They introduced me to the lawyer that was going to assist in getting my visa for me, and I went ahead and started the process. I attended the US consulate to obtain the visa that I had applied for. I was granted the visa and within a couple of weeks, I headed out to California.
It was a management visa, and the role I was going to fill was a management role over-seeing JAA PPL training, supervising the restricted instructors. I would also be learning how to market and manage the school generally. I had supervisory experience from Coventry in the UK, so I was certainly qualified. I would be actively flying and instructing myself, but my main role would be office based. This was what was verbally agreed and would have been legitimate under the terms of the management visa.
The school made no mention of any plans to start teaching European commercial courses. This was purely advertised as a place where Europeans come for their cheap and fast private pilots licenses and have a holiday at the same time. Therefore, this was one place where me not being able to hold a European commercial license myself wasn't going to matter.
When I turned up there having forked out over 3k towards the visa and its associated expenses, I was in for a shock. It very quickly became apparent that they had made a huge mistake. All along, they had plans to start teaching the Commercial and make the school into a European pilot career centre. Something I can't be part of, through not being able to get that medical in the UK and hence hold that European Commercial license.
Well this I don't hold against them. Everyone is human, and every human makes mistakes, even serious goofs like this. However, they did not take any responsibility for it despite me proving it was all entirely their error. I couldn't really do anything but leave.
I came back home and kind of got settled back into my old life that I had before I went to Australia. I bought another old Jag for not very much money and I started trucking again for the Royal Mail once or twice a week.
I started flying the Cessna for the farmers and continued looking after the strip, and spent my weekends down at Stoke Golding. It was at least the middle of summer in the UK when all of this happened and I came back.
I found an old abandoned single cylinder dumper in the overgrowth at the farm yard where the Cessna was. I got it running and I rescued it from its resting place of several years. Then I took it to Stoke Golding where it has a new home and a new lease of life. The video below is the restoration.
I never did get back into teaching in a flight school environment again at this point, but being resident instructor at Stoke Golding, I was conducting bi-annual flight reviews and checkouts on new aircraft that people had bought, so with this and with the Cessna, I was flying enough to stay happy.
I had to buy another Jaguar. A truck came and smashed up number 3 when I had left it parked on the side of the road.
After the nasty experience in California and how tough It had become to get US work visa's, I decided to change tactics.
Canada was another country I could go to initially on a working holiday visa like I did in Australia. Then to stay on there and get a more permanent residency wasn't as tough as it was in the US. All my FAA licenses are easily converted to their Canadian equivalents. So I figured I should try and make a go of it out there. I may well like it and become settled. They appeared to be more down to earth and friendly, with wide open spaces. Although they have cold winters, it's a different kind of cold with clear blue skies and calm conditions. They have good long summers to still enjoy the summer type weather. So I figured, why not.
