These things do happen!
A long time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and there were flight service units in Australia, I was flying a C185 on low level survey flights out of Glen Innes. One morning wewere en route to our survey area and heard the flight service unit at Coff's harbour repeatedly calling an aircraft and getting no reply. We did our five hours of surveying at 200 agl in radio silence, and when we were on the way home I heard and replied to an "any station" call from that aircraft and a woman's voice told me they were flying over a lake and were not sure where they were, or what to do next. So I diverted to a lake in the area and saw a Piper Lance. I flew alongside and told them to look out their right window, high and to the rear. (always wanted to do that. Just like in the movies) The operator a Coff's harbour FSU heard me and asked if I was talking to "that" aircraft. I replied that I was, and I was proceding to Inverell for fuel. The lady in the Lance immediately replied that she would follow me. At inverell we got fuel, and coffee and there were six nice young ladies in the Lance. Our friendly flight service officer at Coff's had arranged for a policeman to meet them at Inverell and interview the pilot. After that I talked to them and suggested that their plan to continue to Bankstown that day was not a good one and tomporrow would be a better time. They had come from Cairns, got mixed up amongst cloud and lost. They had landed on a bush striop and found no-one there. So after a while they had taken off again but were confused and were glad to see our 185.
Next morning I heard their radio transmissions as they left Inverell for Bankstown.
There's a lesson in this true story. An interesting psycological study. They seemed to know where they were, but did not know what to do next. I call it psycological exhaustion, and when that happens it's time for coffee and a rest.
Last edited by bushy; 19th Oct 2009 at 03:47.