E Wein, fair weather PPL

I haven't been flying since the beginning of December, and Tayside Aviation won't let you rent planes without a check flight, and I am such a wimp anyway, that I thought I'd get someone to take me up and make me do all the things I hate most: stalls and steep turns and the dread Practiced Forced Landing (or PFL, for short--basically, you cut the power, pretend you've had an engine failure, and land in a field. Well, you don't *really* land in a field, but you come within about thirty feet of it). Simon Barr, who was my very first instructor, went with me. He has been through a number of job changes in the last couple of years (he is no longer half my age), and I have not been flying with him since 13 December 2002--a week before I did my first solo navigation. How strange that is, somehow.

Anyway, Simon and Fiona (my friend at the front desk) had plotted between them that they were going to turn this flight into my Biennial Review, a fine thing, since if I'd known ahead of time I would have probably not been able to eat breakfast.

( Quite a lot of gibber about flying )