When you almost became... "Another Statistic"

[Finals19]

Just thought I'd throw in a nice PPL "oops" experience.....

Related to a very bad and naive call on wx judgement.

Cleared across Vancouver International (a relatively big airport) at the min transit altitude for VFR traffic at 2500....to be done midfield. In a warrior, chugging along in less then great weather (low vis and low cloud) and suddenly BANG! (no not the engine) but for some reason still unbeknown to me, there I am midfield 2500 in full IMC - I mean, its like HELLO! you would think I would have seen the cloud coming up. So, me thinks, oh dear..IMC abv a major int airport..what to do..and yet again for some unknown (yet probably instinctive reason) I start descending..break VMC at 1900..heart pounding, but not as much as my eardrums as the tower controller is screaming in my ear to maintain altitude! Managed to maintain VMC from then on for my trip around the harbour, only to suddenly end up back in the clag as I approached a VRP for the airport I was going back into (south of Vancouver) - VRP being a 500ft agl suspension bridge, uncontrolled class G being capped at 1200' and me at 1000'....hmmm you'd think I would have learnt the first time...

I hasten to add, I haven't repeated that episode since!
(TERRAIN TERRAIN! PULL UP!)

[shortstripper]

OK, here's one of mine (errr yes there have been a few ... but never the carb heat/mix funnily enough). It's a bit involved and reads more like a "I learned about flying from that" story, so I apologise if it's a bit long winded.

I've been converting an old ATC Slingsby T31 into a single seat motor glider on and off for the last few years. Summer of 2002 I decided that I wasn't getting enough flying in during construction ... so I set about looking for a cheap aeroplane to operate from the fields here on the farm. An Evans VP2 was advertised in the PFA magazine and following a few calls I arranged to see it. Unfortunately the owner lived in N Yorkshire and I in Sussex ( about 350 miles apart ) so we arranged that he'd fly it to an airfield halfway down and I'd get a lift up to see it. This was the not ideal setting for looking at the aircraft with a view to buy.

When I saw the VP I immediately liked it and ( this is the stupid bit ) agreed to take it there and then and fly it home! Although I'd never read anything about flying VP's I was sure that as I'd flown some quite twitchy single seaters before there'd be no problem. The owners briefing, I now realise, left a lot to be desired and consisted of ... " climb away at 60mph, cruise at 65 with about 3300 rpm and approach at 65 mph with some power on all the way down ... no problem". So we now have one over confident buyer ( me ) about to fly an unfamiliar aircraft from an unfamiliar airfield, 150 miles back to a field on a farm. Oh yes! ... to really make things really easy... the previous owner was 6' + and I'm 5'5", so I had to stuff loads of cushions behind to get to the pedals, which in turn meant that me and the stick became very "close".

Having familiarised myself and taxied to the hold of the 800 yard runway ( ample I thought ) I called to get clearance. Then we were off! ... sedate but OK acceleration and by about 200 yards the VP was airborne. I eased the stick back as I reached 60 and she started to climb ... THEN SHE STOPPED CLIMBING :-( I'd climbed out of ground effect with the nose up ( not by much I thought ) despite the 60 mph the old girl sank. I instinctively eased off but she kept sinking so I held her at that attitude expecting to build speed and then ease up again ... but the speed was bleeding away! Full power? yes, no problem ... but I was now firmly stuck at the back of the drag curve with nowhere to go. The runway was behind and I was stuck hanging semi stalled over the fields. To further complicate things the next field had a tree lined hedge which there was no way I was going to get over so I had to turn slightly right to go through a gap.

I kind of thought about landing but to be honest I was so busy keeping in balance that I just held on in there. Anyway I wasn't sure the surface looked that good so that was that.

Through the gap and I was by now slowly clawing back some airspeed, so I just held her down until I was happy ( there's a laugh! ) and eventually climbed away.

The landing was completely uneventful other than that it wasn't at home but at White Waltham thanks to a much higher than expected fuel consumption. As it turned out this was the best thing that could have happened, as another VP2 owner just happened to be there and came over for a chat. He gave me a PROPER briefing and the next take off was absolutely fine.

This was, ( and I hope will be) the closest I've come to an accident. I'm convinced that it was only experience of scratching for lift near the stall in gliders that saved me. I'm equally convinced it was my complete unprepared and ill advised idiotic self that was main catalyst and that lady luck was feeling generous that day.

Two flights later the VP tried to kill me again, but that's another story We made friends after that and decided to treat each other nicely, I'm even building her a new fuselage ... so I'm back to square one with two build projects instead of one

So if this tale (like the others posted) acts as a salutary lesson for others I'll be more than pleased.

