Now having done my PPL in Florida, I flew into daytona international, Orlando sanford and quite a few other regional airports, not ONE of them charged a penny (or is that cent?)
......
Still can't decide what my favourite big airport experience was....
"Number two to land for stop and go after 747, caution for wake turbulance" at Sanford, then doing a short feild landing in a C150 (on a 10,000ft runway!!!
) followed by a short field take off
, or flying radar vectors into Daytona in the sunset over the daytona oval for a touch and go amonst lots of big traffic
...
Both sets of controllers were helpful friendly, and the ones at Sanford even had a sense of humour, advising me that I had "approximatly 9000' of runway for take off, was I happy with that or did I want to taxy back to the threshold ?"
... My instructor and I were in bits laughing!! ... The best thing is we got treated as equals to the big boys, and we were not considered a burdon, and NO fees at all!
Infact the whole uk GA operation could learn a lot from the USA's model, the night lighing at most airfields could be operated by radio, so even if the airport was "shut", you can come and go as you please...
Anyway, well done on the Gatwick landing,
, must have been great fun and challenging at the same time... Maybe when my numbers come up I will have a go