Week 4

A lot of people went solo in the first part of this week, and mine is not getting any closer, it seems. To start the review, Bart and Barber are seen here losing part of their ties.

The next to make their first solo flights were Corjan, Michiel, Bas and Rick, all on the Tuesday. This leaves only Joeri and me to complete this step, but my solo flight has been delayed again as my landings on my flight this morning were nothing to brag about. Mario didn't want me to do my Pre-solo check before we got the landings up to standard so he scheduled me for an extra hour of landing practice tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.

I've been asked to do a bit of organising on the local Student Council, so I spoke to the local KLM representative, Kevin Illige about this. It is not that much work but somebody needs to do it.

The Wednesday did not look promising when I opened the curtains and indeed my flight got canceled because of the strong winds. In the afternoon I went to Vero Beach with Barber to look for some books. I found a bookstore the other day with lots of second-hand books so we went there to look around. When we came back Charlotte had organised a party to celebrate her 21st birthday, it involved lots of pizza!

On Thursday I got up early for my extra flight, and although my landings still need improvement Mario thinks it is good enough to go for my pre-solo check. Mark had mentioned that it might be possible to do the check the same afternoon and I took him up on it. As it turned out that wasn't the best decision as not everything went as smoothly as I wanted and especially the second landing was actually one of my worst as I miscorrected for a shifting wind and hit the runway with the nose pointed in the wrong direction. My gut feeling was that this meant a re-check but Mark surprised me by saying that I passed. Apparently my flying was not that bad but the weather didn't help me and I would have been wiser had I rescheduled it. Anyway, I passed! That evening I joined Melanie, Barber and Charlotte to go to see 'The Queen of the Damned'. The book was better if you ask me, but it wasn't that bad.

So the next morning I got up early for a 7.00 flight, pausing at 6.22 to look outside and see the Space Shuttle launch from Kennedy Space Center. We flew for an hour and practiced some more landings, and after that we taxied back, Mario got out and I was on my own! 'Do three landings and bring her back in one piece' is the advice you get. And so I did! All went well, and through a bit of deception I actually had arranged for nobody to be there to meet me! Tradition is all very well, but the practice of throwing you in the pool originates with a Student Association that I do not agree with, and so I skipped this part.

What else did I do? I helped Charlotte to pick out a new camera, I will always help out with spending other people's money!

The Saturday was quiet as I had a day off now. After my solo Mario mentioned that I would get my original instructor again on Sunday, allright, we'll see.

The Sunday was also quiet as the weather did not participate, so I stayed on the ground again. And also I heard that this switch back to Richard would not last, I would get another instructor from Tuesday on. Well, it seems as though I'm not done with switching instructors! Well, the good part of today was when the Collings Foundation's two bombers touched down at Fort Pierce, they will be here for three days and I lost no time in visiting them!

Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress 'Nine-Oh-Nine' and Consolidated B-24J Liberator 'The Dragon and his Tail'

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