Block off 07:21 on a Saturday in August. What follows is the biggest flight in the logbook so far: 279 km, 92 minutes, 6,954 ft — from Bad Vöslau straight across the Northern Limestone Alps to Niederöblarn.

The route reads like a list of the finest things Austria has to offer: Mariazell with its basilica, the Hochschwab, the Erzberg with its rust-red terraces, the Gesäuse, where the Enns saws its way through a gorge, then the open Enns valley and at the end the Grimming, standing out of the landscape like a single tooth.

Flying in the mountains is a different thing from flying over the Vienna Basin. You think in valleys instead of headings, you keep to one side of the valley, you reckon with sink and you keep looking for the next way out. 92 minutes at a stretch, most of them over terrain where an off-field landing is not a good option.

From Niederöblarn to Wels, 116 km in 43 minutes. And on the way: 10,399 ft. That is the greatest altitude in the entire logbook, by a wide margin.

At 10,400 ft in an Aquila A211 you are well above the summits of the Totes Gebirge, looking across at the Dachstein, whose glacier lies there on an August day like a white patch in a grey desert of rock. The air is thin, the climb turns sluggish, and the view has no end.

Why so high? Because the Northern Limestone Alps have to be crossed from south to north, and because you do that with a reserve. 10,000 ft is also where the oxygen question starts to come up in Austria — so this was exactly the upper end of what you do without further ado.

Third flight of the day: Wels — Bad Vöslau, 215 km in 59 minutes. 118 knots average, peaking at 177 knots over the ground — the fastest flight in the whole book.

The route follows the Danube: past Linz, through the Strudengau, then the valley opens up at Melk with the yellow-and-white abbey on its rock above the river, on through the Wachau, over St. Pölten, across the Vienna Woods and home.

In a single day: an Alpine crossing, an altitude record, the length of the Danube valley. 610 km, 194 minutes in the air, three landings at three different airfields. If one day can sum up a training, it is this one.

Tuesday midday, D-ELFH, to Krems-Langenlois — and S. is in the right-hand seat again. So not an ordinary cross-country flight but the next progress check.

This time the test is on the route: 133 km via St. Pölten and the Wachau, 41 minutes, 105 knots average, a landing at an unfamiliar airfield. Navigation, radio, approach planning, all under observation.

The Wachau from above is the reason people learn to fly in Lower Austria. 30 km of Danube valley between Melk and Krems, terraced vineyards on the slopes, and in the middle Dürnstein with the ruin high above the river where Richard the Lionheart was held. From 3,000 ft you see the whole valley at once — even during a test.

133 km back, 47 minutes, three landings. The second part of the check, and the last flight with S. in the book.

Three landings on a return flight means: arrived at Vöslau and immediately added two more circuits. The airfield part after the cross-country part — that is how a check is put together.

What follows is the longest break of the whole training: six weeks without a single entry.