There is no set format for this flight as Bose says quite rightly (he should know
).....However, in practice this is not strictly true for the reasons GTW says.
I got bitten by this this year and it p*ssed me off. I phone up for an hour of tailwheel, as something different to pass off the 1 hr. Good experience for me, hopefully improve my general handling etc....
So I arrange everything and drive to the airfield 1.5 hrs (too crappy to get my plane out). I get there, we chat for a while and then when I mention it must be an hours flight "Ah, I'm not happy to let this flight count for a revalidation"......We have a discussion about it and he claims he'd be "helping me too much which goes against the idea of the training flight". The weather is too crappy for the usual stalls / steep turns etc., but the only difference with tailwheel is T/O and L/D. So as I've just driven 1.5 hours and I'm pissed off I did some tailwheel, less than an hour, and didn't get the revalidation flight. I went back the following week with my aeroplane, thinking I'll get it banged out in that, but no there is another problem, I brought the aeroplane docs with me but forgot one apparently and he didn't want to fly in my plane. So I almost told him to p*ss off and was on the edge of letting the JAR licence lapse and just using my FAA one but thought that AS I was there, and AS I'd just had my JAR medical which is now valid until 2012 I think, I may as well do it. So I had to rent one of their aeroplanes. It was good revision I suppose but nothing new.
This whold revalidation thing is a joke. Either the CAA should make it a
FORMAL BFR or they should scrap the whole idea. They should also get rid of the requirement for an examiner to sign the paperwork. I'd suggest they make a formal flight of 1 hr duration, covering PFLs, Steep turns, etc., with an instructor sign off being good enough for the revalidation. Not being a member of a flying club this whole revalidation thing is far more hassle than if I were with a club, renting their aeroplanes....