As I recently found out on my six-monthly visit to the simulator, the new JAA proficiency test for pilots contains all of what used to be included in the old style company base check, plus one or two extra items, including the circling approach. The test is quite thorough in itself but how do you stretch your flying skills even further? Observing my colleagues within the flight department I fly for, I gleaned a whole range of clues.\rTwo of the pilots are heavily involved in performing aerobatics on their days off. Handling extreme attitudes is not something which can be easily practiced in the simulator, nor in the average corporate aircraft. Is 'recovery from unusual attitudes' a procedure the average corporate pilot needs to know? I believe it is, and that if it's a procedure that needs to be known, then it would be an excellent idea to practice it - in a real aircraft where G-forces and potentially confusing sensations can be truly experienced.\rStatistics prove that disorientation can plague any of us in extreme situations, so perhaps we should learn to cope with it in addition to avoiding it. One could argue that, in terms of safety, it would be worthwhile for flight departments to sponsor a smidgen of aerobatic training for their pilots: a modest investment for a potentially life-saving return. Several other colleagues have returned to flying instructing (including me) and have been forced into thinking once more from absolute basics. Instructing on a light aircraft makes one much more respectful of the wind direction for instance, and how it affects every phase of flight.\rThorough preflight planning without the luxury of computer-generated flight plans also clears away many cobwebs as one grapples with the intricacies of the topographical chart and whizz-wheel computer. Most of the basic principles learned on small aircraft carry right through to much larger aircraft but tend to get swept to the outer reaches of one's memory.\rSo much for the basics of visual flying - how about instrument approach procedures? Well, many pilots I know have invested in procedures trainer software for their PCs. In its infancy, such software was very, very rudimentary and unrepresentative but several manufacturers now offer packages which accurately reproduce specific aircraft performance and which have comprehensive navigation databases.\rThese packages are not designed to look exactly like the inside of a specific aircraft type but do nonetheless fly round an instrument approach procedure in a very accurate manner. What's more, the sequence can be frozen and replayed to analyse one's own faults. One seasoned training captain turned his nose up when I demonstrated one such PC-based package to him because the instrument panel was a simplified format of the real jet but I think he was missing the point. When you are looking at procedures, a simple aeroplane can be an advantage.\rNone of these pastimes are any substitute for proper simulator and flight training but I cannot help thinking that all of them are a darned good supplement. What do you think?