Thief getting some solo time in after your PPL and before taking your nearest and dearest up is a good idea. Get comfortable with your flying before adding the distraction of passengers.
One of my "white knuckle moments" was during my PPL. I had a mental block about spins and was dreading doing them. Although not on the syllabus I inisisted on doing them. If I couldn't cope with them I was going to quit the PPL. So, nice sunny day in West Wales, self and instructor climbing to 6,000' ("I don't trust this old heap" says the instructor in a confidence building manner
).
Get to the top of the climb, settle down and go through the actions required. Do first spin following through on the controls. Fantastic fun. Climb back up to 6,000'. OK now you do one says the instructor. Pull back power, nose up, boot full of left rudder, over she flicks and then instead of closing the throttle completely I open it wide. Amazing how the timid little Cessna speeds up the spin when the engine is going flat out.
Instructor by now is very white as am I. He closes the throttle and lets me sort it out. In the climb back up to 6',000' he simply says "try not to do that again old chap" before letting me do another one. Never did it again and enjoyed spinning immensely
Another pucker inducing moment was when, five hours post PPL I bought my first aeroplane. She was a sound but scruffy Cessna Aerobat with peeling paint and an ancient Cessna radio. This was complemented by a nearly new Narco radio though.
I leave the airfield where she was based with OK communications. As I'm trundling along I change frequency to my destination airfield 20 minutes away. I can hear them talking to an aeroplane in the circuit. As I approach the ATZ I call them up. No reply. I mooch around in circles calling them up. I can occasionally hear them talking as the circuit is very quiet. At this point I start to realise that I am completely unfamiliar with my new aeroplane. I don't know how accurate (!!) the fuel gauges are and I obviously have a problem with the radio. The fuel gauges are starting to march towards zero and I am getting concerned.
I know that you are not supposed to enter the ATZ without contacting ATC, I know there is an a/g field 10 minutes to the North which will accept me non-radio. What do I do? I am starting to panic as I watch the fuel gauges nearly reach zero, I am preporgrammed to go to my destination, there is no circuit traffic and I know the runway in use (or at least I think I do). I approach transmitting blind. As I am on very short finals I get a clearance to land and a request to report to the tower. I taxi in followed by the fre engine. I manage to stop them dousing me in foam. With a grin one of the firemen says that I'd better hurry on to the tower.
In the tower I was informed that I had:
a) Enterered an ATZ without permission
b) Approached the airfield without permission
c) Landed on the downwind runway (I'd confused 20 with 02)
The Senior ATC Lady gently roasted me over a slow fire for a while and let me off feeling hugely embarassed and unprofessional. If I had conflicted with any traffic I'm sure I would have been hearing from the CAA. Needless to say I have never done anything like this since.
Lessons learned:
a) When buying or renting an unfamiliar aircraft get a proper briefing on how the comms work. It turned out that mine was so badly wired up that either BOTH radios had to be tuned to the frequency in use or one of them had to be turned off!
b) Have your alternative plan already fired up in your head when things start to go wrong. Remember an alternative is exactly that.