"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:eHyfe.67700$WI3.22260@attbi_s71...
I am looking for a friendly place to fly in the US when I go on vacation
this year - I have no particular destination in mind albeit I have flown
in sw Florida, Texas, New England and Arizona. Has anybody got any
recommendations for flight schools that aren't too commercial training
oriented and would welcome a keen limey ppl who only wants to fly for a
bit of fun and has a sense of humour.

Nigel, I humbly suggest visiting the heartland of America, the Midwest,
and using our lovely town of Iowa City, Iowa as your "base of operations."

We've got two very friendly flight schools, renting primarily Cessna
products, and we're only 90 minutes from Chicago, Milwaukee, or Oshkosh.
And we're just 60 minutes from Kansas City or St. Louis -- so you can
cover a very wide swath of America from here.

I also know a pretty nice place to stay while you're here, that gives
pilots a discount...

Nigel,

Before you get too swept away in the sheer freedom of flying in the US, make
sure that you go through the process to get your US private certificate if
you don't already have it.

This includes going through the licence validation process details from here

http://registry.faa.gov/airmen.asp#verify

This time of the year it can take up to 4 weeks to get through the process
so planning ahead is important.

You also need to alight near a FSDO so you can visit it in person to get the
US certificate issued.

If you want to do any training towards a rating then you may need to get a
student visa. This could seriously restrict your choice of flying school,
usually to Florida or California to one which has INS status. Then there is
also the issue of the TSA whose details are here
http://www.aopa.org/tsa_rule/.

However, to keep things simple, just rent a plane, do no training. Just get
the US certificate. The checkouts and BFRs are exempt from the TSA stuff.

Did I say freedom at the start of this well all things are relative.