Day 21

All of a sudden, I've done 18 hours of flying, and with only 10 more to go (of which 2 are in the sim) the test is looming. Today's flight included a little more nav and some more instrument flying, this time with the added bonus of a land-away at Dunkeswell airfield (a few miles north-east from Exeter) and my first 'unusual attitude' recovery under partial panel instruments (see day 16).

This involves giving the controls to the instructor, and allowing him to have 30 seconds of fun zooming around and turning the aircraft on its side, before putting it in an unusual attitude such as a spiral dive or a steep turning climb.

Then with reference only to instruments the student has to recover control of the aircraft, returning it to straight and level flight at normal airspeed. This exercise used to be done for the Private Pilots license, but with reference to the outside horizon AND all the flight instruments.

Its a bit more fun (which is code for a rather tricky) doing it on partial panel with no outside horizon.

By the way the Duchess has a set of 'screens' which can be erected in flight to simulate entering into cloud and losing the visual horizon. The picture on the left (not of me or any of my fellow students) shows you the screens, which are arranged in such a way that the instructor (right) still has a reasonably good lookout whilst the student's outside view is almost completely obscured.