But there I was: in this case, it was somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, and I’d still not been able to sleep. When I closed my eyes, I saw us dropping below the glideslope, the wings and engine somehow unable to arrest the plummet. When I rolled over against my pillow, I saw the gyros tumble as earth and sky spun in the Spitfire’s windscreen. Anxiety dreams? I wasn’t even asleep.

Somewhere, sometime after this – it might have been hours – I tried a decision out in my mind. Just to see how it felt. Immediately the spinning and plummeting stopped, and I felt myself drifting into sleep. A moment’s reconsideration, and I was wide awake again, tense from the neck down. No, no – this decision was the right thing. (Don’t worry, I’m gonna tell you, I’m gonna tell you!)

I waited until after I’d picked Al up at his hotel, after we’d had a look at the plane. I waited until we sat down to brief for the morning’s flight. Then I told him: “You know, I came here intending to solo. And I understood going in that, if I weren’t up to snuff, I wouldn’t second guess your judgment, or anyone else’s. If you said I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t ready. But this is my last day of training here, and I’ve decided something: (here it is…), even if you do think I’m ready, I’d rather not have the pressure of planning to fly solo. Let’s do one nice long last flight and have a hell of a good time being Spitfire pilots.”

Al thought a moment before responding. He ventured that, modulo a few times around the pattern to check my insights from our last flight yesterday, he thought I was ready. His plan was to check my landings this morning and sign me off. But he also understood the pressure, and said he’d be delighted to just come along for the ride as my new best friend in the back seat. “And,” I added, “be ready to save my sorry ass if it turns out I need it?” “You won’t need it,” he assured me, “but I’d love to come along.”

So off we went, blasting into the sky one last time together. It felt good. It felt really good. I missed a few items (had some pitch oscillation as I adjusted the friction lock, and didn’t get the carb air filter into “Normal” early enough, so we had to slow down a bit to overcome the air pressure holding it closed). But by and large, I was on top of it. Al handled the radios as we crossed over to Cambridge. Got us a block of airspace from 4k-7k north of the city and I took it up to acro altitudes. Steep turns right (absolutely on the mark) and left (whoooops – pitch excursion! – but recovered). A few dives and wingovers, capping it with (if I may say so myself) the best victory roll I’ve managed in anything with wings. I knew how to fly this thing, I really did, and it felt good.