Back in the air at last....

Well, today the waiting ended and I actually got to fly again! What a good feeling. I came in a little earlier than usual this morning and spend some time with the chief pilot, Tim talking through profiles and checklist procedures. Then it was actually time to take to the air with Dan, the company safety pilot. On the first flight we simply took off and flew around in the practice area to the north of Gaborone and did some visual maneuvers. I admit I expected the C90 to be very similar to the 1900 but it really just wasn't. For one, checklist and cockpit procedures are a lot less regimented than they were at the airline and I have to admit without strict procedure to follow I felt a bit lost. And then there is the airplane. I suppose being fully half the weight of the 1900 I should have expected it to fly a little different but it was very surprising for me to see how light and responsive it really was. I had a lot of trouble initially with over-controlling and over-trimming the airplane. It took a while for me to realize that this airplane simply did not need the large amount of control force or travel to make it do what I wanted. And even then it was one thing to know what I was doing wrong and another to retrain my hands and feet from three years of 1900 flying. However, given all of that I guess I performed acceptably well because we did a second flight this afternoon that was all instrument training. I was a bit surprised that I felt more comfortable under the hood but I definitely did. We went again to the practice area and did some instrument air work and then returned to Gaborone for a couple approaches. We initially flew the full ILS to runway 08 at Gabs including the procedure turn. However, procedure turn inbound we discovered that the glideslope was out of service. We quickly rebriefed the approach for localizer only and continued the approach. After executing the missed approach we requested vectors back around for another try. However, as we intercepted the localizer on the second approach Dan reached up, retarded the right engine to idle, and announced that I had lost an engine. I quickly ran through the steps to secure the engine and continued the approach. It wasn't perfect but again, it must have been acceptable because upon reaching MDA Dan told me I could look up and there was the runway...right where it was supposed to be! We continued the approach to a landing and that was the end of my flying for the day. I think that they are going to try to do the Botswana equivalent of a part 135 check in the next couple of days for me and then I should be able to apply for a license here. Then, once our residence permits come through (should be sometime next week) I will actually be able to begin flying on revenue operations for Flying Mission!