgia, but we did our best to make it nice for her: treated her to chocolate Malt at Johnny Rockets, a ride on the carousel, and generally just letting her charge around a lot. We all had a great time - Clare treated herself to some new clothes, and I treated myself to some nice daddy-daughter time. Well, it was nice up the point where Georgia fell over her own big feet in a toy shop, giving herself a heck of a bump on her head. Poor little girl - cursed with big canoes for feet like her dad. I spotted some nice little Dora the Explorer toys, which helped distract her from the pain a little.

All in all it's been a really nice day. I'm scheduled to do my Navigation flight at 7:00 tomorrow, so I've been doing a little practise on Flight Sim this evening. Compare the fly-by at Mobile on flight sim to the real thing, it's not too shabby, especially considering I'm running it on my laptop.

Anyhoo, enough geekiness, I'm off to catch some shut eye so I can get up early and re-do my flight plan in the morning.
Ciao

Simon

A week has gone by...

2006-08-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how fast the time is passing here. I only just noticed that it's been over a week since our last update.
We started the week with our planned trip to the Apache Trail. We didn't travel the whole trail, but we saw the museum at Apache Junction, the mining ghost town of Goldfield, a stop at Canyon Lake for a swim, then a trip to Tortilla Flat to sample some Prickly Pear Cactus flavour ice-cream!
I've added a photo album of the trip to my website if anyone wants to take a peek.

The rest of this week has been taken up with flying - I have flown at least once every day. Gilbert has been excellent at securing prime-time slots for me, and I think there is only Toddy in AP256 who has flown more than me. Pretty amazing considering I was one of the last to start flying.
I've done a lot of my general handling solos, and am definitely getting the hang of the things I need to do for my first test - steep turns, 3 types of stall, practise forced landings, 3 types of landing, and general control of the aircraft. I have also done some flying later in the day when the thermals get pretty bad, but that all went ok too.
This week I was also introduced to the FNPTII simulator. My initial impression of the sim isn't great I'm afraid - the controls and responses feel nothing like the real aircraft and are waaaaaaay too twitchy for my liking. I know it's something I'll get used to with practise, but it's very frustrating when you know you can fly pretty well in the real plane, to find yourself all over the place in the sim. Considering the sim costs $1 million, I can't say I'm all that impressed. This week I acquired a Piper Warrior add-on for flight sim 2004 and a scenery pack for Phoenix and surrounding area. Here's a few pictures of Warrior N357ND flying over Goodyear. Compare the pictures to the photos on my website, and you'll see the detail on the aircraft, airport and surrounding countryside are pretty impressive. I just wish I had my flight yoke and pedals with me (maybe my dad will find room in a suitcase when he comes to visit next month ;-) )

We stayed over one night at Tony and Claires this week, which was really nice. Tony had an evening flight so wasn't around while Claire made tea for us all, but he did come back at about 9pm I think. Claire and Daisy were supposed to be flying back to the UK this weekend, but with all the problems at Heathrow they postponed the return until next weekend. Hopefully we'll get chance to meet up again this week - Georgia has been saying 'more Daisy' a few times recently.

On Friday Clare and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. We didn't actually do anything special as I had two solo flights starting at 6am, but we did manage to go out for a meal last night at TGI Fridays. We were planning a trip to Tucson this weekend, as I should have had today and tomorrow off, but when I saw Gilbert in the sim yesterday he told me we would be doing our first Navigation flight on Monday. Fortunately we hadn't made any reservations, so maybe we'll go away next weekend.
Speaking of navigation flights, I guess I should go get some flight planning done - and see if I can remember how to use my CRP5....

Adios Amigos

SJD

Quiet week (for us)

2006-08-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

This week has passed by pretty quietly for Georgia and I, although Simon has been very busy flying so he's got lots of news.
We have just been relaxing at home, swimming and lounging around by the pool, taking Georgia to Barnes and Noble to read books and play with the toy train and this morning we went to storytime at 11am and Georgia made a picture of bugs using her fingerprints.
We're heading out tomorrow over to Superstition Mountain and the Apache Trail so I'm sure we'll have lots of photos of that later.
We went out for dinner to On the Border Mexican Grill with Claire, Tony and Daisy and then Claire and Daisy came back here for the evening while Tony was flying. Georgia and Daisy just run riot when they're together, its crazy! Two toddlers charging round the apartment giggling and screeching at the top of their voices and fighting over wearing each others shoes does not make for a peaceful evening, but Claire and Tony are lovely and I am really glad we have met them, its just a shame that Claire and Daisy are going back to England next week.
Hopefully we'll meet up with them once we're back home and Georgia and Daisy can continue this friendship though.
Goodnight for now,
Clare
xxx

