On Mar 28, 1:46 pm, "Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote:
Seems the overwhelming numbers here are USA. And, it feeds into the
attitude that the USA is the only one that counts.
I'm curious as to how many visitors here have a non USA pilot
certificate and where from?
Further, how many pilots here have flown in countries other than the
USA?

I am a US certified PPL, and I've flown (with a local instructor) in
both the UK and South Africa.

In the UK we flew out of a grass strip (the Old Sarum Flying Club near
Salisbury), and never went above 1500 feet on the hour long flight, to
avoid having to deal with ATC (which I think would have incurred
fees). Small country, we flew down to the channel and back and
toured some stately homes and got back all in about an hour, in a
Warrior.

In South Africa it's pretty much anything goes VFR, as long as you
stay out of the controlled airspace around military bases and major
airports. And even then, we asked for (and got) permission to overfly
the parliament and presidential palaces in Pretoria.

the discussion elsewhere in this thread about other countries
where flying is realtively cheap and free, I think South Africa would
qualify. The instructor I flew with told me that the U.S.,
Australia, and South Africa are pretty much the world's training
countries. My experience on a round the world business trip confirmed
that, lots of Aussie accents in the cockpits of Asian airlines.

The South African instructor also told me I fly "like a typical
American" which he said was a complement, because GA is relatively
cheap and free in the U.S. so most American GA pilots fly better than
from other countries because we practice more, because we can afford
to (comparatively). For example, we don't pay fees for landings at
most GA airports.

He runs a bush flying service and told me when a foreigner wants to
rent one of his planes, he asks what country they are from. If it's
Germany, France, or another European county where most flight training
is military or airline based and GA is so expensive most pilots can't
afford to stay current, he budgets a whole weekend plus the following
Monday for the checkout. If it's an American, he figures he can do it
all in a Saturday morning.