USA

Marco Island FL - Page Field FL 19 Nov 18

I’ve always wanted to go flying in the USA: I began my flight training there back in 2001.

The plan is for Ann and I to rent a C182 and base ourselves at Page Field in Ft Myers FL, the local GA airfield to our Cape Coral villa. So the day prior to our checkout and still very jet lagged we visit Page Field by road to check if this is a sensible move.

I expect Page Field to be, like most UK airfields, slightly down at heel but it turns out to have a brand new high tech terminal building sporting a shop, free coffee and cold drinks, biz jets, massive taxiways and runways you could land an airliner on. Four radio frequencies including Ground (very glad I learned at Oxford, yet again...), pilot operated lighting and the most relaxed atmosphere imaginable.

Not a Hi-Viz in sight.
Staggeringly, landing fees seem not to exist in the US: they all have a laugh at our mention of £80 landing fees at Bournemouth.

And, most importantly, no PPR: like France, airfields are open and available unless NOTAM’d closed.

How refreshing: UK airfields, take note.

I have been warned that the Altimeter works differently: in the US they use inches of mercury (so 30.01) instead of the Hectopascals we use in Metric-land.

What I was not warned about was them using “Point” not “decimal” when describing their radio frequencies. I find myself unable, in the heat of the moment, to prevent myself using “decimal” but I don’t think anyone minds too much: they’re used to crazy Brits here.

Having gone to a considerable amount of trouble to gain a piggyback US licence my expectation is that the Biennial Flight Review will involve ground tests, so I brush up on VFR cloud separation minima, airspace types and necessary aircraft documentation. I’m awake at 6:00am worrying about equipment minima and whether night flights are allowable VFR.

Turning up at Marco Island Executive Airport I ask for the examiner who turns out to be a relaxed chatty Colombian most interested in ensuring he has copies of my paperwork. Apparently my May UK 2 year flight review is sufficient (!) so we can go flying... don’t know why I bothered swotting up.

Ann will be P2 so the 3 of us head out on to the tarmac: again not a single Hi Viz in sight.

He seems not in the least concerned about Ann as co-pilot (her UK licence turns up by post in the UK and is promptly scanned and emailed 30 minutes before we arrive at Marco Island), passes us a checklist and we work our way round a tidy 2002 C182.

This has a different engine (a Lycoming), fuel injection, different avionics, different start procedures. And the entire dashboard is different. Later Cessna 182s such as this also have the ability to climb up via a couple of foot holds to the top of the wing to check the fuel, which means no more ladder. I wonder if we can get these retrofitted to Whisky Lima....

We start up, taxy out and power check. Marco island is Unicom so you simply self announce, I can cope with that. Only apparently you "Take" runway 17. Just different.

Take off is with 10deg flap, everything else feels familiar and we depart South East for some general handling. It’s a C182 so will do everything you ask of it and climbs, descents, steep turns, stalls, slow flight, and so on are predictable, if a little sweaty.

The stall Warner is, however, hyperactive and set earlier than I am used.

We return to the field, position for downwind, and of course this is the acid test: can I get the thing safely on the ground?

He trains a lot of C172 pilots on the C182 and they struggle to keep the nose up in the flare so I think he is half expecting weirdness but actually it’s easy and whilst a bit long we get it down just fine, clean up and climb out again. I’m quite surprised I actually can do quite consistent landings in an unfamiliar aircraft, even if my touchdown point tends to vary with each landing.

Finally he pulls the throttle halfway down downwind for a glide approach: ah, we could get it in from here but some idiot has stopped his aircraft half way down the runway for a smoke or something, so we go around and have another go.

Bags of height so we trim for best glide, pop in flaps once we’re certain we can make the runway then start to run out of runway.

“Fly the plane” he says.

OK.... never done a power off approach with drag flaps but that’s going to be necessary so out they come and we plop on neatly with runway to spare.

Taxying in I’m expecting him to say we’ll stop for a coffee and then do some more, but he announces he has to go off to Key West with a student, hops out and simply leaves us to it!

So here I am, in the US with a plane and a credit card, a couple of iPads and a freshly minted UK PPL co-pilot.

OK, well that was easy..... I suppose we had better depart for Page Field.

Interestingly, the tech log for the aircraft says it hasn't flown since September and has hardly flown this year. I suppose everyone wants the smaller and cheaper C172, but for going places this is a much better aircraft.

What we’ve agreed is that I’ll do landings and takeoffs, nav and radio, and Ann will do the flying above 1000ft. I am very concerned about radio here: American controllers speak unbelievably fast, use a lot of jargon and expect instant, abbreviated responses. To an extent Florida ATC expect chatty, slow Brits as a lot of them train at Naples but I’ve got to be really on the ball so as not to appear a complete idiot.

But can we get the bugger started?

Bloody Hell: crank and crank - it turns out it needs quite a lot of throttle before it will catch, but finally we do get the hang of it so "take" runway 17 Marco Island, line up and depart, then swing round North for Ft Myers. At 1000ft we swap and I’ll let Ann sort out what’s where in terms of getting a 2000ft 22”/2200rpm cruise.

This turns out to be complex as nothing is where either of us think it is, but a fair amount of juggling later we are trimmed out.

Radio-wise, you can just fly free of any radio involvement once outside of any controlled airspace like in the UK, but sooner or later you’ll need a crossing clearance as we will with Fort Myers, which is a big international airliner airport - think “East Midlands-sized”....

The issue is there’s a bug in ForeFlight which says the frequency we should use is actually the approach frequency for Havana Airport (surprisingly close from here), so after a bit of a surprise with a lot of Spanish speaking airliners, we finally get the right frequency (they have 3, depending on which direction you are approaching from...). Big stuff, and not actually a terribly great start.

Basically we just ask for an approach to Page Field, which Is under their Zone, and they co-ordinate the whole thing. We squawk, they confirm they have us on radar and vector us over the arrivals end of their runway 23 at 2500ft.

What I’m not expecting is for them to simply release us to Page Field who immediately clear us to land runway 23.

But where the bloody hell is the runway?

By the time Ive spotted it we’re very close, so dump everything, bring the prop up and the flaps down, roll on to the centre line and all that approach cone training comes in handy as we finally do get a stable approach by 500ft and plop it on gently.

Exit, call ground and taxy in, park up and a kind marshaller ties us down and offers us a ride back to the terminal. What service!

At the terminal we ask for full fuel and it will just happen, all part of the service. I could get very used to this very quickly.

Feeling a bit frazzled, we relax by the pool: tomorrow will be a Big Boys Day so we will need to put on our Big Boy Pants...

Pompano Beach - Key West FL 20 Nov 18

After a coffee at Page Field we pop Nessa and Trevor in the back, fire up and taxy.

