Pottering back to Brawdy in the late summer of '76 at a stately 420KIAS on yet another hot, if rather hazy day, on the lookout for Roch castle which marks the IP for the RW in use...

"Ah, there it is..."C/S, right initials!"

"Merlin 1 and 2 approaching right initials also, can't see you..."

Hmmm... Never mind, there's the aerodrome... Drop down to a bit less than 500ft to make it look good for the tourists.

But where's the biscuit factory (NAVFAC)? And what the heck is that town, I think to myself.

Ah bugger, that wasn't Roch castle, but some Viet Taff god shop or other - that town must be Haverfordwest so.... that's NOT Brawdy, it's Withybush!

"Errm. C/S, repositioning behind Merlin!"

"Thanks, fella!" (for 'twas Tim Webb at the helm of Merlin lead)

Throttle gently back to idle, PULL...and just avoid the Withybush ATZ as I go overhead on the blue note...

They never complained, nor did I admit my cock-up! Until now....

Coming back to Cranwell from Intro to Low Flying with my newly arrived B2 instructor.
"Where do you think we are Bloggs?"
"Don't know Sir - where are we?"
"Don't know Bloggs!"
Fortunately the newly completed M1 appeared out of the haze, my instructor dropped as low as he dared and we flew north until I could read a sign which said "Doncaster xx Sheffield yy".

Farnborough Radar one day; I saw a '7000' squawk appear near Winchester moving quite fast and indicating about 2,000ft climbing. It was tracking north east and as it climbed, it's altitude readout indicated it had entered controlled airspace. It eventually levelled off at FL170 but when it got overhead Heathrow, suddenly went into an orbit. About this time, D & D phoned to say a Sea Harrier was overdue at Yeovilton and was last seen heading towards the London area. We pointed out the 7000 squawk which by this time had turned onto a reciprocal of its original course and was heading towards us. Sure enough, when it got overhead (still indicating FL170) it went into an orbit again and its altitude readout started unwinding at high speed, so much so that the tower controller scrambled our fire service assuming it was crashing. Anyway a Sea Harrier appeared in the circuit and levelled off, did a quick circuit on runway 25 (we'd put all the lights on) and then landed. At the time, our Landrover was equipped with a 'Follow Me' sign and he wasn't far from the runway so positioned himself near one of the turnoffs to lead ot to a parking area.
Turned out it was a USMC pilot on exchange; he'd had radio failure over the sea south of Cornwall/Devon then headed north east to try to find Yeovilton. Seeing Southampton Water, he assumed it was Plymouth Sound so continued on the same track, only becoming suspicious when he saw a large airfield below him with airliners parked all over it. Then he headed south west, saw Farnborough with military type aircraft parked and made a dive for it.
He hadn't a clue where he'd landed until the groundcrew told him after he'd shut down.
They wouldn't let him fly back to Yeovilton either; sent up a 2 seater with a spare pilot to ferry his aircraft back and he returned in the back seat.

At sea it is easy. See large ship, land, say hello mother. Or zdravstvuyte or even Buenos dios.

Ref Chevron's post. Many moons ago a USAF pilot from, I think Chivenor, did something similar and eventually landed at Thorney Island. As duty Ops Controller I was tasked with looking after him, including lunch in the mess. Unfortunately, he had the same surname as me, and the nickname "Ace". He would introduce himself as "Ace XXXX". It took me years before people stopped calling me "Ace".

Surprised no-one has mentioned the telephone boxes in NI changing miraculously from red to green paint! Whilst not being lost, of course.

Under training, "uncertain of positions" is the correct definition, never "lost", after all, you still have the aircraft with you, so can rectify that.

Free Nav teaching exercise in Wales with my regular student. He was a bigger bullpooper than me and convinced me that he was correct and I was not. Turns out he wasn't and the result was we were completely and utterly lost in the one bit of Wales I didn't know. Nothing other to do than head west, find the coast, fly North until we found something we could identify. Aberystwyth it turned out.

The free Nav teaching exercise was all about being lost for most of the trip.

Hmm, have been known to be "temporarily uncertain of my position" - after a glass or three. :uhoh:

LL, I remember very clearly my position and attitude, but not direction after one period of uncertainty.

In the bathroom, erect and horizontal but definitely on a flat spin. On rarer occasions the bedroom, inverted on the bed, and again in a flat spin. Now that was scary as I thought the bed was going to tip.

I like that! Much sharper than saying "I'm clueless as to WTF I am."

LL & PN, thanks for the reminiscences, been there, done that...

In my case I cannot stop the wardrobe rotating. Always clockwise. Better than peeing in it, which happened at RAF Guetersloh on more than one occasion.
Not me, I hasten to add .......... my finest hour was to return to Zeppelinstr via the coal hole in monkey suit. The black bits were OK.

Referred to in Singapore as the " whirling pit ". Leave the light on, the fan stays still and the room goes round. Switch off the light and the bed starts to pull up into a loop, and you just KNOW there isn't enough speed to get over the top.
One solution, (never tried it) was to put the bed against the wall, mattress under the bed, wardrobe on its side next to the bed, crawl in from the foot end of the bed, and sleep knowing that whatever the bed did you could not fall out .
The other was to sleep in the wardrobe.
Not sure how we got from navigational problems onto this. Anyone would think we had been drinking too much Tiger.

I do.

S-D

It was that there Poncey Navigator

Now that is funny....I don't care who you are!!!

Not guilty. see Lyneham Lad.

Well if Heisenberg reckons you can either know a particles position or it's momentum but not both at the same time, what chance do you have in a full sized aircraft....

I found full opposite rudder effective.

Saw the green boxes (from a distance of course!!) once when flying with the then SRAFONI, who insisted on ignoring the headings I was giving him. "I have control" swiftly (geddit) followed by a max rate turn onto North.

Got own back when dined out; described him as "very nearly SRAFOSI!"