I had a really nasty incident with fog on my first flight after getting my PPL.
Sometimes..probably most times you can forecast it,but this caught EVERYONE by suprise.ATPLs,CPLs etc.
I won`t mention where it happened because it might blow my cover,but suffice to say in the north of the border.I went flying on a short x/c.
Outbound leg was fine,took off for home,and was about 15 minutes away from the airfield,told to hold over a visual referance point due to heavy traffic...reports of fog.
So,circled around for 5 or 6 minutes and bang,this fog came hurtling in.It was so fast,you have to see it to believe it. So,I contacted ATC,reminded them I was only PPL,no IMC/IR..and basically told all my diversion fields were affected earlier on and atc said i was lower on his priority as the instrument flyers had got down already but worse of all,students were in the soup!!
I decided to stay put though as I had enough fuel etc,thought it would be a quick fix.
It was quite terrifying,I was out of sight of the surface but above the cloud which felt unbelievably strange,was not in any dangerous airspace and I had about 3 hours fuel left so i performed racetracks around a local VOR for about 45 minutes until ATC decided how to deal with me.The nearest airport I could goto as a last ditch attempt was 40 miles away,class D airspace,expensive landing fee too!!That was the backup plan.
A member of my club was scrambled earlier,in a C172 and she was intercepting people / guiding them down,then heard her voice on the radio,intercepting the 180 degree radial,told to keep a look out for me.Got visual contact and did a very shallow decent through the cloud,with the other aircraft visual up ahead at my 2 o clock,along with ATC giving me vectors.At about 900ft finally got out of the cloud and had the runway to my 3 o clock.Got down safely but that was one heck of a baptism of fire.
After alot of hassle everyone put it down as a freak of nature,nothing too bad happened after,got a bashing but no fines or anything.
I say to you all,if you see or hear of fog,if you can get away with it,do all you can to get down,drop like a stone if neccesary,run like a well toned chicken if you cannot!! And get above it where you cannot hit anything too.