Take a tour around Pan Am International Flight Academy
NW flight 57 which would carry us to Miami
The view for most of the flight: lots of clouds. It improved once we passed Canada
Miami beach is in sight!
A map of Fort Pierce. The Airport is at the top and the arrow is where we are (click on photo for larger image). From there to the centre of Fort Pierce is about fifteen minutes by car.
Dorm no 4212, my residence during my stay here
These strange birds suddenly appeared today, they walked around the dorm and went away again. Must be normal in Florida. I found out that these are 'Sandhill Cranes'.
A 180 degree view of the area between the dorms and the main building. The arrow marks my room.
And a short tour around my room (well, it will be mine until they give me a roommate, I hope not!). On the second photo: from left to right the doors are closet, bathroom and closet. On the third photo: the door on the left goes to the living room, the one on the right to the porch.
Take a tour around Pan Am International Flight Academy
Let's start at the beginning, this is the sign you'll see when you are driving towards the terminal at St. Lucie County Airport in Fort Pierce
A bit further on you will have this view of the dorms. I am in the second dorm in the row on the right. The main building is all the way at the right
The main building of the Pan Am Flight Academy
Next to the main building is this building: the operations building. Very important: this is where you get the keys to your airplane! Behind it the maintenance hangar can be seen.
An almost 180 degree view of the Pan Am ramp, Archers on the left, the Arrows are behind the Seminoles on the right
The main building again
This is what we will be flying for the first 80 hours: the Piper PA28-181 Archer III
These Archers are all fairly new aircraft and feature airconditioning, GPS and modern avionics
For the IFR part of the course we will be flying the PA28-201 Arrow. Like the Archer but with more power, retractable gear, constant speed prop and full IFR instrumentation.
Pan Am also has several Seminoles but we will not fly them. After about 65 hours on the Arrow we will go back to The Netherlands and fly the Beechcraft Bonanza, Baron and the Airbus A310 Simulator.
Cars and planes - or: Strange things I found in Florida:
I think this is quite a rarity: officially a Beech H-18, it is (if I remember correctly) a Howard conversion of a Beech 18 which accounts for the nosewheel, different nose, large windows and probably different wings. Originally a luxury private transport but it now carries cargo around Florida.
Another 'strange bird', a Honda Hybrid car, it has a normal gasoline engine but also an electromotor which it uses when able to save on emissions. It was parked next to a hangar at the airfield this morning.
And this here is the 'sensible' car that my housemates bought. It looks good but is impossible to park anywhere.