This is where SkyDemon’s geo-referenced taxy charts win over Foreflight's static charts, because Ann thinks we’re in a different place to where I know we are. Some tussling ensues, much to the amusement of the tower, but a few minutes later we are lined up for runway 23 and rolling.

Climbing out over Cape Coral is just that slight bit better than climbing out over Bletchingdon quarry: the sky is bright blue and the water is clear and inviting, swimming pools gleam in the sunshine.
Boy, the Americans live well...

Fort Myers are actually a bloody nuisance this morning as they vector us out the West before bringing us round to the South East and finally clearing us East for Popano Beach.

Past the massively developed coastal strips the centre of Florida is amazingly-sparsely unpopulated; the houses end and we have orange groves endlessly spread out. Some clouds have appeared and under US VFR rules we have to be well clear of them, so Ann weaves us around them before climbing us up and over. Our new Garmin 39 ADS-B In box is telling us all about any weather and close by aircraft, all is good with the world as we cruise Eastbound towards Pompano Beach.

The skyline of Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale is visible from 50 miles away and soon the endless Everglades swamp becomes, at a very definite line, subdivisions with neat houses and the inevitable pools.

We can see Pompano Beach to our South East so call them up and get a straight in for R10..... but as we ease South for a line up they tell us we are actually heading for the wrong field.

Oh bugger, that’s Fort Lauderdale Executive......

I'll bet everyone does that.

Pompano Beach is buried in the residential ground clutter, very hard to see from 1000ft. Eventually, and by this time I’m back to 85Kts with flap deployed, we do spot it, and we’re more or less lined up for 10 so call Final, get cleared and do a dirty dive to land halfway down.
My landings today are inaccurate and I’m not happy.

Still, a gentle arrival, and loads of spare runway, nobody but me notices so we taxy in and get marshalled to a parking space. It turns out coffee, soft drinks and landings are free. I’m moving out here...

Our Bucket List goal is a low level VFR run down Miami Beach, which I’ve been told is possible for the asking, so we depart R10, climb just enough to clear a couple of condos, then turn sharp right over the beach, swap to Fort Lauderdale Approach who give us a squawk and tell us....... “cleared to continue VFR Southbound, at or below 500ft”.

Ann and I look at each other: is it really this simple?

And it is: we’re at 400ft, well below the tops of the condos, 300 yards offshore and cruising at 120Kts, cleared and squawking, engine failure options are to land on the beach or in the water, and we go all the way down past Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach, South Beach and then cut in at Government cut for Biscayne and Homestead.

We’ll stay low level and outside Homesteads Control Zone until the Controlled Airspace relents and we can see the Keys.

Ann, who has more recent overwater experience than me, is more content with flying away from the shore. I’ve done a ditching course so I might be a bit more realistic about our chances, but the water here is warm and shallow and engines do not habitually run rough over water, despite giving that impression....

South of Homestead AFB we climb to 1000ft and cross the amazingly unpopulated Northern Keys before the causeway carrying the main freeway from Miami announces a more populated area. Engine out options here basically involve the main road, avoiding the wires hopefully...

I’ve driven this a couple of times and it’s further than you think: by road it’s 4hrs from Miami, by air less than an hour.

The Keys get smaller and the bridges longer as we cruise South. As we pass Marathon we try to raise the Navy at Key West but it’s not until we are 10 miles further South that we get a response: cleared for runway 09. From this far out? Really?

The stress of using US ATC is slowly diminishing but they do throw us some curves: one now tells us of roughly opposing traffic near Marathon and the comes up with “traffic now of no consequence” which I had to get him to repeat 3 times.... it’s a full time job just listening for transmissions and trying to second guess what they’re going to tell you to do next and what to say in response. It’s at times like this having a second pilot is really useful.

A peruse of ForeFlight gives us a right traffic pattern here so we’ll avoid the 14000ft tethered balloon to the North (unlike apparently 3 people per year!) and slow for right downwind.

At this point my Handling Pilot pops the flaps.

A low wing PA28 Warrior pitches forwards on flap deployment, a C182 does the opposite. She is used to a PA28. The aircraft pitches violently upwards, we have very little power and speed is heading rapidly for the stall...

“I’ve got it”.

Push hard, apply power, trim, and calm is restored but she’s gone as white as a sheet and there’s mutterings from the back.

Nothing for it but to continue the approach as normal and land (I manage to turn Base very, very tight indeed and whilst I’m sure it looked intentional, it wasn’t - I end up landing a bloody long way down the runway), but that was a little worrying.

Analysis the following day when our heart rates are a little more normal concludes that’s what happened but at the time it’s basically an upset so you just need to react positively and correctly.

Key West is hot, damned hot. Which is great if you’re with a woman, not so good if you’re in the jungle....

We get ripped off by the taxi driver going to lunch, but get our own back by doing Uber for the return journey with a lovely Polish guy who escaped Communism in the 1980s by jumping ship in the USA. He'd probably be shot now.

Key West is a big commercial airport but they just open the door and let us walk out (no Hi-Viz) to our freshly-refuelled aircraft and ogle the next plane over: a very cool seaplane.

We manage the warm-start better and taxy out.

We will fly back to Marathon, then turn left and route direct to the mainland. This is the 3rd leg of our triangle so will only take 1.5 hours back to Page Field.

We take off, climb East, avoid the balloon and head for Marathon.

This time we ask for Flight Following from Miami Centre as we are going to be over water for a lot of the time. They won’t give it at less than 3,500ft so that’s where we’ll fly.

We’ve been bumbling along at 120Kts all day, but I know a C182 will cruise at 135Kts so we’ll up the power, close the cowl flaps (!) and experiment with the prop settings. 25/23 gives 135Kts indicated and 138Kts over the ground at 15USG/hr so that’s what we’ll use.

Our Garmin ADS-B unit has either overheated or run out of power because it won’t connect to our iPads via Bluetooth. Repeated recycles and button pushing fail to cure it.

At Marathon we can see the curve of the mainland so we turn left and head out over the wilder side of Florida. This side is the Everglades and there is little development here, just alligators and swamps. Engine out choices are limited.

Miami Central is giving us notifications of thunderstorm build ups over the East coast confirmed by the sight, to our right, of massive CBs: that and President Trump flying down to Mar a Lago this afternoon further confirms the wisdom of our West coast return route.

Soon we are back over land (and the engine starts to run more smoothly) and a single road appears, followed by slowly increasing signs of civilisation as we pass I-95 and Naples. The sun is setting and the views are stunning.

It’s fun to share this with another pilot: I remember the excitement of the first time I saw sunset from 3000ft. I tend to think 15 minutes ahead so I’ve got the instrument lights on and I know where my two supplementary torches are in case of electrical failure long before they become necessary.

Miami Central passes us to Ft Myers who give us a re-run of last night but this time there are clouds at 3500ft. Now I wouldn’t care but we are meant to be nominally VMC so we tell them “unable to continue Victor Mike Charlie”, they clear us down to 2000ft and pass us to Page who immediately clear us to land, despite us being 15 miles out. Very weird.

