Day 3 - Ormond Beach Florida

Hi All,

Another successful day today, logged 1.5hours, so that brings me upto 3. The weather was bad upto around 1pm so we didnt get in the air untill 1.30, We did lots in the Hour and a half, we took off climbed to 3500ft around 3 miles off the coast and we started our checks.

First maneuver was a steep turn, two left, two right, the tolerences for the CPL is +/- 100ft (which is not so bad) and your speed must be +/- 10kts - which is the hard part. Both of those went ok, We started another constant speed descent back over the coastline and Bill asked me to track the 330 Radial outbound from Ormond, which was done ok!!

After that, he gave me an Engine Failure, so i ran through the checks and set up for a field, there was a farmer cutting in the field next to us, i think hes still wondering what was happening.

We got back up to 2000ft again and he told me we had an engine fire, so back through the checks again, only he kept saying the fire wasnt out, so we proceeded with an emergency descent, Flaps 40, 45Degree Bank and pitch for 100kts,

So the fire went out... back to the Crash Checks and set up for another field.

Ill try post some pictures tommorow, im just too lazy when its 35Degrees out to be going around with a camera!!!

Bye for now...

Day 2 - Ormond Beach Florida

Well, Americans are really into their weather, they have a "Storm" on the way, with winds upto 45mph, Its all over the news every day and theres nothing else on TV. You would think its the end of the world the way it comes across.

So I woke up at 7am, got the place organised, cleaned the fridge because we didnt know what we had. I made my way to the flight school as i was flying at 11. I was a little nervous as i havent flown here in 10 months and i had forgotten all the procedures for checking out aircraft. Bill quickly went through everything with me.

So we took off, climbed up over the clouds and we started our General Handling, this involves Steep turns to 45 Degrees, Stalls, Climbs, Descents and Medium Turns. Once this was all complete we did a constant descent back down and followed the coastline. Joined a left base for runway 8 at Ormond, We did around 5 touch and gos, all of which went pretty smooth, the winds had started to Gust upto 15Kts, which most of them were ok, but the last one i messed up. There was a student pilot up their and he couldnt land the wind was so strong, he did around 4 Go-arounds before he got down, and when he did he nearly skidded off the runway.


Oh sorry, by the way, i forgot to mention, Im flying a PA28 160HP Cadet, its a great machine and the 160hp really makes all the difference. Ive got 20 hours to do in this machine and then 5 on the PA28R Arrow. So far today, ive got 1.5 hours done.

Lets hope for 3 more tommorrow!

Day 1 - Ormond Beach Florida

Woke up early this morning to a rainy florida!! Hopefully not for long, Im at House 7 in Sugar Creek, just waiting to be picked up by the school for my first day! Had some bad weather on the flight yesterday, took a little longer than i thought!

I got the DOTS Shuttle from daytona last night, driver was great, i was running late and he waited for me, it only cost 25$ which is a bargain!
Theres 3 of us in the house, One from France, and another from Dublin! In general the school seems pretty quiet, but i havent seen many of the other students from the school so ill keep everyone informed.

See ya soon,

Waterford, Ireland

Well, after looking at other peoples blogs about their training ive decided to set up a blog of my own to account for the time I am about to spend at Euro American School of Aviation to complete my JAA Commercial Pilots Licence.
So its Wednesday, September 22nd and so far ive got my M1 Flight Training VISA, My flight booked and im all set for an Early Start on Monday Morning. I will be flying with Continental from Dublin to Orlando Via Newark.
Talk soon...