Sunset flight as the co-pilot

[Update: added pictures]

Husband and I went up tonight for just under an hour. Since I've had the plane so busy, he hasn't gotten much time in and has been itching. The pretense for tonight's flight was to test the replacement VOR indicator that was just installed. For this we headed down to PHF for ILS 7.

I did the radio work, which was interesting since it was the first time that I had ever spoken on non-CTAF frequencies.

Brevity is an acquired skill. And not one that I have yet acquired!

But as far as content goes, Husband said it was all correct. It should have been: we practiced it all several times on the way to the airport with him pretending to be ATC and Norfolk approach. Nobody yelled at me and there were no explosions or scrambled jets, so it was ok :)

What I learned from that:

• Repeat clearances and anything that changes from what you're currently doing (different squawk, heading, altitude, etc).
• You don't have to repeat advisory info, such as winds that ATC advised of when we made first contact after being handed off by Norfolk approach.
• If your N-number can be shortened, you can't shorten it, but if the tower calls you by something shorter you can use that. (With PHF we went from 35388 to 388.)
• When doing a practice instrument approach into a towered airport and you have satisfactorily completed the approach and want to carry on without touching down, you call the tower and tell them you're "on the missed" and, if they're not too busy, tell them what you want to do. For us, we wanted to depart VFR to the NW and they gave us permission to do so, squawking 1200.
• When talking with a controller, you should end your response with your ID, especially when you're reading something back. Saying your ID is like a period at the end of a sentence. You always should say it, but sometimes it's a little more casual and obvious who's talking; there wasn't much going on over the peninsula tonight, so when Norfolk asked us to repeat what type of aircraft we were, it didn't really require a "period." I suppose that's kind of a slippery slope, though, and that good form dictates you should always end with it.
• A controller saying "Frequency change approved" means "Good-bye!"

The sunset was vibrant, despite the bug guts.

He did a steep turn and we confirmed that, contrary to my previous post, I have been using the attitude indicator correctly; there are two symmetric pairs of lines in the ground portion of the indicator and the inner pair does correspond to a 45 degree bank (on our plane). The markings on the arc above the indicator still didn't show 45, so at least part of that learn-relearn-unlearn cycle was correct.

Back at JGG, Husband had a ridiculously nice, gentle, rolling landing on 13. He was showing off. :P