It’s now more or less dark: legally it’s still 5 minutes before Night but in practice the runway surface is invisible. Best thing I ever got: a Night Rating.

Our Colombian instructor didn’t seem bothered about me flying at night so I won’t get aerated about it either. Page Field is pretty hard to find against the city lights but the PAPIs are unmistakable, I get Ann to roll it level and do the approach, slowing the aircraft down and dropping the flaps then take it at 500ft and plop it neatly on.

Perfect but for stupidly trying to make the first exit I brake hard and we go all over the runway. Doh!

Eventually I have to accept the next exit which is actually the best one anyway- it’s been a long day is my excuse.

Change to Ground who laugh at me: crazy Brit pilots coming over here...

Two minutes later we’re parked and 3 minutes after that we’re in the Terminal Building. We’re all feeling frazzled, New Orleans is maybe a step too far for tomorrow.

Titusville FL 22 Nov 18

I watched the moon shots when I was young, as we all did. James Burke, Raymond Baxter, grainy black and white video of capsules docking and undocking then “Its one small step....”. For an 8 year old boy glued to the TV this was serious stuff.

I’ve been to Cape Canaveral twice and have always been hugely disappointed at how far they keep you away from anything remotely resembling real hardware.

NASA, no amount of publicity fluff can detract from your actual disdain of the great unwashed. The closest I got was an (additional cost) bus ride out to pad 39, the bus didn’t even stop and I was on the wrong side to get a decent photo.

They should have let us off, given us an hour to traipse around it, had access to the elevator up the side and the flame pits. And for an extra $1 we should have been able to ride the astronaut escape basket cableway from the very top of the gantry down to the blockhouse on the beach. At least, American taxpayers who paid for the whole thing should. Such a shame...

This morning I spend 2 hours trying to decipher the Restricted Areas around The Cape to see if I can take the plane in there. There appear to be three separate ones, all inactive unless activated by NOTAM. And no current NOTAMs have activated them.

So I should be able to fly over it, but if I’ve missed something a trip to Titusville (the closest GA airfield to the Cape) or a chat with Orlando Flight Following should clear up any misunderstanding before I blunder in and get shot down or arrested.

We’ll go up via Disney.

I’ve no desire to spend Thanksgiving queueing for rides at Disney thank you, but it would be interesting to see it from above. The charts, both electronic and real life paper, show a restricted zone around it reaching up to 3000ft (which SkyDemon completely fails to show, and this is another reason we don’t use SkyDemon in the USA...).

So we’ll cross it a couple of times at 3001ft.

Today we’re going to go for VFR Flight Following which in practice is a Basic Service plus a bit more help, sort of like France. We need to request it prior to take off, which seems a bit odd and contributory to traffic jams at the hold, but they are pretty efficient and of course they need to liaise with Ft Myers, whose airspace they lie below, to ensure VFR C182s don’t get in the way of IFR 757s.

The aircraft needs oil but this time out the checklists go a lot faster, the taxyiing is not subject to misunderstanding and Flight Following is quickly authorised, so we roll on R05 and head North East, within 3 minutes over empty Florida countryside.

Our target height, only roughly agreed, is 2000ft and this immediately proves dangerously below the tops of the various radio aerials sprouting from the landscape. A quick reassemble at 3000ft calms nerves.

Fort Myers Approach pass us to Miami Centre who pass us to Orlando, I like this joined up approach to LARS. Orlando ask for our intentions and understand immediately, I think they get a lot of crazy Brits doing the same thing.

In fact a number of those crazy Brits are on frequency up he, and not all in airliners. A Yorkshireman with an SR22 is asking for a full stop at Kissimmee: “Ee, but it’s grim up ‘ere......”.

Disney is surprisingly difficult to find but obvious once identified. Orlando won’t let us circle but we can do a number of passes. It looks quite busy down there, glad I’m up here!

Orlando ask us to tell them when we’re done and promptly vector us East directly over the landing numbers at Orlando International which give us a pretty incredible view of the airliners landing and taking off.

Orlando is simply HUGE with more runways than Heathrow so their cool handling of a random GA aircraft is an organisational miracle and should be viewed with awe and ambition by the NATS planners: getting this view of Heathrow would be an invitation to a visit by a Eurofghter followed by a discussion with the CAA at Gatwick during which your licence would be ceremonially torn in to very small shreds and flushed down the loo.

I am struck yet again by how well America organises things. I've lived out here and, with some reservations I still think it's the best-run country in the world. The reservations are a different topic but they do include the speed limits ("I...can't... drive...55!").

Once East, Orlando release us to Space Coast Approach (a very nice lady) who passes us to Tower (the very same nice lady) who asks us to join on a 3 mile left base for runway 36.

Ann seems to struggle with this, wanting to position us for a 6 mile final for 36. I think she was struggling with where the airfield was. Once I have repositioned us it all clicks in to place.

I am determined to do proper landings not dirty dives today, so a nice long, slow, controlled approach results in a smoother landing. But that bloody stall warner is hyperactive.

It turns out that because today is Thanksgiving (when Americans give thanks for the help the Pilgrims received from the indigenous people of the continent allowing them to survive and prosper, before promptly massacring them...) both FBOs are closed so although the airport is open you can’t actually get any coffee!

However America is a wonderful place: the Jet Centre FBO have an externally accessible restroom.... and it’s open!

Suitably relieved we crank up the radio and ask the nice lady in the tower/Approach Ground/ATIS about flying over Cape Canaveral. And they, of all people, don’t have a clue.

“Not our Airspace, Guvn’r. Ask Orlando. More than my job's worth”.

Slopey shouldered or what?

So we start up, talk to the nice lady on Ground who passes us to the same lady on Tower, we roll on the 2 mile runway 36 and she passes us to Approach: the same nice lady.

Unbelievable. She’s doing a Monty Python sketch here...

We’ll head North and negotiate with Orlando.

Orlando Approach, however, can’t understand what on earth we are talking about: he basically won’t let us in because "R-2935 is Active" (it's not, I checked).

[Note from 2020: it's R-2934. You can do a low pass if R-2934 is not Active, and I checked: it was Active that day].

He’s busy and not inclined to discuss it so we’ll go South along the border, but the Space Shuttle Assembly building and the famous launch gantries are still some way further East. Despite the lack of current launches, NASA’s arms length attitude to the public still lingers, evidently.

(Following return to the UK I have had subsequent discussions with Miami-based pilots who agree that there is no good reason for me not to have been allowed in there... we'll be back).

Turning South West across Cocoa Beach I can imagine how NASA’s decline has left that whole space coast bereft of tourists: the ISS is serviced from Russia and French Guiana now, there’s little NASA to see here.

