PFLs - OK, so it happened... but as others have said, you have emerged from the experience with the right attitude, and I bet it will probably never happen to you again! Something else might though...
Joking aside, we are all able to scr*w up. I use the same method as others have suggested above, i.e. VFR plate on my lap and mark chinagraph lines on it before making the approach. My UK plates are
always oriented northwards up...
However, when flying in Australia earlier this year, on first approach to an airfield I had not been to before (Wollongong - YWOL) I put the plate from ERSA (the Australian AIP supplement with the plates in it) on my lap... The airfield was quiet, and I made "blind calls" on the frequency... announced I was "joining overhead" for runway xx... then "descending deadside" for runway xxx, etc.
But as I flew across the upwind numbers I thought: "that's strange... they've painted the wrong numbers on that runway..."
D'oh!!! - how dumb can you get!? Of course I was not in the right place... then I suddenly realised the problem: Australian VFR plates in ERSA don't necessarily have NORTH at the top of the page!!! I then very quickly realised which way was "up" (in this case, the longest runway ran up and down the page, and so the top represented about West), re-oriented myself, and sorted it out... Thank God no-one else was in the circuit at the time though, eh!!!
Andy
