This time, I covered slow flight (exercises 9 and 10A).

After the briefing I was sent out to the aircraft to do a full walk around on my own. I started at the pilots side door turning the master switch on, checking the lights all work and lowering flaps before turning the electrics off again. Then I went round and checked various bits, including testing the fuel for water, oil levels and that there were no bits missing. As I was finishing the inspection the instructor came over and we got strapped in.

I practiced flying at different speeds, including slow flight which means having a  high attitude, and fast flight which burns lots of fuel so is less efficient than the normal cruising speed of 85-90 knots.

Towards the end of the lesson I was shown some power off stalls, which basically involves closing the throttle and slowing down. As the plane slows down, the angle of attack is increased to keep a constant altitude. Once the airspeed gets down to about 50 knots, the stall warner comes on. Shortly after that there is a sudden bump, which feels almost like you have just driven off the kerb which is the stall itself. The aircraft naturally pitches itself down to unstall the wing and can recover quite quickly, easily within 200 ft.

6 hours down!