Ivan

[Julian]

Not long after getting my IR I made an approach on an ILS with the weather approaching minimums. I was concentrating so hard on holding the needles that I didnt realise I was coming in about 15kts too fast, the upshot was that the aircraft bounced down the runway and started to porpoise really badly to the point my life started flashing before my eyes! I remembered my old PPL instructor always saying "Its never too late to go around" so just applied power, held it. Luckily it was a runway the size of the M1 so I actually managed to put it down in the remaining runway anyway.

I definitely reckon I could have counted that one approach to revalidate the the "3 takeoffs and landings in 90 days"

[Sassenach]

There's some serious group catharsis going on here! I'm happy to report that I've had no hairy incidents in 300 hours' flying, although I'm certainly not becoming complacent.

I wanted to make a general point, picking up on what a number of you have said. You should always discuss these incidents with someone: ideally it should be your instructor, but it could also be a fellow student or PPL. I appreciate that there is loss of pride at stake and potential embarrasment if you admit your wrong-doings to an instructor. But bear in mind that you will almost certainly gain their respect for wanting to discuss what you have done and learn something positive from it.

There's an important lesson for instructors here too. Don't make yourselves out to be demigods or super-human; be modest about your capabilities, encourage open discussion with your students and listen to what they tell you - who knows, you might learn something too. Instructors wearing white cotton shirts, blue pullovers and gold stripes can be really intimidating to inexperienced students. Good instructors don't need physical trappings to prove how good they really are.

Ps. I did once pull the mixture control instead of the carb heat at about 1500 feet. I shoved it back in again pretty damn quickly! And yes, I did tell my instructor about it.

[ACW 335]

Excellent thread!

OK...the ultra embarrasing mistakes...!

In the motor glider i fly, the carb heat and cabin heat are very close together, and in the Robin the carb heat is where the cabin heat is in the glider... climbing out, got to 2500ft in the glider, and pulled the 'carb heat' head. about 3 mins later....i was in a mini sauna and couldn't work out why...

Have never confused mixture and carb heat in the robin though - but interesting to see how many have.

Have had a couple of near misses with a conventional glider which we thought was going away from us...until we had to take serious avoiding action.

Had a really silly cold sweat IM REALLY LOST thing once..in an area i am so familiar with.... sorted within 2 minutes There is nothing like flight planning an examining your route in great detail. my mistake there was being cocky and assuminng i knew the area.

Ended up in cloud more than once while cloud chasing in th motor glider....the lift sorta dragged me up OOPS!

Have witnessed an accident on landing.

i think as silly as some mistakes may be...at the end of the day you are a wiser, maybe better pilot as a result of them.

QUESTION: How often, if at all, do you practise using the D&D cell?
There was an example recently of someone who didn't want to dent their pride. Climbed into a cloud hole and the cloud came in. They got lost but didn't talk to anyone. It wasn't until the very large RAF base phoned the home airfield to say 'we think we have one of yours circling in our overhead delaying our departures'

[GroundBound]

Took a an instrument flying lesson a couple of days ago. New instructor, refurbished aeroplane, new checklists.

When I got home in the evening, and was reviewing the flight and the new documentation, I realised I had completely skipped over the run-up checks.

Neither of us seemed to have noticed. Felt very foolish

[Circuit Basher]

Circuit Bashers List:

• Have previously told of an inadvertent spin in a C152 whilst solo pre-PPL (flying the last hour to make the total solo time of 10 hrs) - was just told by instructor to 'do what you want, but don't crash it!' As most of my early PPL flying was in a C172, I'd started flying the 152 for circuits and NAVEXs and had also regularly used a PA28. I'd never done a full conversion onto a 152 and had only ever done power off stalls. Decided to climb to 5k and practice the full range of stalls...!! All went fine and dandy until the last one, which was a full power stall - the wing dropped extremely quickly and was straight into a fully developed spin! (no smileys for 'change of underwear required' ) Luckily, I'd done the first half of my PPL in Canada and had about 3.5 hrs of full spin training, so recovered and flew some very sober S&L until I'd built up the required hours. Just to cap it all, I returned to EGHH for circuits and could see this black cloud approaching from the West - held my nerve for as long as possible until the rain shower started to hit and the vis went down to 3k. Landed in off the circuit I was on and was 6 mins short of the required time - did a very leisurely taxi and shut down (plus I misread my watch by a few minutes!!).
  
• JohnnyPharm
  Also have lined up with the taxi way on a straight in at Gillespie Field in San Diego, should have been lined up on that tiny runway if anyone has been there but lined up with the taxi-way, realised my mistake about half a mile out

  Believe it or not, that was me on Sat at Kinloss during an IMC Rating lesson! Had done a great ILS approach, really proud and then the instructor removed the foggles at 500 ft so I could go visual. Managed to visually acquire the parallel taxiway before the runway, so started to line up on that!!
  
