Okay, quick review so y'all can catch up with the story here: 12-Feb-07 = After crashing Peter's Piper Cub attempting to get into one of the Scar Creek Outposts, I was MediVac'ed to Vancouver via Campbell River. I got out of hospital Saturday having recovered well thanks to lots of time listening to http://www.plr.org/ and http://www.allclassical.org/. Now that I was well-enough to "recover" I needed a place to go. I certainly had some work to do but the prospect of hanging out on the 21st floor of the headquarters building at KOFC (this time of year the 21st floor is just into the low, rainy overcast so although the presidential suite has windows and one big HUGE desk, one can't see but about 5 meters outside) didn't sound too good. Therefore I took opportunity to load up the Flight Club's new Fourth Anniversary Edition 763ER and set in a route to PHFC in Hawaii. (pict1) (pict2)
I departed under rainy skies on Sunday the 18th, arriving mid-day into beautiful Hawaii (widely scattered TStorms reported but not seen). Then, I was able to take the Flight Club's new Dash 8 on some local tours (pict3)including some on-line flights with CapTim Lee and Ali Mujtaba among others. (pict4)
Now we come to 01-Mar-07 and it seems Tony is sending us BACK to St. Maarten in the Caribbean. My first thought was, "Obviously he's been a bit out of touch with the rest of us." My second thought was, "That'll teach folks to not fly the FOTMs, we'll just send them back again!" My third thought (yes, Bill, I had three, CONSECUTIVE thoughts!) was, "GREAT, I could always use more time there" - Ever since AIr's Los Roquas FOTM I've thought that there were some undiscovered places along these islands. So, while I could have departed the afternoon or evening of March 1st, I waited until dawn of March 2nd so that the paint could dry on my new 747SP - which I took from Honolulu to Princess Juliana / St Maarten. (Please see the videos at: http://www.putfile.com/pretendpilot )
The weather across the Pacific, Baja, Mexico, Cuba and Puero Rico was generally pleasant other than some bumps over the Yucatan! (pict5) I arrived to a straight-in, runway 9 approach with light winds from the northeast. (pict6) (Funny that Tony said there was no ILS as there is one listed in my add-on: juliana04.zip) Anyway, with clear skies and the VOR who needs the ILS anyway? I D/C'd Otto at 17 miles and hand-flew the approach, man-handling the throttles to put 'er down, "ON THE MARKS"!
Having just flown Alejandro's two Cessnas (and an Otter) around the area last November, I figured it was time for a change of pace ... see the photos, which also accompany my video this month. (pict7) (pict8) (pict9) (pict10)
I'm only presuming that someone else had taken the 747SP on to meet up with the group in Europe - on their way to Canada. On March 17th I received a call from il Divo asking me to do further testing on their two regional jets (pict11) - Of course I accepted, in exchange for more concert tickets, for the wife-unit of course!
( See this: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1143710/M/)
The remainder of March was spent blissfully flying from Havana to Caracas with innumerable stops between. (pict12) (pict13) (Note: I hope to have the SPs and 328s uploaded to FS.com by the time you all read this)
Tony, it was fun to take the Yacht into these harbors - a new challenge for an air pilot such as myself. Luckily, my son LOVES driving boats/ships in "airplane game" so he was able to take command for some of the sailing!
(no joke there, it's true) Also, there is such great scenery in this area - we've had three FOTMs down here now (March '04 , November '06 & March '07) and I still don't feel that we've seen everything flightsim has to offer us in the Caribbean. 
Many thanks for the flight(s) - and thanks also to our great webteam for keeping everything running smoothly! 
pretendpilot@yahoo.com
