On 14 Jan 2005 08:21:11 -0800, wrote in
.com::

When is the last time you did it just to sharpen your skills without
prompting by a CFI in the next seat?

Here's a little confession/story.

After departing in a hurry on evening in a rush to make it back to the
home field before the sun sank below the Pacific, I discovered that
I'd failed to latch the door on the trusty old PA28. I was busy
following departure vectors, altitude restrictions and handoffs during
which I tried several times to get the door latched without success.
Part of the problem was the cabin vents were open, and the air was
exiting through the trailing door's 2" gap. It was the inside
pressure that prevented me from successfully latching the door in
flight, but I was too busy to realize that.

The noise of the slipstream rushing by at 100 mph was so loud, that I
had difficulty hearing ATC instructions, and it was very distracting.
When ATC finally assigned a higher altitude, I pulled up into slow
flight, and lowered the flaps, then trimmed for 50 knots. At the
reduced speed it was easy to get the door latches fastened.

So slow flight is useful for things beside landing and photographic
missions.