Hi,,,,,,,,,dont wanna bore you with tales of PPL mayhem but just a quick recall. Attempting the second leg of my solo XC. I left Wolverhampton in what i considered a reasonable cloud base. In the left turn out and subsequent climb to the overhead I entered cloud at 700(unexpected) feet left wing low and in a climb attitude. The circuit was quite busy and all I could think of was dropping out the cloud might put in in some conflict with other traffic. Against all advice I decided up was good! I leveled the wings and adjusted the attitude to climb at what I considered the best climb attitude. Now in this strange world of cant see where you're going, the mind plays all the tricks in the book. A severe attack of panic can creep in if you dont get a grip of yourself and I remember thinking if you dont think about what you are doing here, you are going to end up as as statistic. Watch and beleive your instuments even if you are a low hour VFR student!!!
Attitude,speed,rate of climb. Everything else has to come second.
Eventually I popped out on top at 4500 feet to a beautiful blue sky with a carpet of solid cloud.
To cut a long story short,with the help of the nice man from RAF Shawbury radar, he guided me to a hole where I came down again to visual terra firma.
My advice if u ever encounter this is............
Fly the plane. Get to a safe altitude and calm yourself. Catch up on the rest of your checks, talk to someone and dont lie!
It's something I will always remember as I am sure will my instructor!
Coop & Bear