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Old 17th Dec 2008, 22:03
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I did my QXC in Florida, but under JAA rules. Now airfields in Florida (or the US in general) are normally totally, utterly uncontrolled. No AFIS or A/G service at all. If you're lucky there's a computer called AWOS that tells you the wind strength and direction, that's it.

Land, and then try to find somebody who happened to witness your arrival, R/T standard, landing and so forth, and is in a position to judge that - a hopeless task.

I was lucky and managed to find somebody within 15 minutes in each case, who was willing to sign my paperwork, with a standard of airmanship of "excellent" in both cases. Even though they were in a briefing room doing an instructor-student briefing at the time of my arrival. One of them was not even an instructor-pilot, but an instructor-parachutist but the CAA will never know that from the signature.

I've also heard horror stories of students spending more than an hour scouring the field for somebody, anybody, who would want to sign their paperwork. After that one hour, they phone up the school, get permission to fly to another field and try again.

At the end of the day, all that matters is that somebody witnessed that you've reached the field in one piece.
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