Normal pilots don’t do this….

… I grumble as I set up my HASEL check for the airwork that Bob has persuaded me to attempt.

Secretly I’m a little bit proud of the fact that even though it may well have been 6 months since I last attempted one, my steep turn was easily within test standards. I’m even prouder of the fact that although I’m about to attempt the dreaded stall, I’m not scared. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it but the fear has most definitely gone.

I pull back on the controls muttering “normal pilots don’t do this. They take off, fly to airports. Eat pancakes and then come home. None of this stalling crap”

Bob doesn’t seem to care about “normal pilots”; JPM is a tad more sympathetic, reminding me gently of just what a none event a stall actually is in this plane. I’m half expecting Bob to tell me that I recovered too early but it seems that he’s satisfied.

We move on to the next manoeuvre. Just as it has done so many times before, the engine mysteriously quits and I’m left mulling over my choices of field.

There are a fair few likely candidates around. Bob shrewdly makes me state very clearly just which one exactly it is I’m aiming for.

The approach is by no means perfect but I recognise relatively quickly that I’m too high and widen out my approach to accommodate.

We make it easily. Again not bad considering that I reckon I have, at best, a fifty-fifty track record on my forced approaches.

Happy that I seem to have remembered just how to fly one of these things, we head home for the circuit.