Thanks everyone for the kind words, it's greatly appreciated.
So... by popular (?!?) demand, and lifted straight from the write-up I did over on the Flypast forums, her's the blow by blow account of how yesterday went. It might be long, but count yerselves lucky you've not been subjected to the cheesy mugshot as well...
BeauMan
No longer an Earthbound Misfit.
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The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed my tag line has changed from 'Earthbound Misfit' to 'Former Earthbound Misfit'. Anyone who knows Pink Floyd's 'Learning To Fly' will twig the meaning immediately, but the simple explanation is because the nice man from the CAA saw fit, at 17.25 today, to utter the immortal words at the end of my Skills Test;
"You've passed".
It's been quite a week for me leading up to this; my usual mount, G-BFWB, went in for her annual on Monday, and as I had a quite short notice slot come up for the test (I found out on Monday), I had quite a daunting prospect ahead of me. The plan quickly became, have a quick half hour yesterday in another one of the fleet which I hadn't flown before prior to taking the test in it today. Not an ideal way to prepare, learning where the dials and switches are in a new aeroplane, but c'est la vie. So yesterday morning, there I was, an hour away from getting into the car and driving over to Cambridge to acquaint myself with G-MASF.
The phone rings. It's the Ops Manager. "Just thought you'd like to know, we've got Whiskey Bravo back for you. But you won't recognise her, she's got a new exhaust and a new prop. She climbs like a rocket!"
I didn't hear the rest of the conversation - I'd got MY aeroplane back, that was enough for me! So I scrubbed the familiarisation trip in Sierra Fox (that'll come at a later date), and spent the rest of yesterday checking my flight kit, doing example weight and balance checks, checking the flight kit, planning example routes, checking my flight kit, reading through the checklists. Oh, did I say I checked my flight kit?
This morning dawned bright and clear. Minimal wind, visibility all the nines, no significant weather. And of course, I'd got dear old Whiskey Bravo to do it in.
Turned up at Mid Anglia late morning, got given a route to plan, planned it, did the weight and balance, checked my flight kit, got all the paperwork sorted out, examiner arrived and we went through a briefing, checked my flight kit, booked out, and then off I went to preflight the aeroplane.
Snag number one. She ISN'T fully fuelled. So after the walk round and internals, it's just a short taxi to the pumps.
Problem is, it threw my routine out a bit. Things seemed to be slightly disjointed for a while, compounded by the fact that the wind dictated we use runway 05 as opposed to our normal 23, which meant taxiing to a hold I don't usually use, right hand circuit to climb out on instead of the usual left hand... But after the power checks and a "This is what'll happen if the whirly thing stops whirling" briefing from me, we were given clearance. This was it.
Departure out of Cambridge went well, climbed to 2500 in the overhead, noted the time, and set course for Loddon, a small (and, it turned out, bloody hard to find!) village just south of Norwich. Waypoints along the route were nice and easy, although today's trubulent conditions made nailing my height a bit tricky. The accent gods were on my side too, as for the first time in ages, I had a controller at Lakenheath who I could understand. Time spent in the pub at Old Warden talking to Steve Patterson obviously prepared me for this moment!
Snag number two. Where's Loddon? The timings were going great guns, everything was on track (ish) and on height (ish), but all of a sudden something didn't look quite right. I could see the examiner perusing his map, glancing at the clock, and at me, but I couldn't see Loddon. Time to admit I couldn't see it, and go into an orbit while I sort my life out. Quick check of the map, pick up features on the ground, and oh yes, there's Loddon. I'd been about two miles off track, and it had passed quietly beneath my nose and right wing while I'd looked off to the left.
Still, all corrected, and off we went towards Southend. We never got there. A simulated closing in of the weather meant I had to orbit and fix my position using VOR and DME. Followed immediately by a divert (we were over Framlingham at that point) to Stradishall. Set course and headed off, past Stowmarket, the old 8th AF base at Rattlesden, and finally arrived overhead Stradishall. Three minutes early, wow that's good. Except there's no sign of Haverhill off to the left. But Bury St Edmunds is off to the right, what's going on. Idiot. I'm overhead Chedburgh. So, quick re-plan, turn onto 210 and three minutes later voila! Stradishall.
By now I'm convinced my poor navigation has sunk me, so I relax as we move into the upper air work. Stalls without flap, stall in the landing configuration, recovery from a spiral dive, steep turns to left and right, no problem with any of them. Slow flight at 53 knots hanging on the prop with the stall warner wheeeeeeing away in my ear was almost enjoyable. Even the dreaded PFL went swimmingly well, as did the simulated engine failure after take off. Tight low level circuit and an approach to land in a field went great, even if I did wonder whether he would ever let me put the power on and climb away.
And so back to Cambridge for an overhead join, a flapless approach to a touch and go, a glide approach also to a touch and go, and then a short field approach to land, which we had to switch from the hard to the grass, just to make life amusing. Cambridgeshire is largely flat. Apart from the grass runway at Cambridge, but after coming to a halt, clicking our vertebrae back in and ensuring that Whiskey Bravo and her new prop were all still in one piece, I taxied in to recieve the good news. And a glass of champagne.
Many thanks to all at Mid Anglia School of Flying, for turning a rusty old time expired FAA PPL into a shiny new JAR one. And most of all, for making sure Whiskey Bravo was back in time for me. I couldn't have done it without her.