Saturday Sept 30: After a fun, full and scenic month in the Philippines, I had returned (via a PAL MD-11) to Flight Club International Airways HQ in Mumbai, India. (Weather was pleasant enough with hazy highs around 80*F and widely scattered thundershowers) I returned to my Flight Club Executive suite after church Saturday to find a note from Geert: “Fly to London and catch a domestic flight to Edinburgh….after days and days at the conference we may want to fly back to London City airport before continuing with our Joint Air Mission to Amsterdam.” I asked myself why I would want to fly to London twice? So then and there I decided to be different (some would say non-compliant).
Sunday Oct 1: Flight Club International Airways has two Sunday flights to London, one at 04:59 and one at 10:55 – I, however, was on the 08:05 flight (number 906) to Glasgow! Since we were on the way to what was truly an Exec Function I had ordered the VA to use the Flight Club Admin L-1011 for this flight – real world weather of course!
Push back was on time, wheels were up at 08:17 and we cruised at FL360 over Karachi, Central and Northern Iran, Armenia, Ukraine, Poland and over the German-Denmark boarder, arriving at 17:49 local time.
Monday Oct 2: I used the “Flounder One-A” Jetstream-31 for the short hop Glasgow to Edinburgh. Then, a limousine shuttled me to the castle for our meetings. 
To review the speeches:
Tracey’s = I haven’t laughed that hard in a long, long time!
Tony’s = He obviously knew his topic but he didn’t offer any real PRACTICAL helps
Hans’ = Nice videos of World Cup but not even a single CLIP from a Ghana game??
Bill’s = Interesting to hear about life from the Oz perspective but by the end, I was confused
Salina = She no showed, wasn’t there…stood us up!
Brad’s = I’ve know others like Brad who cannot or will not take any ounce of responsibility for their own actions! Immature I tell you, just selfish!
Alejandro’s = Goes well with Brad’s talk as President Chavez also blames everyone else for his countries difficulties – like getting new computers!
Alastair = I think he was just bitter because he DROVE to the conference while the lot of us flew in!
Peter’s = Technology reaches the outback! Nicely done Mr. Stark.
Dick’s = Nice advice on the 401k as well as the college funding plan. Thanks!
Geert’s = I never knew how much of life I was NOT really experiencing.
Monday Oct 9: I took a Dash-8 up to Inverness to see the sights.
Wednesday Oct 11: I took the Dash-8 to Belfast for the day.
Monday Oct 16: I took a BAE-146 to Hanover. 
Thursday Oct 19: I took a Jetstream-41 up to the Orkney Islands.
Monday Oct 23: Took the Jetstream-31 again into London City, then, Alejandro and I took his 182 RG Turbo for a spin round the city sights. 
We finally landed up at Heathrow (where we were dwarfed by the other traffic).
Sunday Oct 29: Finally, as instructed, I was to take a “commercial flight” over the Channel to Amsterdam/Schiphol. You can watch that video on www.putfile.com/pretendpilot . Anyway, there was rain and some scattered TStorms on startup and pushback but then cleared to just hazy conditions for take-off. I flew over two UK VORs before setting out across the Channel heading for a Rotterdam VOR.
ATC pretty much left me alone until they called me too late to descend. I had to pop the spoilers and drop like a rock to get to altitude. I was then vectored on a north heading for an ILS into 19R. So I’m parallel to the airport and ATC says, “Turn right heading 150*, maintain 2000 until established on the localizer, call tower on…whatever.” I turned to 90* to intercept the ILS (would have been about a 100-degree, 3-mile turn onto final had I continued) but ATC was yelling at me to expedite turn to 1-5-0. (I should have cancelled and landed on 9 but in the heat of the moment and all…) Finally I gave in and turned to 150 even though the VOR was at my 120. (So, I’m flying 150, trying to get to 185 but the VOR is already at 100 so for all intents I’m already past the airport!) I declared a missed approach and was vectored some 37 miles north but at least this time I knew I could intercept the ILS. Everything was going smoothly despite all the traffic-chatter until I was cleared to land.
As I was gliding in, about 3 miles out, the AI737 that had been holding short was cleared to take off. I figured I’d just sail right over him and land long – I’ve done that before. But he started his takeoff roll and while I was still gaining on him I knew that I’d be going slower and he’d be going faster…………I had to go missed again. This time I was sent some 43 miles north and vectored in again. Again, it was smooth until I was 7 miles out. “Transavia 359 cleared to land, contact tower…” Then, “Pacifica cleared to land, contact tower…” As I hit the APP button I saw the wheels of the MD-80 come into view from overhead! (its on the video too) For time savings I was, at this point, still doing close to 200 knots so I pulled back to 135 thinking that even if he didn’t clear, I could stop quickly. To no avail, he was not pulling away from me but holding position about 0.4 miles ahead! So, being the “as real as it gets” kind of guy I am (and having learned well from my fellow pilot Dick Graham) I raised the gears and firewalled the throttles!! This caused a bit of a ballooning but I was now gaining on the Pacifica plane. We both had been cleared and both contacted tower, now it was simply a race to the runway. I blew over top of him doing 207 knots, flaps down, gear up, I was high and nose-down on short finals but I cut the throttles and lowered the gear at the fence. As I was floating over the numbers I heard tower tell me to go around, I floated … then again, “acknowledge go around?” Then my wheels touched. “Ummm, Pacifica, go around!”
“Transavia, did you hear to go around.”
“Ummmm, no, sorry I missed that but … what gate shall I taxi to?”
“Oh, yes sir, taxi to gate T-6.” “Roger, T-6”. And with that, I taxied to the gate while the MD-80 went off on a tour of Holland.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcI6JMAyBPI
Geert. A little surprise for us this month I guess huh? (I expected more Holland and less UK) Thanks for the twist!
pretendpilot@yahoo.com
