I did not run out of fuel, I ran out of margin for Kinloss (because of the cloud dodging and altitude I guess). I went for Dundee as agreed with the much more experience pilots who checked my flight plan. I had plenty of fuel visible in the port sight glass just before my turn, and when gliding. Will have to await the enquiry for explanation of engine cut. For the other guy's interest there is no mixture control on this type of engine.
Vince,
Let's just be clear here, you flew right past Dundee before you decided to divert - if you accoun of the landing is correct. A long final along the beach would put you to the East of the field approaching the westerley runway over the two bridges. Therefore if , when you fuel state dropped to 5-7 Lt ( apparently 6lt are unusable) you were still on base leg. The 180 puts you back heading North and Cairpark GC is at the edge of the built up area. The rest is history.
However, I still maintain that the you left your decision far too late given that you were down to 12Lt ( 50 mins). A direct route from Barrow to Kinloss would keep you well to the west of Dundee and Perth woul dbe a much more logical diversion. However, if it had taken you 2 hours to fly the 140Nm from Barrow to Dundee then your speed over the ground was a paltry 60kts. This would give you ( with no margin) a flight time to Kinloss of a further 1Hr 10. Not 50 minutes. Your say nave shoudl have been giving you a speed o/g readout and simple maths would have given you due warning that you were experiencing some headwind.
What I don't understand is how you ended up to the North of Dundee when the airport is to the South where you had approached from. A more conventional approach to Dundee would perhaps have been a downwind join or base leg over the Tay. "Ye canny miss it" , was the advice I was first given. " just fly doon the water and aim at the middle span of the bridge." Or something like that ( with all respect to local accents) ATC at Dundee are great but have to mix in training and other GA traffic with commercials, Again, Perth would have been a much more logical stopping point with Dundee as a diversion. However, I accept the choice is yours and that you should be free to plan whatever you feel works.
Anyway, what I may think is pretty academic and falls into the heading of speculation. On the day, it was your call and your flight. I'm sorry you bent your aircraft and put your nearest and dearest through the trauma but am pleased you are alright. I suspect you are one of these people that will never see it the same way as the rest of us but then, we are all different. I would like to think and hope this won't happen to you again - whatever the real facts are. I doubt the AAIB report will be anywhere as entertaining as your 15minutes of media interest and doubt anyone will be that interested by then. 10 pages on a PPRUNE thread is a pretty good result - well done and thanks.