By Simon Hollway 

My long-suffering instructor Ali, has learnt long ago never to pre-empt my next flying lesson with any advice or pre-warnings should that lesson involve anything out of the ordinary.

She knows that, for me, pre-warned is pre-armed and, given a few days thinking time, I am able to concoct a litany of questions, suggestions and comments upon the various different and unusual techniques that can often delay the practical side of the session by anything up to two hours. Ali simply employs shock and awe tactics nowdays, ensuring that I am safely bolted into the Cessna and ready to roll before she tells me what the dish of the day actually is (obviously some study of the theory would give me a clue but that is a bridge too far for my molten grey matter).

This lesson was set to be basic instrument flying. Ali had wisely failed to inform me that this involves the wearing of one of two torture devices to stymie the student pilot’s sightlines and make him or her concentrate on the instruments. She handed me the two items as she bounded out of her office. Well, she bounded: her hair did not move. Ali had not only received a new haircut but had ventured upon a restyling. I was confronted both with new hair and an outsized visor and nifty looking goggles (or ‘foggles’) simultaneously. So much information received at the same time had me tongue-tied for….oooh literally seconds.

OK. So Ali’s new hair may not be the hottest breaking piece of aviation news but it did allow me five minutes wasted cockpit time as I quizzed her over her stylist’s vision. It looks very elegant: think Princess Di cross-bred with a more avant garde Princess Lea from Star Wars. I suggested she should be wearing a twinset and pearls she looked so refined. Hopping into the plane, I felt like Dick Van Dyke accompanying Julie Andrews in our air carriage.

And that was my five minutes up. The visor and goggles were then flourished and I had to choose one. Did I want the outsized visor and look like Darth Vader on steroids or the foggles, which would be more a Biggles meets John Lennon look. I asked Ali to show me how each of them should be put on. Her hair wasn’t having it.

And so, we were off. Learning to fly the aircraft solely with reference to the instrument panel was the goal of the day. I had no choice really. With my visor on and feeling like a dog after surgery, I couldn’t see out the windscreen anyway. Ali was the eyes, ears and hair in the cockpit. I was flying blind. I enjoyed it. I didn’t keep having to look at the damned ‘picture’ out the big window all the time. According to Ali, I was ‘over-controlling’ (‘pot and kettle’ I bravely murmured through gritted teeth and inside my head so no one could hear me).

You could hardly blame me. Without being able to see where I was going, my main concern was if I was travelling at a sufficient distance above the ground to avoid bumping into it. Then I was ‘chasing’ the instruments. So I went back to my favourite dial. The altimeter. The thing that tells you about the ground. So then I was ‘fixating’ apparently. I shouldn’t chase and I shouldn’t fixate. Erm and don’t scan. No chasing, no scanning and no fixating. Mmmm. I then started to swoop. I rolled my head and eyes in a circular motion like being on a merry-go round tracing arcs over the instrument panel. This exaggerated movement sadly dented the left wing of Ali’s new hair creation with my outsized head gear. So no swooping either. Eventually, I discovered if I cocked my head to the right at a sufficient angle, Ali couldn’t actually see what my eyes were doing.

Well she could, as pretty soon the Cessna started imitating my head movement and we were travelling along at 45 degrees to the horizon. BUT at a constant height I proclaimed. Yes, but we are in danger of sliding off the deck, Ali countered. I suggested that I wear both the foggles and the visor at the same time. She suggested otherwise.

After 15 minutes of lurching around the skies, I finally mastered all the regular manoeuvres, climbing, descending, banking et al, with my blinkers on. Ali got very enthusiastic and complimented me several times. I advised her that breathless enthusiasm didn’t go with the demure and understated elegance of her new hair. She told me to ‘#$@* off’. It’s nice having a lady instructor. They don’t get half as cranky as the blokes…