SpaceX still launch from here, but it’s more workaday and less heroic, the glory days are gone.

Behind the narrow coastal development strip the empty heart of Florida appears again, although here it is dotted with lakes large and small. Our 2,000ft cruise height once more proves suicidal so we climb to 3,000ft and Orlando pass us to Miami.

We decide not go straight back but to coast out near Venice and home via the outer islands of Charlotte Bay: Activa and Sanibel, then a straight in for 05 at Page Field.

Orlando pass us to Tampa, then we cancel Flight Following, squawk VFR and descend to 2,000ft for a better view as we coast out.

The Garmin 39 is working properly today, so we have concluded that it overheated last time. Now we just need to get the damned thing to charge in flight. It only comes with a cigarette lighter lead which powers but does not charge the unit. But this aircraft does not have a cigarette lighter socket, just a weird 12V output socket we do not have a converter for. Later research shows that a USB power supply is simply not available for this unit, which is a major issue on a long flight.

The outlying islands are undeveloped and have beautiful white beaches, and there is a small, short grass strip on North Captiva Island called “Salty Approach” which turns out to be 600m, with both undershoot and overshoot basically the sea. One day....

Turning over Sanibel (which still sounds like a loo pump) we are on a 12 mile final for 05 at Page so we announce, they suggest we report 3 miles. I’m determined to do a decent job of the landing - I am getting increasingly frustrated at my inability to do a real greaser in this aircraft. I can get it down safely but I want that last 5%. I can’t quite work out what I’m doing wrong: I’m looking at the end of the runway and pulling back, I think I’m too scared of the stall Warner which I think is set too early.

We get a reasonable arrival but I still haven’t had that perfect arrival I know I can do in WL.

Taxy in to Page for the last time and shut down. It’s nearly all over.

Marco Island FL 23 Nov 18

I want to work on my take offs in this aircraft, they feel slightly uncontrolled. I think I am over rotating as it gets all a bit whistly and mushy after take off.

Worryingly, the oil level has dropped below 6 Qts again. We only filled up 2 flying hours ago. I think this engine is using oil....

We start with Ground and request clearance and Flight Following. They get you a squawk and give taxy clearance. At the run up when ready you switch to tower (without gaining clearance from Ground, which feels just wrong) and they give you a departure clearance "not above xxxft and fly yyy deg", then clear you to depart. It’s just different.

We want a clearance to turn left and fly down the coast to Marco island but Ft Myers vector us north east then south east before I tire of this and cancel Flight Following to go direct VFR to Marco Island, so we squawk 1200 (the equivalent of our 7000) and hit "Direct To" in ForeFlight.

Ann seems to have issues with geo-location and identifying where things are. She can see opposing aircraft in ForeFlight but can’t translate that in to where to look in relation to the little aircraft icon in ForeFlight, also where to look for the airfield, a necessary skill when P1 in a strange environment. She guesses wrong for Marco island and I have to put her right before we join downwind right traffic for runway 35, which the wind tells us is the most appropriate runway.

America likes joining the circuit (they call it the "Pattern") 45 degrees in to the crosswind to downwind leg corner so that’s where we’ll join.

There’s an ex-US Navy Trojan doing circuits behind us and we self Announce downwind then turn base leg. Our downwind leg is a bit too tight so we end up in yet another dirty dive. We miss the end of the runway, then a good chunk of the runway before we’re flaring, but then we’re down smoothly with loads of concrete to spare, clear left and he lands after us and waves as he taxies past us at the pumps. He looks very professional; I'm very jealous.

Amazingly, after having failed to get the petrol pump at the car petrol station to work with my Visa card, I manage to make the aviation fuel pump work 1st time and we fill up both sides then taxy to a spare stand and tie down. Everything must come out, including the iPad yokes, the flight bags and the headsets.

It's over (for now) so back to the N European clag....

Naples - Marco Island - Page Field 21 Jun 19

It's now summer and Florida is hot, muggy and prone to thunderstorms: being outside is like living in a hot bath.

My negotiations with the aircraft owner have been a bit hit and miss, but finally he agrees to let me drive down to Naples to pick up the keys.

On arrival however, he suggests that instead of making me fly out of Naples which would involve a security gate and an hour commute each way I can simply fly it up to Page Field.

I wasn’t expecting to fly today: just as well I brought along my flight bag and headphones, but I have no iPad so no ForeFlight - I’ll have to improvise with the 695 in the aircraft and SkyDemon on my iPhone.

We drive in to the GA hangars at Naples. This is all very swish: individual hangars....

He helps me tow it out then shuts the door and immediately pushes off back to his office, Nessa leaves me to go back to Page and I’m free to do a nice relaxed pre-Flight, although it is damned hot here with the sun and the concrete.

I’m actually quite staggered how relaxed he is about lending me the plane, I haven’t flown it for 6 months, but he quite happily just hands me the keys. This is truly a different experience.

All goes well until that “Clear Prop” moment, when all I get is a "Clunk".

Huh?

Fortunately after a couple of retries and “now do I turn, or turn and push, turn and pull” moments I realise this is simply a duff battery, call the owner and ask for suggestions.

He tells me it’s just had a new battery.......ah, no it was meant to have a new battery......

So he gets the FBO to send a 24V cart over which duly arrives, the guy plugs it in and we crank again, this time reassuring amounts of starter motor and ignition ensue, he unplugs and potters off, I can now get the ATIS and taxy to where I’m visible from the tower to get a progressive taxy for departure.

It’s a short run over to the Alpha hold, power check, 1 stage of flaps for a 65Kt rotate and we’re rolling on R23.

With just 1 up the aircraft rockets off the ground in about 15% of the runway, I’m at 1000ft before the end of the runway passes under my nose.

Cleared for a left turn I’ll delay so I’m over the coast then follow it down at 1500ft for Marco Island, home of the errant battery.

This is actually my first Florida solo, although not my first Florida P1 experience.

Naples ask me to squawk 1200 and for a few seconds I’m damned if I can work out where the transponder is.

Ah, that must be it, there......

Swap to Marco’s free for all frequency, It’s a 17 minute run and given the light winds I could use 17 or 35 today.

I’m about to suggest 17 when someone comes up on the radio departing North from 35 so I’ll use that then.

Call manoeuvring for left base, get down and slow down (the view from up here is spectacular), call left base, BUMPFTCHH, 2 stages of flap, turn final, slow to 75 and here we go.

Of course every aircraft is different and I know that having not flown this one for a while I’ll probably do something wrong, so I have it a bit high and a bit fast at the flare, it balloons so I’ll just let it relax a bit, I’ve got plenty of runway here.

After a couple of seconds it calms down, so eyes on the end of the runway, hold it off...... and we’re down, a bit left of the centreline but tracking true and slowing.

Clear left on to the concrete ramp and Allan is there, marshalling me over to the hangar; he’s hugely apologetic about the battery and happy to swap it out immediately.