• Have also done the 'creeping IMC' bit - above a FEW cloud layer, which becomes SCT, then BKN, with cloudbase below the high ground around you!! Before you know it, you're VFR on top, just trying to press on 'because this only looks like an isolated cloud'!!
  
• Always an inherent wish to carry on (like going to the PPRuNe Flyin at Sherburn last year - I should have landed back 15 mins after take off, as the Wx / Visibility / Cloudbase in heavy rain showers was below my minima) rather than divert is my problem - these days, I can usually recognise the conditions that I can cope with and am prepared to accept when I can't cope (usually due to gusts / turbulence).
  
• Have had the 'Cessna Seat Rail Syndrome' on climbout from Compton Abbas (just weeks before another C172 had the same and spun in, fatally injuring all on board ) - had bounced up and down / backwards and forwards to ensure the seat was locked. On take off from Compton, hit a bump in the grass as I rotated and the seat went rearwards! Luckily, I had a pax with me who was ex Nimrod pilot / 737 jock, so I just gave him control to maintain heading / airspeed whilst I sorted it. I'd also previously discussed this with a PPL friend and we'd agreed the best course of action was to extend the arms forwards as the seat moved backwards - plan worked great!!
  
• Haven't yet done the mixture / carb heat one yet (but I've only flown as a PPL for 8 yrs - plenty of time for that!! ).

[Edited to add Cessna seat rail episode]

[bookworm]

Let me offer one...

Time constrained by a passenger's need to be back on the ground for lunch, I departed on a local VFR jolly as a line of showers were passing through. Cloud base was reported around 1000 ft, and I thought I'd stay in the circuit to take a look before deciding whether to venture off into the local area or not.

At 500 ft I started a crosswind turn and then rapidly lost ground reference. After a couple of seconds I realised that I wasn't going to be able to complete a circuit above the circling OCA, so I began a climbing turn into the cloud and asked to climb in the overhead to MSA.

ATC, which works on procedural control, offered a clearance into the on-airport NDB hold instantly, and I completed a non-precision approach to land without incident (actually, I lie: I started to join the wrong runway's holding pattern, but I don't think that matters much).

It was surprising to me how difficult those few seconds were between going from the expectation of visual flying to the transition to instrument flying. I'm quite current, had flown an ILS in IMC the previous day, but there was still a "hang on, what's happening here?" moment.

I'm not unhappy with my decision making in the air, nor with my flying as such, and I don't believe any laws were broken. But I'm furious with myself for the poor foresight that left me without a back-up plan that was shared with ATC. If there had been other IFR traffic, life would have been much more unpleasant. A simple request for the option of an IFR departure if I failed to maintain VMC would almost certainly have been favourably received and would have kept everyone in the loop.

[oscarmike]

My contributions to this very useful thread..........

First one - not life threatening but embarrassing in the extreme.

This actually happened during my PPL (A) skills test would you believe!

Due to weather conditions, I took my skills test in two bites - I had done the general handling section one day, and as the weather was deteriorating I agreed with the examiner to complete the navigation section the following day.

Weather was looking good, VFR flight plan neatly written out on one of those pre-printed AFE forms, double and triple checked against my chart and trusty whizz wheel.

Pre-flight passenger briefing all remembered, start-up, radio calls and taxi out all no probs. Climbed to the overhead to 2500 ft and set course on the first leg. First heading was roughly south west.

Looking around for ground features to correspond with the chart and they didn't appear. Then the sinking feeling in the stomach when I began to recognise ground features which were to the east of the airfield. Then it dawned on me what I had done - I was happily flying the ground speed instead of the heading - the two boxes were adjacent to each other on the flight plan.

Fortunately, my examiner had already realised what I had done and was waiting to see if I realised. He was kind enough to let me fly back to the overhead and start all over again. The rest of the trip passed without any hitches!!

Lesson learned: I now put a red box around the headings column on flight plans to make sure it didn't happen again.

Second one, and much more scary - newly qualified PPL doing the 'take the family flying' bit in a PA28. TAF forecast at my destination airfield was 260/15 - active runway was 21, so bit of a crosswind but no big deal.

All set up on final, crabbing down nicely, ASI nailed at 65 kts with full flap. Then, my first ever taste of windshear. ASI dropped like a stone to 45 kts and stall warner starts blarting.

Panicked and pushed the nose down hard and gave it full throttle. Fortunately, airspeed recovered and made a reasonable if somewhat (ahem! ) heavy landing. PAX didn't seem to notice - they were too busy taking photos, but it took me several minutes to stop shaking.

Lesson learned: Pay more attention to TAFs and adjust approach speed accordingly.

[DRJAD]

Oh, I think mine (so far!) ranks as more embarrassment than danger (owing to a merciful lack of conflicting traffic at the time.)