Sin Bin

2006-08-05T21:32:00.001-07:00

It's been a very busy week - I've had a flight every day, and actually had two flights on most days. Since going solo on Tuesday I've done 4 more solos (three pattern work and one general handling) and 3 duals. Yesterday while doing solo pattern work I got into a spot of bother with ATC...
It was 6am, and even at this early hour the pattern was very full. A few of the guys from AP256 were in the sky at the same time, which was pretty cool. ATC were doing a good job of keeping everyone apart, but things started to get a bit out of hand. After one of my touch and go's I was climbing crosswind at about 1800ft when ATC called me up and advised me of traffic above and to my left, and I thought I heard them say 'extend downwind'. I looked out and could clearly see another Warrior about 200ft above and slightly to my left, heading downwind at 90 degrees to me. Extending crosswind seemed sensible enough, so that's what I read back to ATC and proceeded to do - lowering the nose slightly to decrease my rate of climb. The next thing I know the woman controller is yelling 'Seven November Delta - WHAT ARE YOU DOING????'
'Extending crosswind to avoid traffic, as advised Maam' I replied
'I told you to turn downwind to avoid traffic. Head out to Luke Aux Six, seven november delta!' - she yelled.
Oh crap. Sin binned!
I headed west towards Luke Aux Six (a disused Military strip that we use for westerly arrival procedures) - and after a couple of minutes she called me up and told me to turn back and rejoin the pattern.
I put the incident down to poor comms on both our parts - I misheard her initial call, but then she didn't pick up what I said in my read back. The main thing was that I had the other aircraft in sight, so there was no real danger - but it was a definite Top Gun moment!
The really great thing was that every man and his dog heard what happened, which was nice for me when I got back into Dispatch. My instructor was great about it though when I explained my side of the story. No harm, no foul. Phew!

We've had a busy week socially this week too - we've seen Tony, Claire and Daisy a few times which has been really nice. We're planning to go over to their place next week and make a night of it - Claire and Daisy return to the UK next weekend :-(

I have a day off tomorrow, so we are planning on heading out to the Apache Trail over on the East side of Phoenix. Hopefully it'll all go really well, and maybe we'll find the lost Dutchman's Loot.

I've just updated my Website with a few more pictures and a video of one of my solo flights. The video is 126mb, so only attempt to view if you have a good connection!

We just heard this week that due to problems with aircraft we won't get flying time in the Arrow - we'll just get Warrior then Seneca. In order to help, Georgia and I have started to assemble our own fleet of aircraft... just need to iron out a few bugs...

Well, that's it for now. Time to go get my sat nav fired up ready for tomorrow...

Adios!

Solo!

2006-08-01T09:09:00.000-07:00

Today I took to the skies on my own! I was up at 4am, at the airport at 5am, and taking off at 5:45 for an hour of circuit practise with Gilbert. After a few circuits we came in for a landing, Gilbert jumped out, and I headed back out on my own.
It was a great feeling to be at the controls with no-one else there looking over my shoulder, even though my first solo flight consisted of 5 minutes air time.
It still amazes me that after 11 lessons I've gone solo, but such is the pace Oxford set. Looking forward to tomorrow - another dual flight and hopefully another solo!

Sedona and Jerome

2006-08-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

This weekend we decided to pack up the car and head up north, and take in the sights around Sedona and Jerome. We looked online and booked a room at Sedona Real Inn - a king size room complete with a large whirlpool bath in the living area. We got a good deal on this, and it turned out to be a really nice place.
Before we reached Sedona however, we headed off the beaten track to see Jerome - a very old American West mining town, very high up in the hills. Jerome is a remarkable place, it's almost like stepping back in time. We had a spot of lunch in the Red Rooster cafe, and had a chat with a couple of the locals. We then wandered the streets, taking in the old police station, the English Kitchen (oldest restaurant in Arizona), and a couple of the saloons.

We then headed back down the hill into Sedona, and checked into our room. The change in view as you head into Seonda is amazing, the rocks start getting bigger and bigger, and turn from yellow to deep red. Some of the rock formations have been given names - one looks like a coffee pot, one looks like Snoopy lying on his kennel!
That night when we went out for some food, Sedona was hit by a massive thunderstorm similar to what we had at Goodyear last week. When we left the restaurant to go back to the Inn, the roads were like red rivers - a huge amount of sediment had run off the hills.

Unfortunately all the heavy rain meant that the places we planned on going to were all closed, as was one of the main highways running north. We changed our plans and headed back south to Phoenix, stopping off at an outlet village on the way.
This worked out ok, as it meant I had time to go to Goodyear Airport to complete a pre-solo test that's needed before you can fly solo.

All in all, a very nice weekend - chilled out nicely in time for my first solo...

A bad day

2006-07-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had my first lesson on how to perform a circuit at Goodyear. It was by far the worst performance I have put in so far, nothing on the flight went well. As I taxi'd out I went to perform rudder checks, but was still in range of the ramadas - I didn't hit anything but it's a big no-no. I then carried out my power checks in the run-up area, then called Goodyear Ground for clearance to taxi to runway - but had completely missed out my pre take-off checklist.
When I finally got up in the sky, I just could not get comfortable at the controls at all. We were just doing touch and go's, and although I was getting the take-off and the pattern ok, I couldn't get the approach and landing right. Such a disappointment after doing well the other day.
Things started to fall into place after 3 hard landings and 2 go-arounds, when Gilbert said to increase speed on approach I should increase engine power. The training books we have all seem to imply that you set power at 1700rpm and leave it, but when I tried a landing with the power at 1900rpm, I maintained the glideslope much easier, and the landing was much better. I've uploaded a video of my full-stop landing on my website
Here's a great pic of Gilbert looking back at Mal after I nose-dived for the ground:

I have another lesson at 11am today, let's just hope I don't make the same mistakes...

I had a lovely birthday

2006-07-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

Thankyou darling!

Simon bought me Carcassonne (board game) for my birthday and we played it last night, I'd highly recommend it for a simple and fairly short game for 2 - 5 players. Each games about 45 mins so great for in between toddler wakings.

I was going to update this blog but you've done it really thoroughly, and all I can say is I had a wonderful day, I loved the waterpark, especially the slides that you went down on the rubber rings.

