Hellmut1956
Filing Flight Plan
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2015
- Messages
- 7
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Display name:
Hellmut1956
Hi, early in the 90s I made my vfr pilot license in Germany. As I did work for a US semiconductor company I had been very frequently in the US. So with my brand new pilot license I had my first touch down in Phoenix, AZ, and so I went to an airfield in the north of the town and had a US license based on the german license be issued to me at the local FAA office. My german license then had a limited permit for night flying and so I took the opportunity to ask the FAA officers to detail for me the effect of those limitations in the US system. my limitation was that by night I had to stay in the vicinity of an airport and so I did ask what that meant to the US FAA. They told me that the vicinity of an airport was in the boundaries of a circle of 50 miles around an airfield. So one of the officers asked the other where in the US you would not be in a 50 miles radius around an airfield!
That statement has burned into my memories! So no to the mess I did on al later visit to the US were i booked a Cutlass for 3 weeks. As I was not familiar with the radio communication in the US and had nearly no personal experience flying as a pilot in command in the US I took lessons during 10 days from a flying teacher in San Jose, CA. He did a very good job and so he did confirm to me I was ready to go out on my own! Next day I went to the San Jose airport and did flight planning to fly from there to Half Moon Bay airfield. I left doing a take-off north bound, followed 101 to Stanford, turned left to get to the ocean shore and was happy to see the airfield and its runway straight ahead. So I did report on the proper radio frequency as taught and reported my progress as I flew into final. Being short of the runway I saw a plane leaving the runway into the grass strip next to it. I was landing against the direction of the runway in use! Immediately I was aware of the mess I was doing and looked to find out if another place was on final. I was too close to touch down to stop my landing and there was no immediate threat in sight so I did my landing, taxied against the whole ground traffic to the gas station and stopped there. You cannot imagine how embarrassed I was and I had no excuse. Angry pilots came to my plane and asked if I had a license at all. Other comments I will not write down here, but I felt terrible and I asked myself how I could have come into this mess! So after regaining my mental stability I took of and flow to the San Jose airport and called the flying teacher.
What had been the cause of this? In Germany, even on the smallest general aviation fields it is usually like in the use on controlled airfields. You have strictly defining approach charts and there are no unattended airfields! So for landing in the San Francisco Intl. Airport, or as I later did frequently, landing on the Phoenix Sky Harbour airport was no problem to me, but flying into an unattended airfield was totally new for me! So I took 2 more days of instruction just to exercise continuously the operation at unattended airfields.
This experience has left a permanent mark in my brain and I have developed my own habits as to how to fly to unattended airfields in the US. I think that foreign pilots, specially if they are from Germany have to be instructed how to use unattended airfields. So I want to share with you a video recording of a flight from the Emilia Reed airfield in the south of San Jose, CA, to the North Las Vegas airfield and back. To Las vegas with bright sky, back on a rainy day. Pilot in command was the co owner of the plane sitting next to me! For none flying enthusiasts the video might be boring but for me it is what I enjoy seeing to remember good old days.
https://youtu.be/0xcrbUhOkYs
That statement has burned into my memories! So no to the mess I did on al later visit to the US were i booked a Cutlass for 3 weeks. As I was not familiar with the radio communication in the US and had nearly no personal experience flying as a pilot in command in the US I took lessons during 10 days from a flying teacher in San Jose, CA. He did a very good job and so he did confirm to me I was ready to go out on my own! Next day I went to the San Jose airport and did flight planning to fly from there to Half Moon Bay airfield. I left doing a take-off north bound, followed 101 to Stanford, turned left to get to the ocean shore and was happy to see the airfield and its runway straight ahead. So I did report on the proper radio frequency as taught and reported my progress as I flew into final. Being short of the runway I saw a plane leaving the runway into the grass strip next to it. I was landing against the direction of the runway in use! Immediately I was aware of the mess I was doing and looked to find out if another place was on final. I was too close to touch down to stop my landing and there was no immediate threat in sight so I did my landing, taxied against the whole ground traffic to the gas station and stopped there. You cannot imagine how embarrassed I was and I had no excuse. Angry pilots came to my plane and asked if I had a license at all. Other comments I will not write down here, but I felt terrible and I asked myself how I could have come into this mess! So after regaining my mental stability I took of and flow to the San Jose airport and called the flying teacher.
What had been the cause of this? In Germany, even on the smallest general aviation fields it is usually like in the use on controlled airfields. You have strictly defining approach charts and there are no unattended airfields! So for landing in the San Francisco Intl. Airport, or as I later did frequently, landing on the Phoenix Sky Harbour airport was no problem to me, but flying into an unattended airfield was totally new for me! So I took 2 more days of instruction just to exercise continuously the operation at unattended airfields.
This experience has left a permanent mark in my brain and I have developed my own habits as to how to fly to unattended airfields in the US. I think that foreign pilots, specially if they are from Germany have to be instructed how to use unattended airfields. So I want to share with you a video recording of a flight from the Emilia Reed airfield in the south of San Jose, CA, to the North Las Vegas airfield and back. To Las vegas with bright sky, back on a rainy day. Pilot in command was the co owner of the plane sitting next to me! For none flying enthusiasts the video might be boring but for me it is what I enjoy seeing to remember good old days.
https://youtu.be/0xcrbUhOkYs