Last day in the US ....

Today is my last day in the US... I'm gonna hang out with some friends in Blue Spring State Park. Tomorrow, I'll Take-Off from Orlando at 1930 local time to Manchester (UK); then I'll be landing in Paris at 1135 local time.
Now is the time to think about what i achieved in 7 months here :
- I certainly gained an undeniable fluency in english, and especially greatly improved my ability to listen and understand spoken american english...
- I master aeronautical radio communications in english.
- I built about 120 hours of flight time, having a total of 210 hours.
- I flew a daring coast to coast cross-country. A formidable aeronautical experience and a nice way to discover the US. This was a good challenge and I'm very excited that I could manage to actually do it before I leave the US.
- I made some strong connections in the US aeronautical world. I learned a lot about the potential US careers opportunities and the way it's working here...

Well, I think it wasn't a lost of time... All of these things point in the same direction : getting me in the right seat of a jet airline aircraft... ;)

So long dear readers, next time I'll post, I'll probably be in France...
(I post a picture (not mine) of that blue spring park I'm going to this afternoon.)

random pictures from the trip

first one : just landing in Falgstaff airport (arizona) , (elevation about 7100ft), still tons of snow...
second one : In Sedona arizona. Wonderfull sceneries at sunset...

I'm in FL again...

Just to say I'm back in Daytona after this coast to coast flight trip in the US, from Florida to California, and back to Florida... It was a real good experience both for my pilot skills and my knowledge and understanding of US geography... Also We had a some very good times !
Some pictures will follow on this blog in the next days, but for now, I'll rest a lit' bit, I flew 7,2 hours today... Total trip flight time : 43.4 hours.
See ya.

Some news...

I didn't post anything about the trip for a while ... well I was either busy or tired... Then I'll give ya a quick update about it right now.

As I'm writting, I'm in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on the way back to Florida... We visited Los Angeles (CA), San Diego (CA), Las Vegas (NV), Flagstaff and Sedona(AZ)... We flew over the Grand Canyon and Meteor Crater...

Well there is no need now to tell that it's an awesome trip, "the trip of a lifetime" as some friends told me. A formidable aeronautical experience, a nice way to discover how huge and beautiful the USA are and how dissimilar the sceneries can be from one state to an other... I got a bird view of the southern part of the US. That's really really a nice trip !

Sorry, the only 2 picts I posted here are a lit' bit big in size, I don't have enough patience to reduce them, I'm tired and heading to bed right away...

See ya .

Trip to CA...

This morning I took off from KDAB with Masashi with a c172SP for our first day of travel to California... We flew 7.1 total. So, tonight I'm in Texas, Henderson city. This mornig was a pretty smooth ride, then we cruised at 8500ft to avoid the convection and turbulences. But from 1430, the ceiling began to drop and the wind and turbulences became very unconfortable. We ended up at 2000. Landed 30 mins before our forecasted destination to let a pack of very dark clouds fly away from our route and then did the last push to Henderson with an interesting approach to land (gusts and turbulences)... Fortunately, Henderson airport is very welcoming and we got a free hangar and a courtesy car for free as well... very nice. Tomorrow, ... well 90% chances of thunderstorm in the area... not a good flying day... We'll visit Henderson, TX... not funny... :)

Maybe I wont post every day on my blog it's a lot of work after more than 7 hours flying...

CRJ simulator

Today, I got the opportunity to spend the afternoon in a CRJ (Canadair Regional Jet) simulator in the Advanced Simulation Training Building in Embry Riddle.
I spent all the afternoon, 4 hours, there. That was really great. The students got through two complete flights. The first landing was a VOR-DME in New York JFK with a go-around (the MDA was 860ft for this VOR-DME procedure, and at the minimas they couldn't see the runway), followed by a ILS (the MDA was 230ft for the ILS, so they could see the runway and land).
The second session, after a short break, was similar, but with a ILS approach with a go-around again due to a landing gear failure this time. They made a pattern, cranked the gear down manually and landed with the same ILS procedure...
That was a neat afternoon !

President's Day at Stallion51

Last monday was President's day. I don't really know the meaning of this day here, but the fact is that it is was a holiday. Then with the sport aviation club, we went to Stallion51 which is a kind of flying museum. All the aircrafts there are in flying condition and actually flying. There is 4 P51 Mustang, a Spitfire, a Focke Wulfe 190, Extra 300, T6, and other nice beauties in the hangars. The owner has also a nice car collection. That place is really a (as Jeff said...) "pilot porno". This is truely awesome! If you have 3000$, you can fly the P51 for 1 hour... Well ... I'll come back later when I get my Airline captain salary...