Thankyou so much baby, my day was lovely, even if it didn't feel much like a birthday :-)

I love you too.

Happy Birthday Clare!

2006-07-27T22:54:00.000-07:00

Hi all
It's been quite a busy week so far, we've been out and about to a few places in the Phoenix area. I've been lucky with my flights this week - Monday was a day off, Tuesday I flew at 6am, Weds I backseated Mal at 6am then flew at 7:30, and I didn't fly today as it's Clare's birthday.
Getting a nice early slot means I am home early, which gives us the rest of the day to go do something. At this early stage in the training there isn't much 'homework' to be done other than learning checklists and procedures, so at most I'm looking at a 4 hour working day, which when started at 5am is pretty nice.
Anyway, on Monday we took the opportunity to go into Phoenix for a visit to the Science Museum. We were really impressed with the place, there was a lot of hands-on activities - including a chance to fly a plane! There was a lot for Georgia to do too, which was nice, and also an IMAX showing which we sat through. The only disappointment was the catering facilities - they made Oxford Aviation's canteen look like a 5 star Michelin restaurant. I think Georgia's expression sums it up best:

On Tuesday we headed over to Scottsdale, firstly for a visit to Crackerjax then a walk around Kierland Mall. The day started off a bit overcast, so at Crackerjax we headed outside for a go on the Crazy Golf - but 2 holes into it the sun broke through the clouds, and promptly cooked us alive. Thank god we'd only paid for a go on one of the courses. Georgia had a great time with the golf - although she quickly dispensed with the club in favour of just picking up the ball and throwing it in the hole. Tiger Woods has nothing on this girl!

After a spot of lunch at Crackerjax we went to Kierland, had a quick look around Barnes & Noble then a look in a couple of kiddy clothes places. It's a really nice mall, with a water fountain in the middle which is similar to the one at Asda Walmart in Swindon. Georgia had a good splash around there (fully clothed, of course), then dragged me in too for a good soaking. The great thing about here is that 5 minutes after you get out of the water, you are bone dry again.

Later that evening we were hit by an awesome thunderstorm, the likes of which I have never seen before in my life. It lasted for hours, and seemed to be all around us. There was very little rain initially, but after a couple of hours the rain arrived and flooded a few areas. The thunder and lightning was amazing though, it just kept constantly flashing and crashing, not at all like what you get in the UK. I managed to get a couple of photos that show three stages - dark, blue, then bright white:

I managed to get some good video footage too, which I'll put up on my website at some point. Gianni off AP256 got some awesome shots of the storm from Goodyear Airport, which I'll also put on my site when I get chance.

Yesterday morning I had a backseat flight with Mal at 6:00, then a quick change over at Buckeye airport and I took off at 7:45. I was practising PFL's (practise forced landings) - only the aircraft we had turned out to be a bit of a lemon. Unfortunately we didn't realise this until we went to apply max power to recover the practise landing. What we did was close the throttle and glide the aircraft towards a nice looking field as if we were going to land, but at the last minute apply max power and climb away - only the engine started to cough and splutter.... so we very nearly ended up doing an actual forced landing! Crumbs chief!
When we returned to Goodyear I brought us in for a landing, and performed my very first unassisted landing. It all went beautifully, so much so that when we cleared the runway Gilbert turned to me and said 'that was a pretty nice landing man' - which in Gilbert-speak means 'that was totally awesome dude!'. Even Mal (who was backseating) commented later that it was really sweet. Made me a happy bunny for the rest of the day!
When I got back home I picked up Clare and Georgia and we headed firstly to Borders in Avondale for children's story time, then up to Arrowhead Mall to meet Tony, Claire and Daisy. We had a spot of lunch at Johnny Rockets then had a wander round the shops for a while, before letting the girls charge around the play area. We also took the opportunity to get Georgia's feet measured at Stride Rites, and buy her some new shoes (she's a size 7 and a half U.S. - feet like canoes, just like her dad)

Today I had a nice lie-in 'til about 8am, followed by a nice lazy morning with Clare and Georgia. Unfortunately I'd already given Clare her birthday presents early, so she had nothing to open :-(
Just before lunch we arranged to head over to Big Surf in Tempe. We had a great time splashing about, keeping cool despite the really high temperatures. Clare had a go on a lot of the water slides too, which she loved:

Shortly after lunch Tony, Claire and Daisy arrived - and the two little-'uns had a great time in the pool. It's really nice for Georgia to have a friend to play with now, even though they do go a bit mental when they get together! Here's a nice photo of Clare with Georgia and Daisy:

Tony had to head back to Goodyear for a 5pm flight, so we brought Claire and Daisy back to our place for a while, which after a quick tea of french toast gave the girls another chance to charge about together, and play with Georgia's new toddler bed. Georgia is a huge 'Dora the explorer' fan, so we managed to buy her a proper Dora toddler bed, and she loves it! Here's a nice pic of Daisy giving Georgia a big hug on the bed:

And that brings us up to date! I hope my dear wife has had a nice day - I know it's not exactly been a 'special' day for her, but I'd like to think we all had a nice time. I just want to let you know that I love you very much Clarey - you are the best thing to happen to me, and I couldn't do this pilot training without you. Happy birthday darling.

Well, it's now 23:45 and I'm up at 4am for a 5:30 flight, so I'm off to get a couple of hours kip!

S.

