The circus begins.

Christmas has been and gone, and I'm back in Motueka into the study. Coming here this time doesn't have the same range of emotions for me as it did before. I now know the area, have lots of friends here, and this time have my car with me. And although there are a couple of new faces this time most of the guys here now were here last time. So it's almost like coming home. Hmm almost.

The major hurdle for me though is that I'm here for twelve weeks this time, hence the car. Last time I found it all to be an emotional rollercoaster, this time though it feels a lot less traumatic. So far I have found that I am already getting a decent nights sleep and generally feel a bit more relaxed. So I'm ready for the challenge ahead. Bring it on!

Having got through the theory (well, still one exam to resit, but near enough), now begins the tricky part of actually doing instrument flying. Classes have been going for two weeks now, and so far we have been spending our time in the classroom practicing on the simulators. The setup here is pretty good, with six computers coupled with a control yoke and thottle quadrant which enable us to practice our various instrument manoeuvres. To the casual observer it probably looks like we're doing game testing for Microsoft. These aren't games people, this is serious business!!

Serious indeed, this is hard as hell! A friend of mine commented a couple of days ago that instrument flying in the beginning can be a freak show. I told him that it was the whole circus!! The only comparison I can make is that juggling act that you gave a go when you were at school. You know the one with the egg, bowling ball and chainsaw? I'm sure you tried it. Well this is just like that, except that suddenly someone has thrown in a horse!!

There are several advantages to starting with the simulators before attempting the real thing, the most obvious being cost. The not so obvious is the learning process itself. On the simulators we can position the aircraft wherever we like, can add whatever weather we like, and during a manoevre we can stop the flight and run an animation which shows what the instruments were doing at a particular phase of flight, enabling us to analyse our progress and see where we are going wrong.

As well as the computer setup, there is a certified simulator which enables us to log actual instrument time. So for the first few weeks we spend our time flying computers before attempting to do the same things in an aircraft. And that itself is a graduated step, starting with the single engined Cessna 172RG before moving onto the twin engined Piper Seneca. At this stage I can't even begin to comprehend flying a Seneca on an instrument approach. That's a whole other juggling act, with cows and sheep to keep the horse company. I'm sure I could have picked an easier career choice. As someone once said, we do not choose to do these things because they are easy, we choose to do them because they are hard. Nah that doesn't sound right. I just want to fly planes.

So that's been my first couple of weeks. Let the fun begin, the circus is in town.