G_String,. .. .Good luck! Nothing to be worried about, though - just do all the things you've learnt to do over the last 50-or-so hours.. .. .But, for what it's worth, here's how my skills test went.. .. .You can, if you want (or sometimes if weather conditions dictate), opt to do the test in two parts. This is what I did - navigation first, followed by lunch at Turweston, then the general handling.. .. .The night before the test, I met with the examiner for a beer. This was the examiners suggestion, I don't know how many other examiners do this, but I thought it was a great idea. It enabled me to get to know him a little, and hence be more relaxed about flying with him. Also gave him a chance to tell me what to expect. Mostly I knew what to expect already, but there were a couple of minor things that were very helpful. For example, descending steep turns - my instructor showed me how to do these with power off, explaining that it was useful for making tight turns into a field if you have an engine failure. Examiner prefered to keep descent rate to less than 1000fpm, which requires a little power. Had he not told me this beforehand, I'd have done it the way my instructor told me, and had problems keeping the descent rate in the range the examiner likes it - only a small point, but nice to know.. .. .Turned up nice and early the next morning for the test. Found the examiner, he gave me a route to plan - two legs. Went away and did all the usual flight planning. I was a little stressed about this, because I'd always found out from my instructor what route I'd be flying well in advance, and done most of the flight planning the night before - this was the first time I'd done all the flight planning the morning of the flight. But got it all finished with plenty of time to spare, so wasn't a problem at all.. .. .Took off, and started the first leg. The leg took us through Brize class D. Got clearance for this, examiner asked how I'd know when I was in Class D so I pointed out on the chart a large lake close to the boundary, then pointed to a lake in the distance and told him that was probably it, but I'd confirm once we got closer.. .. .Once in Class D, hear the Red Arrows get clearance to transit the zone, in the opposite direction to us. We were at something like 3000', they were at something like 1000' - we both looked, but couldn't see them. After they were out of the zone, they stayed with Brize for a FIS. Brize told them they had multiple traffic, unknown height, in their 12 o'clock. They responded they had the traffic in sight, it was a couple of gliders. Wish I'd seen the look on the glider pilots faces when the Red Arrows went screaming past them!. .. .Turning point was Gloucester airport. Despite this being a very large airport, with enough nearby features to make it easy to find, I just could not see it. I knew the examiner could see it, because he was trying not to laugh at me, so I just kept flying the plane, looking out the window - and eventually spotted the airfield, about 1/2 mile off my left wing! So far so good.... .. .I turned onto the second leg of the cross-country, flew for a little way, then the examiner asked me to fly a certain heading. I flew his heading for a while, after which he asked me to fix my position. I used a VOR/DME, and indicated to the examiner where I was. He asked me to confirm from ground features, which I did. Then he told me to divert to Turweston. Since I already knew where I was, it was a case of pointing the plane in roughly the right direction and noting the time, then figuring out a more precise direction and an ETA.. .. .Turweston turned up right on schedule, and we tuned the radio in just in time to here a Pan call from an aircraft with a gear problem. We hung around outside the ATZ to let the other aircraft sort itself out (he landed without incident - I assume the problem was a faulty gear-down indicator), then joined the circuit.. .. .There was quite a strong cross-wind from the left at Turweston. I love White Waltham, and having 3 runways is generally a good thing, but it does mean that students get very little cross-wind practice, because there's nearly always a runway roughly into wind. The cross-wind at Turweston was within my capabilities, but even though I was fairly relaxed, the pressure meant I completely screwed it up. I used the de-crabbing technique, as taught by my instructor. But I began de-crabbing a little too early, and drifted to the right. Realising what was happening, I tried to put the crab back in, and ended up with the left-main touching the ground and bouncing back up while still drifting to the right and crabbed to the left. It wasn't pretty, and I decided I didn't want to see what would happen next - so I added power and went around. The next attempt was much better - not the best cross-wind landing ever, but we got down safely and heading for parking.. .. .Once we'd parked and paid the landing fees, we had lunch, and chatted about flying in general. I think it's a good idea to do the test in two parts - I think it would have been tough to maintain the level of concentration required for the whole test if I'd done it in one go.. .. .Lunch finished, we went back to the aeroplane and set off for the general handling part. This was just the standard set of stalls, slow flight, steep turns, descending steep turns (with a touch of power!), instrument flying, practice forced landings, etc, that I'd been doing with my instructor, and was no problem at all. The examiner did all the navigation during this part, so all you need to concentrate on is flying the manoevres. Eventually, we wound up at Stoken Church, and the examiner asked me if I recognised it. Of course I did - it's a regular navigation feature when going north from White Waltham - so I was told to head back home. Into the circuit at White Waltham, and we did a whole load of regular, short field, soft field, flapless, power-off, etc. approaches, all of which went fairly smoothly. I didn't have to do a go-around at this point, because I'd already demonstrated that I can do this, at Turweston!. .. .Afterwards, we de-briefed, which basically consisted of the examiner telling me that I was a pretty good pilot, but here are a couple of things I could do better. And he recommended I get some cross-wind practice in with an instructor as soon as possible!. .. .All in all, it was fairly harmless. I took his advice, and booked an 8am slot with an instructor. (White Waltham's flying order book allows the club's instructors to use a runway other than the official runway in use for cross-wind practice, if traffic permits. Although I've never actually seen this done, the instructor said we should fly at 8am, when there wouldn't be much traffic around - that way, we could pick the runway which had the most crosswind! As it happened, the wind was directly between two runways, so we had a reasonable cross-wind on the runway in use anyway.) Instructor suggested I try the wing-down method, which I found much easier than the de-crabbing method, and I've never had problems with cross-winds since. Decent tail-wheel training also helps with this!. .. .Hope that was interesting/helpful. But the main thing is not to get stressed - go out there, and just enjoy yourself! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" /> The examiner is there to get you through the test - not to try to trip you up. He's on your side.. .. .FFF. .---------