Time flies when you're having fun

2006-07-23T22:31:00.000-07:00

A dreadful pun, but it's bloody accurate. It's been quite a busy week since I started flying on Tuesday. Yesterday saw me have flight number 6 at 6am - and I should have had flight number 7 at 10:30 but the aircraft was still 'Tech' so the lesson was cancelled. The pace at which the learning goes at is very fast - you literally get to watch your instructor perform a manoeuvre, have a couple of attempts yourself, then move on to the next. A typical 1.5hr slot will end up being about an hour's flight time, due to time spent on the ground doing pre-flight, startup checks, power checks, taxi, hold... then it takes a good 10 to 15 minutes to fly from Goodyear Airport to the practise area to the south - allow 15 minutes for the trip back and you're looking at 30 minutes of 'new' lesson time.
I'm feeling happier in myself now as I'm starting to get a hang of all the checks, checks and more checks that have to be done, and also getting a feel for the controls. Yesterday we did practise stalls, and I received some good praise from my Instructor when I carried out a full power-off stall at 5000ft then recovered it with approx 100ft height loss and minor heading deviation.
I've managed to take a few more photos and videos too - but as we are still playing about locally they are mostly the same as what is already on my website. If anyone wants to see some of the video footage then let me know - it's a bit too large to keep on my webspace permanently.
I'm now off until Tuesday at the earliest as Gilbert doesn't work Mondays - and it sure feels nice to switch off and relax. Despite being up at 4am yesterday I didn't seem to suffer too much for it, and was bright and breezy when I got home at about 9:30am. My flying buddy Mal, and his chauffeur Steve Robinson (also from AP256) called round at our apartment at 10:40, and I felt rather sheepish when I told them we were heading out to Barnes and Noble for children's story time at 11am. They were both good about it, and followed us up there so we could sit and have a chat over some Starbucks's Frappuccinos (which in case you're wondering taste just the same as in the UK, only they cost less here)
After story time, and after the guys had headed back to the airport - Clare, Georgia and I hung around a bit longer at B&N, then headed home. Shortly afterwards we were paid a visit by Tony Grear (from AP255) and his wife Clare and daughter Daisy.
I hadn't met Tony until yesterday, despite him being on the course just ahead of ours and him being in a similar family situation to us. It's a shame that we hadn't got to know each other during ground school as we seem to have a lot in common (he rides a 2001 model R1 - which instantly puts him in my good books)
Anyhoo - we all had a good afternoon - Georgia and Daisy played nicely enough (Daisy is a couple of months older than Georgia) - apart from Georgia being a tad possessive about her toys and eventually going into meltdown when we got back from the pool.

Today (Sunday) we headed up to a McDonalds just north of Goodyear where we met Tony, Clare and Daisy, and also Dana, Rob and Robbie. We had a lovely breakfast while the little ones threw each other around the kiddy play area. Everyone seems to get on well, so hopefully we can arrange more meet-ups like this - it's definitely good for the kids, and got to be good for the mums too.

A couple of extra things: Here's a picture taken from our balcony the other night - the sun was just setting and there was a high level of sand in the air, the photo doesn't really do justice to just how amazing the sky looked.

And one last thing - a Happy Birthday to my good friend Ian who just turned 30. He's been given a nice present of a drive of a couple of Ferraris - looking forward to hearing all about it. All the best mate.

Time to get myself off to bed methinks - busy day planned for tomorrow: crazy golfing and splash park!

Ciao for now

Simon

Airborne at last

2006-07-18T21:16:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 18th July, 10:55am: the moment the wheels left the ground on my first flight with Oxford Aviation.
I'll amend this post when I have more time, but I'm up at 4am tomorrow for an early flight. Meanwhile, here's a piccie of the aircraft I flew today.

************* Update ******************

My head is now swimming with information overload. I did my second and third flights today (see HERE for some pictures taken this morning).
The training is progressing fairly quickly, considering I have zero flight experience prior to this. For my first flight we spent a lot of time going over all the check list in detail, carrying out a proper pre-flight check and walk round, then taking time over the pre-taxi, pre-take off, top of climb, cruise, and all the other checks that need doing. Quite a lot to take in, but with time and practise it should come together. I didn't do much flying for lesson 1, just some very basic turns once we had made it out to the practise area just over the other side of the mountains.
For lesson 2 (7:30am) I was on the radios calling Goodyear Tower and requesting clearances etc, and carried out the take off on runway 21. For reference the ATIS was information Mike, wind was 120 at 8 kts, temp 33 degrees, dewpoint 18, QNH 29.91, runway 21.
Once out in the practise area we ran through lesson 2, which covered secondary effects of controls, and the effects of flaps. I had more time in control, but was still obviously getting a feel for it all.
For lesson 3 (11:30am) I performed the take off and flew the aircraft out past twin lakes and onto the greenfields practise area. By now the temperature had risen a few more degrees and the ride was pretty bumpy. For take off the ATIS was information Papa, windo 060 @ 6 kts, temp 38, dewpoint 16, QNH 2989, runway 03. We covered off what was required for lesson 3 - what 'straight and level' means, and how to trim the aircraft. I was struggling with this as the aircraft was being thrown around the sky by all the thermals - no sooner had you trimmed it were you fighting to hold your altitude and heading.
We then headed back to Goodyear airport to perform some touch-and-go's. I called up ATIS and got information Quebec - wind 120 @ 10 kts, temp 38, dewpoint 16, QNH 2987, runway 03. This gave us a 10 kt, 90 degree crosswind across the runway, which had us 'crabbing' the aircraft in sideways. Lovely.
Here's where I made a 'slight' error. Bear in mind this was my first attempted landing ever, and it was not the best conditions.... anyway... I was doing as instructed, keeping airspeed just above 70kts, 1000ft markers half way up the windscreen, and all the while fighting to keep the aircraft on the centre line of the runway. Unfortunately my grip on the controls was not all that light - ok I was hanging on for dear life - and when the main wheels touched down it was fairly rough - enough to bounce us back up into the sky. Whooops. Gilbert had done his best to stop this happening, but he couldn't wrestle the controls off me! No harm done, we applied full power and climbed out of there - Gilbert telling me I need to use a lighter touch, as he wasn't strong enough to overcome my inputs on the controls (he's only little, bless)
He was really good about it though, and we just did a quick circuit and had another go - and the second attempt was a good bit better. Although to be fair, Gilbert was mostly in control and I just followed what he was doing with the controls.
On the climb out for the second time, Goodyear Tower called us up and told us to stay on the centre line and not turn for the regular circuit. We did this, then 30 seconds later we got a call from Goodyear Tower asking us to state our intentions, as we had passed over the I10 and were heading for Luke Air Force Base airspace. Gilbert had a 'discussion' with ATC over the instructions they'd given us, then we turned back and headed round for a third landing. I'm pretty pleased to say that this one went really well - I got the aircraft down bang on the centre line and held it there. We then taxi'd back to parking, and that was the end of lesson 3.
All in all, a pretty good day. It's been a long day (was up just before 4am) - and there has been a hell of a lot of information to take on board.
I went down to Goodyear airfield earlier this evening and checked the shedule, I'm down for a 14:00 flight tomorrow, so I can have a bit of a lie in then get stuck into some work before the flight. Will hopefully not get screwed over by sheduling again like I did today, and will get time to fill in the mass & balance sheet and ATIS information.

