When you train for instrument flight conditions (i.e., you can't see the ground, or sometimes anything outside the plane), you put on some kind of contraption that blocks your view of everything but the instrument panel in front of you. They can look kind of like lab glasses with portions "fogged" out, or they can resemble an optometrist's torture device. So I take off and fly us to the practice area, then spend an hour or so looking only at the instrument panel and get to take off the blinders just in time to land the plane. A real out of body experience.
The new instructor is a former Navy medical officer who learned to fly because he was spending a lot of time hanging out on aircraft carriers and decided what the hell. What the hell, by the way, is always the right answer. Then the Navy really needed flight instructors so he wound up spending a lot of time at it, including a stint at Miramar (aka Top Gun). Now he's a retired general and just a tic past Martha Stewart on the Perfectionist Scale. As the airport owner told me cheerfully, "He may drive you crazy, but he'll make you a very safe pilot."
The good news is he says I'm going to be a natural at instrument flight. I said "JINX!"
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