So, the first real leg of our trip and already disaster has struck! As you all know, we were always looking forward to learning to fly in Florida. We had ourselves booked on a 21 day intensive course which we had added a week to in order to make sure we had enough time. When we arrived at the flying school we were shown around by the head of training. After looking around he mentioned that a recent change in US aviation recruting had had a major effect on the school.

Without boring you with the details, I will attempt to explain. Previously, potential pilots were judged by the amout of hours they had in experience. Therefore, people were keen to get jobs as flight instructors as it is a very easy way to get some major hours before applying to the airlines. As you can appreciate, the flying school we went to thrived on the fact that it could employ these desperate people to teach the students to fly. Now comes the bad part. Becuase there is such a high demand for airline (or ATPL qualified) pilots in the US, the airlines decided to start taking people with no (or a very low number of) hours. This means that all of the current instructors have jumped ship to the airlines, leaving the schools with very few instructors left to teach the ever increasing number of people wanting to fly.

Now what this means to us, is that the flying school are now in a situation where they do not have enough instructors to teach people on the intensive course in the 21 days promised. Now as I mentioned, we came out with 4 weeks to spare. We asked the head of flight training how long he thought we needed and he said we would need 6 to 7 weeks as a minimum. As if that wasnt bad enough, becuause the course only included 21 nights of accomodation, we would have to pay more as well.

We spent all day deliberating and speaking to other pilots in the center. We heard quite a few horror stories about various faults with the aeroplanes and costs increasing by the day. After doing a few calculations we worked out that it would end up costing us more to do it here after all the increased costs of accomodation etc. As gutting as it felt, we decided to take our money back and learn to fly in the UK instead.

So, not really what you would call a good first day. Although I have noted several things about America. Firstly, wheels.

In America, if something has wheels they have to be big and they have to be shiney. If they are not big and they are not shiney then you are not cool (and that is important.) Now, the first place you would think to display your big wheels would be your car, and you would be correct. However, an area that you may not have concidered adding your big wheels is to your luggage. Quite why this makes you any better as a person is beyond me, but thats America. Oh, and it would seem that the more toes you can run over with said wheels, the better.

The second thing that gets me is mobile phones. On the top of your phone is a speaker, and on the bottom is a microphone. The most obvious way to use a device like this would be to hold it to your ear, a method that proves quite popular throughout the UK. Maybe American phones are different. Maybe Americans are different. But, it would seem the only way to use a phone in America is to hold it 6 inches in front of your face and to shout as loud as you can at it, in turn annoying everyone within a five mile radius. This then means that you must repeat everything you say twice, and the second time must be louder than the first. I spent most of my time hoping that a very loud man in the departure lounge would trip up and swallow his phone, thus preventing him from talking about his entire, boring day.

The third thing that get me is the food. When we arrived at the airport we thought we would treat ourselves to a Burger King. I (wrongly) assumed that things would be the same as the UK so I ordered what looked like a bacon and cheese burger, this was called a 'Stacker' and this should have set alarm bells ringing. What I was served was as follows: A piece of bread, a layer of burger sauce, a burger, some cheese, some bacon, another burger, some more cheese, some more bacon, anthoer burger (im not joking), some more cheese, some more bacon, another burger, some more cheese and some more bacon, topped off with a final layer of bread. Thats correct, 4 burgers! I thought that the lady/man (I couldnt tell) had made a mistake as this was only 2 dollars but apparently you really can poison yourself for that little. And while your at it, you might as well drown yourself in the bath tub sized excuses for drinks cups. I was offered the choice of Orange, Dr Pepper or 'Wader' (I think this is American for water). I felt annoyed that I had to get this myself, but then I realised that all the drinks in Burger King as 'drink as much as you can', I wonder how long it will be before they get rid of the staff completely and just let people eat until themselves to the size of small planets.