Well, I think that just about covers it. I daren't proof read what I've written, but there's a good chance most people starting to read this blog entry will have fallen asleep by now.

Ciao for now!

Simon

P.S. Don't forget to check out my main website for some pictures from flying today.

Stupid Dry Atmosphere

2006-07-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

Although I thought I was getting over my cold actually it just changed to a sore throat and I lost my voice. I still can't talk much, and my throat feels so dry and sore especially at night that we went out and bought a humidifier last night (Walmart at midnight :-) ) which seemed to help a little but it has to work hard to overcome the constant air conditioning drying out the air.
Other than this we've had a lovely week, we met up with a lovely family I met on an internet forum for Arizona Mums and went to IHOP for breakfast with them on Saturday. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of them as we all seemed to get along well.
Georgia is still having a whale of a time, having Daddy home all the time has been great for her (even though he has been really grumpy sitting waiting for his TSA approval). Today we just stayed home most of the day, splashed around in the pool for a while this morning, and went out to Barnes and Noble this afternoon and spent time reading books with her and letting her run around which pleases her.
Georgia had her first haircut today, while she watched a Dora the Explorer game on the laptop I trimmed about an inch all round as her hair was looking pretty straggly and dry after all the chlorine. Here's a photo of her taken today being very cute and grown up.

All in all a very pleasant but pretty uneventful week, we were hoping to drive the Apache Trail today but I just don't feel up to doing a lot right now, and want to enjoy it.
And then there's Georgia.. yesterday she had such a screwed up sleep pattern, she got up too early, but then refused to nap so at 5pm she was fast asleep on my knee and I put her to bed hoping that would be it for the night. No way! She woke at 7.30pm and I managed to settle her again but then she woke half an hour later and was so full of beans and obviously convinced she'd just had her afternoon nap so she got up again. Needless to say at midnight she still wasn't showing any signs of wanting to go back to sleep so we just slung her in the car and went out to Walmart. It was actually really pleasant going out at that time, not exactly cool ( about 90F) but much much more bearable than the daytime temperatures and everything looks so cool lit up. The cicadas make a lovely noise at nighttime as well and Georgia was fascinated by the sight of the pool all lit up.
We're all really enjoying it here, it seems a lovely place to live and an even lovelier place to visit.
It just feels like being on holiday, constant sunshine, a beautiful pool downstairs thats usually empty when we go so it feels so private, and SO many places to visit and to eat. I feel so lucky to have this chance to live here for four months.
Love
Clare
xxx

Harrier crashes near Oxford

2006-07-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

News from the BBC confirms that a RAF Harrier crashed near Kidlington yesterday. Fortunately nobody was killed, but there were a few injuries. The photo at the bottom of the page is taken from Oxford Aviation.

News from the U.S. also tells us that a USAF F-16 crashed near Goodyear Airport yesterday, but I've been unable to confirm this. Wing Commander Todd reports he did say a large fire near to the airport while he was out flying. Unfortunately, as none of the rest of us have been able to fly yet, and don't seem likely to any time soon, we can't get a second opinion.

Another day, another load of cancellations by Oxford Aviation. Today it seems they can't even keep a photo session running as planned. My confidence and general happiness with Oxford Aviation is at an all time low.

Off to get changed *back* out of my Oxford uniform, and into my pool uniform.

Webcam

2006-07-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

I'm just tinkering with setting up a webcam - it's currently viewable here

I will possibly add this to either this blog or my home page, if I
a) Can be bothered
b) See any point
c) See a)

It's going to be of limited use to the peeps back home due to the time difference, but we'll see what the public wants :-)

Oh, the camera I'm using has face tracking enabled - pointing the camera at Georgia's doll seems to confuse it. I like confusing gadgets.

