By Simon Hollway 

As this series is approaching a length that Tolstoy would envy, and as Ali constantly reminds me that she is not getting any younger (but, incidentally, wearing more accessories which effectively disguises this fact), I was frogmarched down to the Flying School.

Ali used one of her hairpins as an effective cattle prod to usher me into her boutique office (Telling Towers), bolted me into a chair, used her Jedi hypnotic stare (Rikki Tikki Tava would have no chance, eyeball to eyeball with Ali) and TOLD me what was going to happen.

“You will do all your theory before each lesson; you will not be asking any questions; you will be flying 15 hours next week and you will be passing all your exams with flying colours by the end of next month OTHERWISE I shall commit suicide mid-air during our next lesson by swallowing my own tongue and you will UNDOUBTEDLY die too as you still can’t fly properly.”

Mmmm. I knew she shouldn’t have changed her nicorette patches from 4mg down to 2mg. Either that or else she’s been getting her training techniques from the Biggest Loser...again. So, I was frogmarched in and goose-stepped out.

The next couple of weeks went by in a blur. It was all about navigation and instruments and scanning and making decisions based on facts rather than feelings or intuitions. I had to beware of my senses as they can contradict what is actually going on in the cockpit (actually I was still terrified of Ali and her tensed cheek muscles didn’t contradict that feeling of terror). Her new paramilitary approach to my training was a pity. She missed out on all my eloquent descriptions of sensory confusion, attempting to define the sensation by reference to types of inebriation caused by several different types of alcohol. I had a simply blinding physiological parallel between the effects of rapid acceleration on your inner eardrum and the consequences of mixing kahlua liquer with sake rice wine. Alas, she shall never hear these droplets of wisdom.

So, all I could do was concentrate. I suppose there are less expensive arenas for my verbal diarrhoea than a few hundreds bucks per hour in the Cessna. I shut up, switched on and descended using all those marvellous instruments. I even did a secondary scan and was only 5% off the perfect airspeed: well, 4% but, strangely, Ali point blank refused to engage in a mathematical debate. “The devil is in the detail”, I remarked. “The devil is sitting in the right hand seat, so shut up,” she blithely observed.

This was slightly ironic as I constantly stumbled over the required angle of bank for a one rate turn. All I could think of was that damned formula, Alb = IAS divided by 10 plus 7. Sometimes the theory really does put you off. My tens got confused with my sevens but at least it meant I wasn’t fixating on the instruments, even if I was obsessing on the giant and rusty abacus in my head.

The following few days were spent on precautionary search and landings. Even though these are only supposed to occur through bad airmanship, one specific cause would be bad navigation techniques which I am specifically bad at in specific cases, specifically whenever I am in the air. That said, apart from the third run at 50 feet to check the surface for hazards, this wasn’t all that different to the forced landing techniques I had previously been rather good at, even if I do say so myself.

We then revisited navigation before I head onto advanced circuits next month. Frustratingly, the landscape over where I fly is spectacularly undistinguished. It really is difficult to know where the hell you are from 1,000 feet. A sandy splodge here, a tiny bush there – all utterly unremarkable and all utterly confusing.  This is where that glass cockpit would come in very handy, making navigation a doddle. However, if they are anything like my home computer, one wrong word and the whole thing could crash and, if I can’t navigate manually, if it crashed so might I.

I did cheat a little, as navigation in a helicopter and fixed wing is pretty similar however, remembering all those endlessly confusing classes with maps and compasses and slide rules, I pity those who have to go through all this for the first time. It is frightening and it is off-putting, especially the thought of trying to navigate your way into a totally new airfield. You eventually get used to it but problems do arise even for the experienced. Sadly, you can’t step out of the cockpit at 2,000 feet and ask a passer-by for directions. Ali could but she would of course be performing a stall turn at the time...aye aye.