arriving at orlando airport within minutes of each other, we were a sorry identically dressed sight.
mark had no bags, we had no driving license between us and we couldn't find the hotel because the map that we got in the shithole place that eventually rented us a car was designed to be used by people that wanted to know the way to the nearest mcdonalds.

add to that the fact that orlando is basically a bunch of different themed piles of crap and you have a good picture of how it all started.



however, the morning brought us sunshine and a nice breakfast - we made our way down to kissimmee (the fact that we were already in kissimmee confused our elementary sense of navigation even further).

We guessed we were in the right place when we turned off the tourist track and saw Warbirds - a museum full of old military aircraft

fighterpilotsusa was right next to it.




since we had arrived early the pilots were still in the air with the previous group of wannabes - but we got a good look at the planes as they landed - SF260 Marchetti - the closeup shows Jigs taxiing in with one of his students.

just in case you're an aircraft geek - you can get more info from the fpusa site



these are all the dials we'd have to learn to use if we really were pilots. for now all we needed to recognise was the stick - which was easy enough...

the right hand picture is part of the hour long briefing - jigs shows us how to get in 'the saddle' - a few explanations, theories and jokes later we were ready to go