No complaints please, we're British

2006-07-11T23:58:00.000-07:00

A dear friend of mine told me today that he was shocked and surprised that my blog didn't have more complaints about the way things have gone here - namely the lack of flying that's been done on a Pilot Training course.
Unfortunately for said friend I'm not in the mood for an hour long rant and rave, and if I was I'd just get told off by my level-headed but argumentative darling wife, so I'll not lower myself any more by complaining. Well, not today anyway (quick time check: two minutes of today remaining).

Toddy, this is for you. I think you're great, in a camper-than-a-row-of-pink-tents kinda way. :-)

Website up and running

2006-07-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

More like walking really.... but I;m getting there. Head on over to my website and there is a photo album created that shows the best pictures from our flight over here.
I'm working on albums for the rest of the things we've done so far, so keep checking back (please!)

Incidentally - I've still not had my TSA approval through, so am spending my time wisely updating my website. A little bird also tells me that some of the guys who did get their TSA approval on the first week here have only had one flight - it seems the flights that aren't cancelled due to bad weather are given over to the guys preparing for PT1.
I'm sure that when our time comes and we're doing PT1's we'll be treated the same and will be glad of it, but right now it strikes us all as a little bit unfair, to say the least.

Meanwhile, we're enjoying our time at Desert Sage as best we can - before AP257 + the Flying Dutchman arrive to shatter the peace...

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

2006-07-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a few piccies of the Chevy Impala we are currently renting. A nice car all in all, ideal for cruising down long American Interstates. Check out the dashboard - the current fuel consumption and the outside temperature. Mental.
There's also a couple more pics of the scenery, including a shot of a plane on final appraoch to Sky Harbour, looking like it'll hit the mountain.

I'm looking into setting up a better online photo album instead of using up loads of blog... watch this space...

Playground fun

2006-07-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

Just a few photos from the playground we found on our way over to Scottsdale. This is the first playground we've found that is covered - all the others get far too hot to touch! This one was lovely and cool(ish) and was all clean. I looked on Google Earth and it doesn't show, so it is obviously fairly new.
It's not too far to go either - just past Walmart - so we will hopefully take Georgia there a few more times.

Week Three Begins

2006-07-10T16:51:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

I am just getting over a bad cold that left me in bed with a fever for three days, unfortunately I just passed it to Simon and he's not so well now, but I'm better so YAY!
We had a lovely weekend, walking around some more Malls.. air conditioning is the only thing that makes walking around tolerable. We went to Fashion Square Mall over in Scottsdale on Sunday and had a great day out. Georgia went on my back in the Ellaroo wrap which prompted some great looks from people who had obviously never seen anything like it before :-)

I've just found a Babywearing Yahoo Group for Mums in Phoenix though so hopefully I'll meet many other fellow sling fans in the coming weeks.

Today has been a day of shopping (for me) and swimming in the pool and sleeping lots (for Simon and Georgia who are both not very well). Hopefully they'll both recover really soon, and we can get out and about some more. We've been exploring the city a bit by car, and are finding our way around quite well. Here's some photos of the interstate and scenery and I'll chat more tomorrow once I've been to La Leche League and met some real life families. I've also found a West Valley Phoenix Mums group online and will hopefully meet up with some of them in the next few days. Georgia I'm sure will really appreciate some other children to play with, she's been stuck with Mummy and Daddy for the last two weeks and its taking its toll on her a little. Especially when Mummy and Daddy are not very well and not up for doing much. Poor little girl.
Chat soon!
Clare
xxx

IHOP

2006-07-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

I've now been and had my fingerprints re-done by Goodyear's finest, which means by the time these are fed-ex'd over to the TSA, and they either take their time processing or lose them again, it'll be another few days sitting around. This means more time swimming with Georgia, which is always good - I'm a bit concerned that she might be growing webbed feet now though....

This afternoon we decided to treat ourselves to tea at IHOP, just around the corner from us. In typical American fashion the portion sizes are HEEEEYOOOOGE, yet still manage to be half the price of what you'd pay in the UK. Here's a few pics from the outing, including Georgia eyeing up the Tobasco sauce bottle!

Another day, no flying.

2006-07-07T09:23:00.000-07:00

Still waiting for approval to fly - spent yesterday roaming about Phoenix a bit, generally getting lost somewhere near the I10. Thank the gods of Sat Nav!
Both Georgia and Clare were a bit under the weather so we didn't stay out all that long.
This morning I was up early to be greeted by an email from the TSA saying that there is a problem my fingerprints - apparently only one card of prints was submitted instead of two. Trying to clear this up with OAT, but it's a safe bet to say I won't be flying any time soon.
It's all very frustrating - sitting around hoping to hear some good news - but can't stray away and go on a 4 day road trip anywhere in case I get approval to fly tomorrow. It would be unfair to say I've wasted two weeks as I've had a lovely time with Clare and Georgia, but it is a shame that we couldn't get out and explore a bit further afield.
I really hope this all gets sorted some time soon so I can actually fly. Having said that, it seems OAT cancel flights due to bad weather a lot - so much for a fair weather base.
Enough grumbling - off to take Georgia to the pool, try and wash off some of these bad feelings.

I don't believe it!

Disappointment all round

2006-07-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

It's now Wednesday July 5th, 7pm. July 4th was a bit poor to be fair, we didn't see much going on in the way of national pride. Mind you, we didn't really go out looking for it, if you know what I mean. We did head up to another large shopping mall near Glendale, which was rather excellent. Much better than Desert Sky shoe shop - although I did get a bit frazzled when it took Johnny Rockets 20 minutes to make a chocolate malt. Got a voucher for a free one next time I go though. There's a Trader Joe's up that way too which has a lot of organic foods and other healthy type stuff - a nice break from all the usual American processed crap. Speaking of which, Clare did make a rather excellent pancakes, bacon and maple syrup lunch for us all - and Georgia did have a spangly 4th July T-shirt on too!

