During my VFR training we did some recovery from unusual
attitutes, including some with partial panel, and it was the only
time that I ever was uncomfortable in the plane. Well, we did
some more of it today and it was, yet again, uncomfortable. We
stopped because I wasn't feeling all that hot. Doing it partial
panel didn't help, either. Speaking of which, my first recovery
from a nose high attitude didn't go well, either. I
overcontrolled and essentially pointed the plane at the ground.
As my instructor pointed out, “You had the VSI pegged.” A first
for me. I didn't know you could get a Warrior to do -2000ft/min.
I don't think I've ever actually had the pitch at quite that low
attitude before. (“Look! It's a lake! And it's it's getting
much bigger!”)

In any case, we did some timed turns as well as some other partial
panel-related climbs and descents. From there we called up boston
approach and did some no-gyro vectoring – also a new one for me.
It's kind of neat. Since your gyro is broken instead of giving
you headings (“Turn right to zero-seven-zero”) they say things
like “start a turn to the left” and “stop your turn” when you're
supposed to be on the right heading. It's all quite civilized.

Boston vectored me around and I did the localizer 29 approach into
Bedford. Normally this would have been a full ILS approach, but
Bedford's glide slope was out of service, so I had to fly it as a
localizer-only approach. Doing this without a DG or AI is pretty
challenging, I have to say. But it's excellent practice. In the
end I ended up slightly left of the centerline, but it wasn't a
bad approach.

On the next pass around my instructor reached over and slapped a
cover on my airspeed indicator. What fun! So now all I have left
is a tach, an altimeter, a VSI and a compass. Oh, yeah. And a
turn coordinator. At least I had that. Anyway, other than having
some trouble maintaining the right altitude, it went pretty well.
And had a decent landing to finish the day.

Whew. I'm tired.