California Flying Holiday
Hi there, I have done a search on hour building in California and not quite found the information I was after. So thought I'd post a couple of questions here and pick your brains. Hopefully you can help me out.
My brother and I are both airline pilots with a bit of a hankering for the good old days of our hour-building in California. We both did our time there a few years ago (I hired a Warrior from ADP and he did it from Rainbow) touring around for a few weeks. We visited all the usual places (LA, Vegas, San Francisco and most places in between).
Anyway, we are going back in April for a flying holiday and have a couple of questions for you. Firstly, any good recommendations on where to hire an aircraft from? Ideally we don't want to do the hour-builders amount of time (it is a holiday after all), so no restrictions on having to fly for 4 hours every day. However, we would like to take it away for a couple of weeks so we can do some good touring and not have to deliver it back to the school every night. Thinking along the lines of something like a 152/172/Warrior or similar, and obviously something in reasonable condition. Probably hire from somewhere in the LA area, simply because that's the easiest place to get to from the UK.
At the time we're thinking of going (April) we are assuming the Californian weather will do us proud, are we correct? Sunny and not too chilly? Good weather for VFR touring?
Obviously we both had British and FAA PPL's, but they have since lapsed. What would be the requirements to revalidate the FAA one once we get to America?
And finally, any good suggestions on some places/airports we might like to visit? To be honest, we've found a fair bit on this subject via the search function, but if you have any gems that are lurking out there that would be worth flying into then they'd be appreciated.
Thanks very much for your help,
Billy M