Last night I got a text from Toddy to say I was down for a 6am flight - but I still haven't had approval to fly from the TSA yet. As it was 4th July and no operations staff were in, I had to get up at 4am this morning, get uniformed up and drive to the airport for 4:50 - to tell them that I couldn't actually fly. They had also put a couple of the other guys on 6am flights who hadn't had TSA approval, and also put down one of our guys from AP256 for a 7:30 flight even though he was still back in the UK. From what I hear from other guys on our course today it was a similar story all day - cancelled flights and general pi$$ poor organisation all round. Sorry OATC, but this is a very bad start to AP256's flying training. So much for giving us priority over all other flights too - guys turning up at 5am who could fly, to be told to come back at 9am.
I still haven't had my TSA approval, so it looks like I won't be flying tomorrow either. More time off with the family, which is always lovely.

Today we had the opportunity to take our Chevy Cobalt back to Enterprise and pick up a Chevy Impala from Hertz. The Cobalt was a great car for us (apart from not having central locking) - but the Impala is something else. 3.5 V6, more toys than you can shake a stick at - including a remote engine start feature that works from 65m away - automatically switches on air con and cools the car while you carry your shopping over to the car.
Our new car seat fits brilliantly too, using the LATCH safety system. This puts Georgia in the middle of the back seat, and her seat fastens really securely to the car using a similar system to the ISOFIX seat we have back home. Really happy that she is very well protected now.

Sorry this has been a bit of a non-entity as far as blog entries go - hopefully some time soon I can actually do some of the flying I am paying a fortune to do, and then get some decent photos and stories other than moans, groans and automobiles.

New link added

2006-07-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say I've added a new link that shows Desert Sage apartments using google maps. You can make out the pool in the middle, our apartment is just to the south west of the pool.

Another nailbiting day in Arizona!

2006-07-03T21:39:00.000-07:00

Monday 3rd July - still on holiday from flying. A nice easy day this morning, we all went swimming first thing (after bagels for breakfast) - then Georgia and I sat around the apartment reading books, playing games, watching Care Bears (the usual bloke thing). Clare went back to bed for a couple of hours more kip, after a restless night and an early wake.
After Georgia's lunchtime nap we all headed out to Desert Sky Mall, just off Interstate 10 about 15 miles from Goodyear. Not a bad place, but not up to Trafford Centre/Meadowhall standards. There was a large Merry-go-round there too, with assorted horses to ride on. Georgia made a bee-line for it as soon as she saw it, but when I took her on she clung onto me for dear life and wouldn't sit on any of the horses. After wandering round the shops listening to her chant 'horse, horse, horse' we finally gave in and took her back on it - same result as first time, baby clamped firmly onto me shaking her head frantically when asked if she wants to ride on a horse. Oh well.
We called in at another large Walmart on the way back home, picking up some more supplies.
Back home and I took Georgia down to the pool again for another swim, then back to the apartment for a quick tea then time to relax and catch up with the MotoGP from Donington. Check out the pics below of Georgia watching with open mouth as the racing starts, then going into full on nail-biting as Danny Pedrosa recovers a highside while trying to go up the inside at the hairpin. Amazing stuff. Mr Mangnall - take notes. Good job Georgia went to bed before watching the last lap, otherwise she'd have bitten her nails down to her wrists. Rossi's amazing performance taking 2nd place, despite a broken bone in his wrist and his foot - what a legend.
OK, enough bike stuff on what is supposed to be a pilot training/family blog. :-P

July 4th tomorrow - expecting lots of flag waving all over the place. Probably best if us colonial invaders stay inside, for fear of being burned at the stake.
Assuming we make it through the day, I'll try to update with what we saw on Independence Day.
Simon

Been to Wildlife World Zoo

2006-07-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

Well this morning we went out to Wildlife World Zoo in Litchfield Park.
Its about 12 miles away from us I think and we had a great morning. We were really lucky with the weather, its been a bit cloudy today so has been down to 100F from 118F three days ago.
Georgia had a lovely time, we went on a boat ride round some of the exhibits, a train ride round some others. We fed Lori parrots by hand in the enclosure, fed giraffes from a high platform and Georgia had her first ride on a Carousel.
It has been lovely to finally get some time as a family after the first week being so busy for Simon with briefings etc. We have two more days off now as well since its Independence Day on Tuesday.
I've added a few photos from what we saw of the zoo today, but there were some areas we didn't get to see. It was a great place and we'll definitely go back though.

We are now pretty well settled in to our apartment, the pool is amazing, and Georgia spends much of her time staring out of the window asking to go swimming down there. She is so fearless in the water, she's just wearing armbands and running to the side and leaping in and doesn't seem to care when she goes underwater. We're having to try and teach her caution but I'm actually really pleased that she loves swimming as I've always loved it.
She really is my beautiful little water baby.
I hope you're all ok and missing us lots!
See you in another 4 months or so.
Clare
xxx

More waiting around....

