Murphy, Jez,
Thanks for the concern. I have just got back from preventing a small time drugs cartel in brazil from distributing ricin to the greater part of the developing world...................ahhhhhh I wish.
The reality is somewhat dull. My job decided to send me on a course and part way through my second daughter arrived into this world 4 weeks early, just the builders started work on my extension.
As a result I have been somewhat time limited.
The supposed last Lesson 
After a lay off of 6 weeks, I went flying again today. Perfect weather for a refresher. After briefing and checking the aircraft, my trusty 152 climbed positively away from Coventry, retracing it's route straight towards Daventry VOR.
Todays wind was a Southwesterly which at the field was 17kts gusting 27. Ohhhhhhh, combined with the scattered cumulus, unstable airmass and rain showers this was going to be interesting. And indeed 1600lbs of Cessna is quite easy for mother nature to disturb and quite awkward to keep straight and level under the hood. But I got it together quite quickly and flew a respectable leg out to Daventry before turning North to track towards Leicester. All was going quite well I felt.
Then came the unusual attitudes,
and they passed uneventfully. Wouldn't you know it though we then had a practice vacuum pump failure and we lost the AI and DI. And again the unseen hands of my instructor ruined the picture. But no real drama's there either. A quick route back to Draycott Water and we were foiled from looking at approaches by Thompsonfly and their inbound 737.
So I asked, what would happen if you had an engine failure and the cloud base was so low as to preclude the chance of descent in IMC to break cloud and conduct a forced landing? To which the response was throttle back to idle, two stages of flaps, trim for 60 kts and take your hands of the yoke, only steering with your feet.
Lo and behold, we descended at quite a sedate rate. Into wind our ground speed was only about 30 kts and we seesawed along nose rising and falling as the aircraft meandered either side of its trimmed speed by 7 to 8 knots. Keeping straight with the rudder and now looking out of the window the following things struck me (not litterally of course).
We were going quite slowly, in control and not doing too bad a job of being an overweight glider. We still have a lot of countryside not built on which puts the odds a little better than even of not hitting a building etc. Unless the pilot interupts it with poor flying skill this thing doesn't want to fall out of the sky and really is quite stable, it just didn't want to stall or spin in, it just sat there happily nodding and descending. Lastly, in a bad situation as portrayed, good sense and airmanship can still recover some of the odds of making it out in one piece.
In no way do I promote this as a "course of action" for dealing with such a scenario. It was more about looking deeper into the flying characteristics of the aircraft and how a skilled and knowledgable pilot might be able to use them to their advantage when all else fails.
We then made a normal uneventful recovery to Coventry for a debrief. It never ceases to amaze me how much more can be learnt, even about an aircraft we all take for granted, and each gem gets tucked away, improving my confidence in the abilities of both the aircraft and myself.
That was a little pep talk as:
MY IMCR skills test is scheduled for Tuesday 12th April!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Many many apologies for the poor udating, but my hands have been very full over the last couple of months and an even keel has only just been re-established. Wish me luck,
Obs cop