I'm not going to go into too much detail as I was atrocious and although I am my own worst critic I do have some pride!
Started off doing the circuits, 1 x normal, 1 x flapless in which I did my usual - approach like being in the fast lane of the M25 shortly followed by a pretty marginal simulated engine failure and instead of trying put it down on the RWY muppet decides to defy the laws of physics and stretch the glide. I would just have cleared the M23 but it would have been in the lap of the Gods after that - hence the need for some more training.
Then off to Southend for a Zone Penetration and routing down to Ashford. I couldn't get hold of London Information for the ASR so I switched to Southend Approach, got the info but forgot to tell them I was routing from Redhill - Ashford - Redhill......d'oh!
Flying was generally a bit ropey and we had some nice turbulence to contend with which helped mask some untidy handling.
Examiner took over to get us "lost" and I had to shut my eyes which I gave up on in the end as I started feeling queasy so I stared at my lap. Took two radials off Sleaford and Southend VORs and was reasonably close to our position but I decided to play the game a bit as I knew where we were just by looking out of the window.
I did the 180 turn in IMC - wow, that was weird! Not a completely even angle of bank all the way round but it did the job.
Had a divert to Rochester which was fine and a VOR track to Biggin Hill. Did the stalls and recovery from a spiral dive reasonably well and even remembered to climb from 2400ft to 3500ft for the safety margin which I was impressed with as I felt under enormous pressure. It was at this stage that I thought I had failed so I was pretty pissed off particularly when the Examiner is a Captain for a major UK airline - you just want to impress the bloke and I felt that I hadn't!
Got down to 1400ft for the Gatwick Zone and did the rejoin OK apart from putting the QFE in too early and then landed feeling pretty disponded.
Whole flight lasted about 2.5 hours and I was totally maxed out! I had more points of criticism on the debrief than the Examiner but all in all I'm pleased although I realise that there is more that I don't know than I actually do!
Totally worth it but very tiring!
