Boom!

I had a great flight today. Yes, I said it. It was great. We flew down to the valley. I got in the seat at Port Isabel and flew a GPS approach with a turn in holding followed by a circling approach. Both approaches were single engine. All went well and my IP even said I flew one of the best point-to-points he's ever seen. The winds were only about 25 knots at altitude, but it was still pretty good. I had to put on the mask on the way back for simulated smoke and fumes in the cockpit, but I got to take it off after the fumes "dissipated." We went through that checklist and then shot another approach - this time a needle-only TACAN. The catch was he failed my attitude indicator, so I did a partial panel, needle-only TACAN. I'd never even heard of that until today. On the climbout we couldn't get the visual recovery, so we shot the ILS. He failed my glideslope, so we had to transition to the localizer. Then, he gave me a fire, so we went single engine. I got halfway through the checklist and decided to just land and deal with it on the ground. No major fumbles with a pretty tough profile, so I was really happy with my flying this morning. One more, then check Friday.