I had a very close call early in my private flying life indeed no more than five or six hours after I had achieved my licence.
I had been flying Warrior 161's in Norway and Cherokee slab wing 140's in Blackpool. The Warriors were calibrated in knots and the Cherokee in mph. I had been in Norway for four months and flown about five hours in a Warrior and came back to Blackpool. Heavily laden I tried to rotate at the more familiar 'knot' speed. After a couple of seconds of shaking and buzzing I landed again very heavily, fortunately with no damage to anything but my pride and three disturbed passengers
At the time I blamed the aircraft until it suddenly dawned what a silly and basic mistake I had made.
A close call, entirely my fault and a lesson not forgotten - but do we need mph, knots and now km/h?
Tony