2006-06-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

More about the 2nd day... more briefings... included a scheduled one on how to utilise the Oxford car hire scheme (Stable door open, horse bolted). This briefing was subsequently cancelled anyway, so was even less use than it would have been. Terrific.
We had our mug shots taken for the FBI/CIA/NSA/ETC - there is a chance that some of our group may fly on Friday or Saturday this week, but given that it's 4th July next week and we all get Monday and Tuesday off I don't see it happening.
We had our first afternoon of Technical Briefings today too, which were all very basic introductions to airplane controls. Time filling exercise while the TSA approval to fly comes through.
After finishing early I headed back up to the hotel, got changed out of uniform into something a little more comfortable for a 107 degree F heat, then headed out to view an apartment for us to live in for the reaminder of the stay here. After a tour of the facilities at Desert Sage, Clare and I left there suitable impressed. A few pics attached, but worth checking out http://www.desertsageapts.com for more info.
We are told we can be moved in on Friday this week, which is great news.

Headed over to 'Target' store, which is another huge store similar to Wal-Mart. To say Goodyear is out in the sticks, the amount of stores and their content puts most of England to shame. There's certainly nothing like these places within 50 miles of Oxford, even counting the Asda Wal-Mart in Swindon. And let's not get started on the number of fast food places and restaurants...

It's now 21:45 - Clare and Georgia are both fast asleep on one of the hotel beds. Think I'll call it a night too - try and get a few hours kip before a certain little madam wakes at 5am again, yelling 'UP! UP! UP! DADDY!!' :-)

Waiting to fly

2006-06-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

Today was our second full day in Arizona, and we are still going through the motions waiting for approval to fly from the TSA. Yesterday was an interesting one: we started the day with a short intro from OATC, before being taken by van up to Goodyear Police Station to have our fingerprints taken. Fortunately everyone made it out alive, and thanks to the efficiency of the local plod, we had a few hours to kill before we were needed back at Goodyear Airport.
Clare had fortunately been and arranged a hire car, so she came down to pick myself and Toddy up, and take us back up to the Best Western Hotel. Toddy and I wandered over to the local shops to get some stuff for lunch, and also called in the car hire place to get some quotes for him to hire a car.
Back at Goodyear that afternoon we had a couple more briefings then called it a day. At this point I headed back up to the hotel, and some of the guys from the course made their way up to the rather large Wal-Mart store just outside of Goodyear.
A couple of hours later Clare, Georgia and I headed up to Wal-Mart to buy a couple of pay-as-you-go mobiles, and found a load of guys from the course hanging around - apparently waiting for Toddy (who had signed out one of Oxford's cars and was ferrying people around) to come back for them.
It later turned out that Toddy had taken a break from Taxi duties and let Lee use the car, but Lee had rather unfortunately been involved in a slight prang, damaging the car. See here for more details. Thankfully no-one was hurt in the crash, but it does mean AP256 have no group vehicle until the car (7 seater Kia Sedona actually) gets mended. Pretty good start all in all.

We've Arrived!

2006-06-27T08:12:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

Well we've made it safely to Goodyear now after an interesting but surprisingly quite pleasant journey.
We flew out of Heathrow at 3.30pm GMT and after a 10 hour flight (in which Georgia slept for only an hour and a half) we landed in Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport at 5.30pm local time.
We got a taxi from the airport to the Best Western Hotel in Goodyear AZ, and arrived at the hotel at around 7.45pm local time, and Georgia finally went to sleep at around 9pm. She had been awake for 21hours with only a 1.5hour nap!!!
Unfortunately Georgia woke at 3.45am adamant that it was morning so we all just got up and pottered around the hotel room until it was time for Simon to get his taxi and go for his induction briefings (and fingerprinting by TSA) at Oxford's fair weather base at Goodyear airport.
So now I'm here with Georgia, its 8.15am here and we've been up 4.5 hours already :-) Georgia is dying to go and play outside but its already 100deg F and set to rise to well over 110 by lunchtime.
Hopefully though Georgia and I will be able to go and rent a car today and I can take a trip to the grocery store and stock up on the essentials.. (running out of nappies, sorry diapers!)
Take care everyone and I'll try and post photos later,
Clare
xxx

[Edited 1st July by Simon - photos from flight over added]

All packed and ready to go!

2006-06-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

Well I can't argue with Simon's statement that its been a trying time for all involved, but I'm really excited about getting out to Arizona now.
I keep telling Georgia that we're going to go on an aeroplane tomorrow and she seems excited, says "Yes" quite clearly if I ask her if she wants to.
We have all our things packed now, just a couple of last minute things to add, and then the house to prepare for five months away and we'll be on the road hopefully by 10am tomorrow on our way to Heathrow.
I'm really looking forwards to getting there and seeing more of the world, I wonder what we'll be writing about next time we post on here?
Georgia and I are all set to go to a La Leche League meeting with the Arizona chapter in the third week of July and I'm really excited about seeing how LLLUSA works as compared to LLLGB.
Hopefully this time next month we will have made friends and will be well on our way to settling in.
Check back soon and keep up with how we are all doing.
Love
Clare

Getting ready to go

2006-06-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

Well... that time has finally come around. We will shortly be leaving behind our recently newly adopted home in Witney, and heading 5000 miles west to try to find a new temporary home in Goodyear, Arizona.

It's been a tough 7 months for all concerned, but now I'm happy to say that all 14 ground school exams are behind me. Having got the results last Wednesday made it easier to relax and enjoy the last few days of the break, and have a nice day with the family on Saturday to celebrate my daughter turning 2 years old. See pic of Georgia trying on her new sun hat!

All packing pretty much done, just a few last minute jobs to do before the morning.

Next stop: Heathrow!