He has some nice cold, very welcome water and lends me his golf cart to visit the FBO bathroom.

By the time I get back he’s buttoning up, so I can check the oil, start up (nice fast starter noises now...) and taxy round to the runway.

Back down the taxy way to R35, power check, call “taking” the runway and roll.

The seemingly-endless Everglades unfold to the North as we swap to Fort Myers Approach and request VFR Flight Following for Page Field. They vector me to the North, and as I am damned if I can find the autopilot I’ll have to hand fly it.

Passing the end of their active runway at 2500ft over a landing Boeing 757 they vector me left to 320 and I miss the call thnking it is for someone else (doh!); eventually (as I’m heading out in to the boondocks north of Page Field) I request a left turn and they chide me and release me to Page Field, who immediately clear me in for runway 23.

Actually I’m in a great position for a straight in from here so can do a decent job of the approach, get 2 reds 2 whites over the road and settle it gently on.

Exit right, ask for parking at the FBO and get marshalled in and tied down. Boy, is it hot...

So now I can say that my last 3 landings were at Bordeaux International in France, Marco Island FL and Page Field FL: how Jet Set am I?

Page Field - Venice 24 Jun 19

South West Florida has obviously been settled by emigrant Italians as many of the towns are named after Italian towns, hence Naples and Venice.

This is 35 miles up the coast from Fort Myers and has probably as many canals but for some weird reason many of these are not open to the sea; that's like having an airport with no runways: taxy about all day if you like, but never reach the ocean..... And stagnant water means mosquitoes.

During our last trip we did not get a chance to fly low level up the outer islands of the Caloosahatchee estuary and get some decent photos, so this time we will.

It’s extremely hot and humid, I am aware this will have a detrimental effect upon the performance of the aircraft, both the engine (I’ll leave the cowl flaps open) and the wing, but we are operating off huge runways here, short field is a concept alien to most US pilots who seem to think 700m a major cause for concern requiring special training!

Out on the line the combined effects of the sun and the reflection off the concrete makes for an exhausting pre-flight: it’s quite nice to get back in to the comfort of the FBO once everything is ready.

Nessa has had a comfortable wait but now has to sit in a sweaty cockpit. GA can be tough on the crew!

Fire up, taxy out and start up the GoPro with our new ND filter designed to make the prop invisible.

The warm weather has no appreciable effect upon the startling performance of a C182 with 2 up and we’re away, over the river and angling for Sanibel Island. It takes a lot less time to get down here by plane than by boat!

We’ll stay below 1000ft to remain under SW Florida’s Class Charlie Airspace, we could as easily have asked them for Flight Following but we’ll exercise the American prerogative of just not talking to anyone for a while, descend to 500ft (the lowest my UK-trained hands are happy with) and cruise over the bridge, past the lighthouse and turn parallel to the beach.

We can see all the condominiums and this far down it’s really busy on the beaches and in the water, but within a few minutes the crowds thin and the beaches are clear, the waters blue and unsullied.

Sanibel becomes Captiva island and then North Captiva, inaccessible by car and thus more exclusive.

The little strip at Salty Approach looks appealing, but it’s by invitation only, sadly. One day...

Further North still is Cayo Costa, all very remote, then suddenly it’s Boca Grande which is accessible by road from Port Charlotte and so very built up. Some of these houses look amazing.

Then the coastline becomes endless condos and beaches before the intracoastal waterway ends and I can see Venice Municipal Airport.

I love these airports, they are always huge and immaculately maintained ex-military establishments with none of he rundown feel of UK airfields - America takes its aviation infrastructure very, very seriously (like France!).

We make blind calls like everyone else, slow down a bit to let a Cessna 340 twin in and report downwind left traffic for runway 23, turn Final and let down on to the perfect concrete surface.

As I’ve not flown for a while my landings are long as expected, but perfectly acceptable and we taxy in for an early lunch at the simply gorgeous Suncoast Aircenter café where the excellent Tony makes us crab sandwiches and mango iced tea.

Why is every FBO in the US so bloody marvellous?

I’m experimenting with different ways of getting this particular fuel-injected C182 to warm start better, so when I switched it off I did so at the gascolator via the fuel selector, as suggested on a forum.

This turns out to be a major error as despite repeated fuel pump runs the bloody thing will not fire!

Eventually, after a serious amount of cranking I can smell fuel and it starts to fire on one cylinder so I keep cranking and eventually it becomes self-sustaining with additional cylinders slowly cutting in until the normal throaty rumble of idle reasserts itself. Phew!

We taxy over the brilliant white concrete, my new photo-reactive prescription glasses are worth every penny here.

There’s a C152 waiting in the run-up area, do we wait for him or power-check in place and blast past?

After a couple of minutes I make a blind call to him and he tells us to go past so we listen for traffic on Final, announce we’re taking the runway, a quick check up the Approach path for any non-radio traffic and we’re rolling, off before we know it and turning left down the beach. This is easy....

We’ll take the short cut back over the estuary and look for a couple of interesting islands we may want to visit by boat later, including Cabbage Cay where there is a restaurant apparently.

It seems hard to find a bad restaurant here....

Over the ochre-coloured water, rusty from all the upstream Caloosahatchee silt and as we see the Sanibel bridge coming up on our right we can swap back to Page Field who ask us to join mid-field right pattern for runway 23 - I can do that.

Half way there they change their minds and ask us to join midfield left pattern. I’ve never known an airfield in the UK to use both sides of the airfield at the same time, I’ve only ever experienced it once before at Le Touquet, but we can manage that too.

And here it all goes a bit pear-shaped: I manage to cut the downwind and base legs really really short and I’m still turning on to final as we cross the threshold.

We’re stable and in the right place, all checks complete and at the right speed and height, but as they say good landings only come from good approaches and whilst the landing is just fine, I’m all over the runway over-correcting for some pilot-induced rudder oscillations I don’t understand.

It would be easy to blame squirrely winds on touchdown but it wasn’t that: I was just being crap...

Still, you get good landings and you get bad landings.

Back to the line, shut down the aircraft, take some numbers and pack up.

Nessa has gone inside which is feeling increasingly like a good idea, it’s over 100deg out here.

But I have finally found the fuel dip (that I bought for the aircraft on the last visit, the owners seem to trust the fuel gauges, which is more than I do...) and pitot cover so can put it to bed the way I like it: everything shut down, tied down and control lock in.

Page Field FL - North Eleuthera Bahamas 30 Jun 19

The last time I was in Florida I picked up two ringbound AOPA books: The Bahamas and The Caribbean.

Apparently it’s easy to tour The Bahamas by light plane, and tantalisingly close to Florida.

Like the Pooleys Guide to UK airfields they make good reading: you can dream of touring around remote places and filling your logbook with exotic names while sitting on the loo. Have PPL, will travel....

