It was another early start so I was at NAC by 7am. I checked out N938AC and found a bit of water in the fuel. In my picture you can just see the bead of water in the bottom of the jar and also the water droplets on the inside of the jar above the fuel.
I disposed of the contaminated fuel in the special drum and on rechecking all was OK. My first flight of the day was with Nikki where I was to practise the various types of landings. The one I enjoyed most was at the end of the lesson where I did a soft field landing and was able to run most of the entire length of the 5000ft runway with the only the main wheels on the tarmac and the nose-wheel off the ground. This lesson was 1.1 hours and my next was to be a solo flight at 11:00 to practice the various types of takeoffs and landings.
Alister or is It Alistair ? was having his first look around a C172.
He was walking around for a long time with the fuel testing jar and so Thorsten thought it would be a good time to make a toast to “Good flying”
At 11:00 I was ready to join the circuit, this time with N946AC. It was quiet for 30 minutes and I put some good practice in, but then the traffic just went silly. I was asked to make a short approach and as I did this I could see a long queue of aircraft on the taxiway waiting to take off. I did my touch and go and because they want a very tight circuit I was back around for another touch and go in about 4 minutes. Apparently Thorsten was in the queue and he said he saw me make two touch and go landings while he sat in the queue. I guessed that they would send me off somewhere soon so on my next downwind leg I requested a full stop landing. This time I counted 8 aircraft in the queue and as usual there were jets arriving from all quarters. Just as I well I stopped as it was obvious that playtime was over. I was going to call for the ‘Option’ so I could practice the short field take off and landing but it would have been refused. My solo flight only amounted to 0.8 hours. My next fight was to be a mock skills test at 3pm.
In the interim Nikki showed me the ground school operation.
Here are a couple of pictures.
There is Marco from Italy at the desk and I am sorry I have forgotten the names of his colleagues. If you could let me know them I will correct this post. They were all very friendly and helpful.
This is Steve from the west country and I have seen him on a few occasions with his class of career pilot students.
Nikki also had an office here but I got the impression that she spent more time in the air than in the office.
Next I had a walk out onto the ramp and saw a Velocity that was owned and flown by a Pan-Am pilot. It looked good and has a three bladed wooden prop in a pusher configuration.
The reason for the interest in this particular aircraft is because Richard is building a Velocity himself and here it is :-
Yes, I know it looks rather like a space shuttle now but eventually it will be like the graceful, glossy Velocity we had just seen on the ramp. The project is housed in the NAC maintenance hangers and here are some other pictures from there.
Richard and an aircraft that was brought in for inspection after it’s nose-wheel had collapsed. The left prop had struck the ground and something felt wrong when the prop was turned by hand.
Another pic of the project Velocity. Still a way to go ?
I had a look around the rest of the maintenance facility and the comprehensive parts stores. I also met Mark in the avionics room and he was repairing radio equipment using a temperature controlled soldering iron and multicore solder. I felt quite at home in this environment however It was time for me to go and pre-flight check my fourth different C152 in succession. This time it was N945AC. At 15:40 we took off and completed a mock skills test. The 1.6 hour flight went well although my practice forced landings were poor and I need to swat up on these. Back at base, another Danish student called Henrik was just returning from a successful skills test conducted at Sebastion on the east coast of Florida. I sat in on the de-brief as I was going to do the same task tomorrow. I got the details of the route for my planning later that night. I had arrived at dawn that day and left at dusk having flown 3.5 hours that day. I had a long evening of planning and study ahead so it was just as well I had one microwave meal left. I was due back at 7am next morning for my last day of flying on this trip to Naples.
My nerves were already becoming apparent.
Peewit
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