Road trip with a difference

Well after several weeks trying to settle on what we were going to do, where to do it and when, Matt and I have now finalised our next big adventure. We're going to learn how to do aerobatics. Well, actually, I am and Matt i still trying to decide on whether he'll do the aerobatics course or the Unusual Attitudes course. The aeros course is what it says on the box...learning how to do aerobatics like those nutters you see at the air shows. But the Unusual Attitudes course is more of an extra bag of tricks to get yourself out of those hairy situations. Both courses are apparantly similar with a slightly different emphasis on certain things on each course. We'll do the course in a school that was both found individually by Matt and then also came recommended seperately by my friend John in San Diego. It's called Unusual Attitude in Livermore, California.

The course is 8 hours long, and the plan is for us to complete the course in the first week (in the first few days) and then for the 2nd week to rent a plane and go on a road trip, or in our case, an air trip. We've settled on trips around the Bay Area in San Francisco, to Lake Tahoe, the Mojave airport where the aircraft graveyard is, and also a trip to San Diego to visit our old school in Gillespie. We've let John and Janis know about the trip, so we'll try and meet up with them either in San Diego or arrange a "fly-in" somewhere else and have dinner with them. I think a trip to either Reno, Vegas or Oregon to see the volcanoes is also on the cards.

The only thing now we need to sort out is accomodation. We'll probably settle for B&B's....something cheap, cheerful and comfy and vary where we stay when we're doing the air trip, and choose a place for the week we'll be in Livermore. And the best part is that I managed to get Matt and I biz class tickets with KLM there and back. So we'll be flying in comfort and style going there ;-) I cannot wait.

There's a bit of paperwork involved. We need to get our JAA licences endorsed by the US FAA...which means sending a form to the CAA to allow them release our details to the FAA, then sending a form to the FAA asking for a US licence and then dropping into the FAA's FSDO office in Oakland to get our FAA licences. We already have our medicals, so that's not a problem. And we can get the FAA thing when we arrive in San Francisco. I cannot wait. This will certainly get me through the Winter months.

Another development is that I will be shortly moving to Ukraine with Cisco. I'll be the new controller (actually the first controller) for the Ukraine/CIS region. I am trying to find out if my JAA licence is valid in Ukraine, but you can imagine the problems I'm having trying to get them to answer etc. But hopefully it will all work out. And there's a guy in the office who flys a Yak!!! It's aerobatics rated, which means that I can borrow it and chuck it around the sky when the mood takes me :-) Keep your fingers crossed that it all works out.

That's it for now.