There is a certain amount of paperwork involved but Facebook and YouTube are great tools for making it simple and these AOPA Guides lay it out for you.

So we ensure the aircraft has a Customs sticker, use Foreflight to file a VFR flight plan and check the weather, with the Garmin 39 we will have live weather to Bimini.

The US eAPIS (Customs) web site takes a bit of work but nothing too taxing, we file a Manifest outbound and it’s accepted. Wow....

This is serious blue water aviation - we will be over water for nearly an hour and although we will rarely be out of sight of land we will not be glide-clear, so on with the lifejackets and ensure the liferaft is in the back, accessible.

We’re also worried about thunderstorms building up so we are at Page Field as they open at 7:00am.

Ever helpful they lend us a luggage cart to get our stuff out to the plane and we pre-flight carefully, add a little oil as it’s on the minimum and start up.

Ground acknowledge our response and end with a garbled something that I am pretty sure are taxy instructions so I’ll taxy carefully to R05 for power checks, change to Tower and....

“How did you get all the way down there? I didn’t clear you to taxy?”

Oops, I’m in trouble.
Major Diplomatic incident here, I'll probably be deported.

Quite why they didn’t clear me to taxy or what they actually did say I still don’t know.

Anyway, after a while they calm down and clear us for take-off so we climb out, change to SW Florida who open our Flight Plan and initially steer us South East before asking what our feet wet point is to be.

Once we tell them it’s Pompano Beach they turn us East and let us climb to our planned Transit Altitude of 7,500ft (following the semi-circular rule).

I could go at 5500ft but that’s quite low over the blue water or I could go at 9500ft but we won’t see much, so 7500ft is a good compromise.

I’ve been trying to get the autopilot to work - last time I had Ann to fly it for me but this time it’s just me and I’d like to relax.

After some experimentation I manage to get it to follow the bug on the PFD but can I get the bloody thing to height hold?

It’s set to 7500ft, the barometer is set correctly and the feet per minute is set to zero but the altimeter very slowly winds up towards 8000ft.

I put in minus 100fpm and it drifts back down to 7500ft..... and keeps going towards 7000ft. So I put in +100fpm and it starts going back towards 8000ft. It's just crap.

After 45 mins we coast out at Pompano Beach where there are lots of puffy little clouds that will become rain showers later today, which is why we started early.

As Florida recedes behind us the sea turns deep blue and the pleasure craft thin out, leaving just the tankers with their long autopilot wakes; a long way ahead is a build-up which doesn’t actually look that threatening but I’m not licensed over here to fly through it so 5 degrees to the left and we skirt it.

The FAA specifies a minimum 2500ft horizontal separation from clouds for VFR but we’re not in US airspace here, so I think we can go closer if we want.

My ADS-B shows only airliners 33,000ft above us.

A slash of raindrops and we’re past, looking at Treasure Cay below us and another, larger build up that looks like it might be over Eleuthera.

But no, it’s about 20 miles this side and we scoot round it via another slash of raindrops to see, in the distance, our destination.

Miami hands us to Nassau who are, for a couple of minutes, can’t-get-a-word-in-edgeways busy.

I’m worried they’ll think we’ve fallen off the edge of the world but eventually it lets up and we check in with them, asking for a descent in to North Eleuthera.

They close our Flight Plan and pass us to UNICOM for blind calls.

We are just reporting 10 miles left base for 06/7 following a scheduled Beechcraft 100 when a PA28 pops up saying he’s 10 miles left base for the same runway: a quick check on the ADS-B and he’s 300ft directly below us...

Power on, arrest the descent and tell him we’re extending to give him room to land before us and clear.

Go, ADS-B.

Once I reckon he’s got enough time to land and clear we turn back in and self-announce at 6 and 4 miles, I can see he’s clear so pre-landing checks and descend over the piercingly blue waters, then the scrub and finally the threshold, drop it on and taxy in.

Marshalled to the flight line, we hop out and Customs/immigration are so nice they let us have a pee before we do all the paperwork, check our e-mail and even help us filling in the forms.

Customs and Immigration are hassle-free and quick: before long I have a stamped Cruising Permit allowing us to land at any Bahamas island. Freedom!

In our haste to vacate the aircraft of course something gets forgotten, in this case I manage to leave the flaps down.

Oh well, worse things happen at sea.....

North Eleuthera Bahamas - Normans Key Bahamas - Exuma Bahamas 3 Jul 19

After 3 days driving around Spanish Wells in golf carts we decide going straight back to Florida is boring so we’ll extend our trip by a couple of days by flying to The Exumas.

We could fly direct but in order to remain a little closer to land and for the view to be more interesting we’ll head South along Eleuthera then cross the open stretch to the top of the Exumas Island chain and stop on one of the Exuma Cays, we’ll decide which one as we go along....

North Eleuthera have filled us up with fuel so we’ve got 5-6 hrs endurance.

Pre-flighting the aircraft reveals some form of insect has built a small sandy nest in the corner of one of the ailerons, up by the hinge. This could block the controls and ruin your whole day.
This is why we pre-flight.... a quick clear out and a really good full and free check calms my mind.

I could file a VFR flight plan with Nassau but as we are going via non-standard turning points laziness prevails in the end and we just toddle off VFR.

We "take" the runway, climb out to the North East over where we were feeding turtles yesterday, turn to overfly Spanish Wells for some photos, then head back South over the top of the airport at 1000ft and continue along Eleuthera.

The green of the scrub contrasts with the white sand and the blue water, there’s just nobody here at all.

Past Governors Harbour airfield and down to South Eleuthera, then cut the corner to fly just off the Western tip and turn for the top of the Exumas chain.

This is the only section of the journey we are not within glide range of a beach but it transpires that for almost the entire journey we are within glide range of a sandbar, so the worst that can happen is that we end up stranded on a sandbar.

There are a few boats here and there so engine failure options are to try to find a sandbar near a boat, then scrounge a G&T off them.

I do keep a very close eye on the engine temps and pressures, though.

We have no working EGT gauge so I can’t lean too aggressively, I’ll keep the cowl flaps slightly open to keep the CHTs down to around 300, and the oil pressure is stable and within the green arc so as long as that all remains stable I’m happy.

We had a brief issue where the ammeter was registering discharge and we have no pitot heat: switching that on trips the fuse but we’re not flying IMC so I’m not too fussed.

Twenty minutes later we’re over the strait and busting for a pee so we join right base for 03 at Norman’s Cay.

This sparsely-populated Island was used by Pablo Escobar in the 70s and 80s to run drugs in to the USA, the whole Air Defence Identification Zone system was set up to stop planes running in at night to drop drugs in to Florida.

I love the way they make it sound like some anti-Russian missile defence system whereas it’s actually just to stop the drug cartels using light aircraft to fly drugs in to the US......

