I've been forced to divert twice, and chosen to a number of times more.
The first forced one was on my PPL QXC in Florida. Flying west from Fort Pierce, the cloud was getting lower and lower, and I went with it down to about 400' (silly inexperienced student!) I decided at this point, finally, that this was a bad plan and turned around, heading south away from the cloud to land at Pahokee and check weather for an alternate route onwards. On returning to Ft Pierce my instructor pointed out that technically my landing was illegal as he had to sign me off in advance for any airport I wished to land at, but agreed it was the right decision! It was during this landing that I came very close to having a 'dog strike', as a I recall...
Last edited by Katamarino; 17th Oct 2008 at 11:10.