Self-announcing, we simply line up and land, backtrack and expect at least someone to be there but the place is utterly dead. Three aircraft are parked up but the chain link gate is open and there is just no security, no buildings, nothing here.

Time for a pee.

As we taxy across the Apron I hear a Beechcraft twin announcing his final on R21, so the opposite of what I’ve just landed on.

As there is no wind it really doesn’t matter so long as we don’t try to use opposing runways at the same time, so I’ll leave him room to enter the apron then taxy out and depart via R03.

Climbing out we turn right and pass over the C46 plane wreck in the middle of the harbour they are diving on, then depart South down The Exumas, a chain of tiny islands pointed towards The Turks and Caicos.

Each island is more beautiful than the last: small and large mixed, some with boats and runways, others abandoned.

So many miles of pristine white sandy beach, so few people; of course it’s hard to get here unless you have a boat or your own plane I suppose. Perfect for a sea plane.

As we approach Exuma I can hear neither the Tower nor the ATIS (they call it AWOS here for no apparent reason) so I call Odyssey the FBO who tell me I am on the right frequency for the Tower, I call them and they are happy for me to land on R12.

I'm loving this complete lack of PPR.

There is an old airstrip that used to be Exumas airport and for some reason I am convinced I should be lining up on that but no, it’s this bigger one over here and yes it’s starting to bloody rain.

At 3 miles the runway begins to disappear inside one of these heavy showers the Caribbean is so good at.

Oh, this will be fun.

We’ve got enough fuel to hang about for an hour while it clears through or l’ll shoot the RNAV approach, no one will ever know....

But in fact we never lose sight of the runway and drop it on to the bumpy tarmac.

I’m not doing very good landings at the moment: a bit of a bump on the touchdown - I think I’m not looking at the end of the runway - Must concentrate!!!

Marshalled in, I put the flaps away this time (!) close down and pack everything away, forgetting to remove the Garmin 39 for charging (well I always forget something).

Exuma Bahamas - Miami Opa Locka FL - Page Field FL

Our time in the Exumas has sadly come to an end, so we’ve taken the rattly Honda back and now comes the dreaded paperwork to get us back to the USA.

Odyssey Aviation are very helpful with all the Bahamian Government bits and at no point does anyone ask to see our passports (!) but ultimately the paperwork is down to me.

It requires another tussle with the eAPIS website which is pretty user-friendly but refuses to accept Nessa as crew, so I have to remove her entirely from the system and re-enter her, then we need to raise a GenDec (a hangover from the UK colonial days I’m sure) which we do by hand and fax, then a VFR flight plan which I know I can generate from ForeFlight but it simply refuses to accept a VFR ICAO plan and won’t accept a FAA format plan as it’s not a US domestic flight.

ForeFlight support later e-mail me about this and tell me I simply needed to select a VFR ICAO flight plan but I know it simply wouldn’t accept that option.

Instead Odyssey and I file it by paper and fax it to the tower then call them to confirm it’s in the system.

I am obsessed with the entry in my Bahamas AOPA book that tells me I have to have some kind of code prior to entering the ADIZ but finally just before we leave and I make a fool of myself in the air work out that what it means is that I need to be talking to a controller and assigned a squawk code.

Ah, now I understand.

Then finally we get to pay Odyssey’s surprisingly realistic bill and pre-flight the aircraft.

Modern Cessnas have a stupid 12V output socket that isn’t a cigarette lighter socket. Sportys sell a simple adapter that terminates in a cigarette lighter socket that you can then fill with a USB adapter etc etc to charge and power your various devices but of course this Cessna doesn’t have one.

I suspect it does have one but a little like all the other gear we have had to request, check and assemble at various points, it’s just not in the aircraft. The upshot is we have no onboard power.

All this hassle means I haven’t had a chance to charge the Garmin 39 using AC power so we have no ADS-B weather or traffic, I must get the Cessna 12V converter lead (Sportys, $19.95) and just have it in my Flight bag.

We self-announce taking the runway and off we go in to the humid sunshine, it’s a huge long runway so we backtrack some of it and roll, using about one tenth of the available. I don’t know why I didn’t just turn left!

Right turn outbound and set course then climb for 8500ft. It’s interesting that when preparing a Flight Plan within ForeFlight correct Cruise altitudes for the flight plan are easy to select, it simply doesn’t allow you to select an incorrect one. Someone has thought about that.

Miami radio works even out here at 8500ft and once they accept we have a VFR Flight plan (much rustling of papers by the controller) we get a squawk (vital to avoid getting intercepted by the US Air Force as a potential drug runner....) and the service is excellent but bugger me, the controllers are busy.

We are advised of an area of rain ahead and we can see it so we turn five degrees left to go around the edge. We’re both worried about thunderstorms and having the ADS-B would be better but this is just light rain.

We are discovering that American controllers will vector even IFR aircraft around even the smallest amount of rain, do American aircraft get soggy?

I suppose as most of these aircraft are airliners they are trying to give their passengers the easiest ride but really, in Europe you get what you get I suppose because there’s just a lot more clouds.....

The sea turns dark blue as we coast out from Andros, the sky clears and we can get back on to our original route. We remain at our nice cool cruising height of 8500ft (this would be FL85 in Europe but here the transition level is at 16,000ft) until the coast of Florida is very much in sight at which point Miami suddenly decides they want us under 4,000ft.

Via the AP I put in 1000ft per minute, what I consider to be a pretty steep dive but Miami demand an expedite so we’ll pull the power a bit, turn the AP off, and push hard. The speed goes up almost to Vne, the VSI goes off the clock and like those old TV movies the altimeter unwinds at a silly rate.

The constant speed prop will keep the engine at the same speed (got to love a wobbly prop) and our ears pop before we level off at 3500ft (its much warmer and muggier at these low altitudes) and head NW to stay outside Miami’s Class Bravo Airspace.

Round the corner we swap to Opa Locka Tower and the fun starts.....

Whilst East of the airfield we are cleared Right Pattern for 09 Right. I can do that: down to 1000ft over suburban Miami, those backyards look pretty close.

Level, pre-landing checks and flaps, all good, back to 85Kts and turn Base, at which point they clear us for 09 Left.

Er, OK: power in and extend the Base Leg to reach the other side of the airfield and start to turn Final.

At which point the Coastguard aircraft about to roll on 09 Left requests a short delay and the Tower smoothly clears us to land on R12.

Bloody Hell: make it up as you go along, why don’t you?

Roll further round to the right and there’s R12.

A bit of rubbish off the buildings and then we’re smoothly down.

My short field abilities are going to atrophy with all these huge runways, though.

It’s a long and complex taxy over to the Customs facility, we are cleared on Papa but then that gets revised to November to accommodate a real, live Douglas DC-3 coming in the opposite direction.

Not a tarted-up, restored warbird but a scruffy old freight dog: a real, pre-war veteran of the skies.

I’ll bet that aircraft has spent more time aloft than I’ve been alive....

The Customs is tucked away behind Atlantic Aviation’s ramp. We simply pull up, grab our bags and passports and walk in.

They have all our details so a quick fingerprint and photo check by a really nice Customs Officer (yes, they do exist), a second officer inspects the aircraft with a sniffer dog and we’re free to enter the United States.

Oh no. Now I’ve got to warm start the beast.....

The owner tells me you can’t have enough fuel, so we’ll do a fuel pump run like you would for a cold start and it fires up immediately.

I think I may have overcome that particular problem now.

I think that when warm the fuel drains back to the gascolator rather than vaporises, so you simply pump the system up again and off it goes.

I’ve been overthinking it.

Given the propensity for lightning in the afternoons in Florida we’ve decided to stop at Atlantic next door for lunch and to charge up the Garmin 39 with some good old American juice, so we are marshalled in next door (50 yards from Customs) and we visit the awesome shrine that is Atlantic Aviation.

My God, what are we doing in Europe?

This is the most beautiful building I’ve ever visited.

It’s got no less than 4 smiley people ready to minister to your every whim, a lunch bar, soft seating and a flight planning room, crew cars they will lend you to go to downtown Miami for lunch, WiFi, power sockets, I could weep.

Surrounded by business jets I can’t believe we get all this for free.

I keep expecting someone to turn up with a huge Handling Fee (Humberside, you know what I mean...).

If I can get this for free why do I pay £81 for a Portakabin at Bournemouth?

We need the Garmin: Miami is clear with the odd shower but a huge thunderstorm is over Cape Coral.

The Doppler radar (we NEED this in Europe) shows the last hours worth of rain and lightning so we can tell it’s going to be clear of Page Field in about an hour and a half: time to have lunch, catch up on e-mails and Facebook, charge the Garmin and depart.

90 minutes later we pick up a ground taxy and Flight Following, depart East over the suburbs (feels so low...) then turn North West with the resuscitated Garmin now providing Live weather to the iPad.

The combination of Garmin 39 and Foreflight on a yoke-mounted iPad plus the Garmin 750 gives unprecedented situational awareness, geo-referenced taxy charts and live weather.

My old flying school boss would have a seizure.

We need to dodge the lightning and the heavy rain to get back to Page Field, and we’ve spotted a gap in the rain showers North West of Opa Locka that Miami Approach (who are looking at the same screen as us) help us achieve.

We can see the rain showers to either side but we’re in the clear.

Actually the whole thing is a bit over fussy as light green is light rain and quite frankly you can fly through that without even much diminished visibility. Darker green is heavier rain but you can still fly through it OK.

The issue comes with yellow and red where the lightning is, but that’s very scattered and easily avoided once you can see it in the cockpit.

Our alternate is Immokalee which is about two thirds of the way back to Page Field: if the lightning hasn’t cleared Page Field by the time we get there we can stooge around for a while or get a cup of tea at Immokalee. No landing fee and no PPR means no problem there....

As we near Fort Myers we can see the thunderstorm ahead moving off across the river, leaving light rain and really good visibility behind, the air seems washed clear.

Fort Myers International transfer us to their Tower who vector us directly over the top of their airport to remain clear of any rain whatsoever: I think they’re being a bit over cautious with the weather, but what do I know?

Once overhead they pass us to Page Field who immediately clear us to land on their 03.

A quick couple of seconds orientation (It’s always worth keeping a mental map of where you are in relation to the various runways at an airport as you never quite know what you’re going to get, especially here) and we go left, descend to 1000ft and do a neat right pattern.

It’s only when I point out to Nessa the receding lightning 10 miles away that I realise she has gone absolutely white with fear. She tells me later she was petrified that we would be struck and blown up mid-air. Irrational, really: we aren’t earthed.

Lightning might bugger up our electrics but it won’t affect the controls.

I know an aircraft that survived a power line strike which fried the entire wiring loom (and knocked out the whole of Kidlington) but it went on to make a perfectly serviceable landing. I even flew it a few months later.

As we descend there is a CRACK and a bolt of lightning hits about 300 feet in front of us. Nessa didn’t see that one, thank goodness.....

This time I am determined to get that really sweet landing I know I’m capable off, so a nice long Final, a low rate of descent, and *look at the end of the runway*. Ah, that suits me Sir, smooth as silk.

Gentle deceleration, a left turn, swap to Ground and we’re off to the FBO.

A note about the Garmin 39 and ForeFlight: you don’t get weather when on the ground via the Garmin 39.

If the 39 is on (and it turns itself on when you put it in charge) either turn it off via the top button or disable the Bluetooth on your iPad temporarily so the wetaher comes through your broadband, not the Garmin 39.

Sadly the aircraft has to go back.

The thunderstorms have abated this afternoon, and a high cloud base keeps the temperature in check. The oil has stabilised at 6 Quarts so it needs no additional oil, we fire up for the last time and now I’m much more comfortable with the radio calls I know I can drop down the coast back to Naples VFR without talking to anyone between Page Field and Naples so long as I stay below 1200ft and squawk VFR (1200 for some unfathomable reason).

One up a C182 is a beast and we rocket off runway 23 over the river and down towards Sanibel before turning South East at 900ft over Ft Myers Beach and Bonita Springs.

I so enjoy flying this simple VFR life in good weather in Florida, the view is without parallel and the air smooth, I could do this all day.

Sadly, Naples soon looms up so get the AWOS (why can’t they just call it ATIS?), tell Tower I’m inbound from the North with 13 to run and they immediately clear me Right Base for runway 23 so I can give myself plenty of room, get all the pre-landing checks out of the way then turn neatly Final, get 2 reds and two whites from the PAPIs and slide down the approach.

The owner may well be watching so I need to make a nice job.

Keeping eyes on the end of the runway ensures a nice smooth arrival, gentle braking and turn left for the apron.

Here of course it all goes wrong as I misidentify the taxy way as Bravo when it is in fact Alpha, and the poor Ground radio guy gets frustrated as he tries to point me at the pumps.

“Oh right: over there!” finally I can see the pumps so couple up the grounding lead and top off the left tank (the right tank is still, full, typical C182) then taxy round to the (wrong, it turns out) hangars. Once the owner arrives I then need to turn it round (too tight for me, we'll use the towbar) and taxy it back opt the correct line of hangars.

Bye Bye, we’ve had some fun. He's aiming to buy a new one later in the year, so maybe we'll get to take that to The Turks and Caicos next time...

I understand some US rental outfits are requiring an IR as a prerequisite for flying to The Bahamas. This is utter and errant nonsense: there is nowhere in the world more VMC than The Bahamas. Any IMC conditions are scattered and avoidable.

Now I suppose I'll have to re-learn to fly back in the Northern European clag (if Europe will let us after Brexit).