A few weeks, post qualification, I was returning to the circuit at EGCJ, with Mrs DRJAD in the right seat. Looking at the runway orientation I made the relevant error, descended deadside, crossed the active runway at circuit height, and promptly turned to what I thought was downwind. A few seconds later, I realized we were flying in the wrong direction around the circuit.

I had turned the wrong way to descend deadside, having mis-identified the wrong end of the runway as the upwind end. A stupid, potentially dangerous (but at the time, through luck, not so) mistake, and extremely embarrassing.

A quick turn out of the circuit to the south, an orbit to collect my thoughts, and a climb to 1500' and return to an overhead join properly sorted the situation out. I was lucky that, if this had to happen, it happened at my home airfield where I was familiar with landmarks and local airspace.

A confession on the ground to the deputy CFI, and my conscience was assuaged, though it was a very useful lesson learned!

Since then, no more such incidents: care in identifying runway orientation, circuit direction, and all turns in the circuit direction have put paid to that.

[EternalKnight]

I am at 50 hours and just about to take my PPL checkride. So far I've only really been in one shaky situation. I was returning from my long-distance solo x-country and was cleared to land on runway 21. Downwind was find, base was fine, on final I noticed that since it was almost sunset I was getting a little glare, but it wasn't too bad. When I started to level off for the landing, every scratch, chip, whatever on the windshield lit up like a hundred lights shining in my eyes. I couldn't see a damn thing. I was stunned by the light and completely forgot about flaring, landing, ANYTHING. I should have gone around and prepared myself for the landing, but I was too stunned and landed flat and fast.

Fortunately everything was fine. Although while taxing, I almost got creamed by a car that came flying between a couple hangars.

[Whirlybird]

I guess the biggest tip i can give to instructors, is to be able to relate to your students like a friend, maybe try to think of yourselfs more as a co-pilot helping to solve problems, than a flight instructor. Even talking to your student about stuff besides flying might be a good idea, it would really help us to open up and ask questions on things we might be not so sure about.

I had a good example of this during my last trial helicopter lesson. The poor woman seemed terrified! I usually get on well with people, so I chatted as usual, hoping to put her at her ease, but nothing seemed to work. Then when we were due to come back to the field, the tower asked us to hold for some aircraft I couldn't see. I started to orbit, and my student said: "You make it all look so easy. Have you been flying helicopters all your life?" I burst out laughing. I told her I'd only been flying for a few years, that I'd got hooked on helicopters after a trial lesson, and all my friends couldn't decide if I was very brave or totally crazy when I said I wanted to be an instructor. Somehow that broke the ice, and she stopped being scared of me.

BUT....

There's an important lesson for instructors here too. Don't make yourselves out to be demigods or super-human; be modest about your capabilities, encourage open discussion with your students and listen to what they tell you - who knows, you might learn something too. Instructors wearing white cotton shirts, blue pullovers and gold stripes can be really intimidating to inexperienced students. Good instructors don't need physical trappings to prove how good they really are.

I wear the collar and tie, though I draw the line at gold stripes!!!! This is partly because that's what's done at the school I instruct at. But it's also because as a 5ft 2ins rather unimposing looking woman, who doesn't look remotely like anyone's idea of a helicopter pilot, if I dont wear the trappings, everyone thinks I'm the tea lady or a new student. This does not inspire confidence...and they do feel they're putting their life in my hands after all. But then if I do wear them, some people are scared of me, despite everything I do. So...what's the answer?

[macky42]

My contribution: local flying in a C152 just a few hours after gaining my licence. Went head down for just a few moments; when I looked up and to the right, there was a flexwing microlight coming at me at 90 degrees, and at the same level. I realised I would pass safely in front of him, but when I looked to the left, there was another, flying away from me. Two of them flying in trail, and I had gone right between them. A very sobering moment for me, and a worrying one for them too, I'm sure. They had right of way of course. Lessons learned - keep your focus outside, and flexwings can be hard to see at the same level.

[Aerobatic Flyer]

Good instructors don't need physical trappings to prove how good they really are.

I agree 100%. It seems to be a very anglo-saxon trait, and is a bit daft - but this is the wrong thread to be discussing the issue.

A few more contributions - 1 as pilot, and 2 as eye-witness.

On one of my first flights after getting my licence, I arrived back in the circuit at my non-radio home field. As I turned onto final approach, a motor glider was just taking off, and another aeroplane was at the holding point. On short final the other pilot started lining up. I started to go around, worried about catching up with the motor glider (climbing out at 50kts), then decided not to go around after all. I made probably the worst landing of my life.

When you don't really know what you're doing, it's better to make a decision and stick to it - even if it isn't necessarily the best decision. If you dither and change your mind, you get confused and risk breaking something.

The eye-witness events (people who did become statistics) both involved lever confusion. In one, the pilot of a motor glider got horribly confused, and applied full airbrakes when he really meant to close them. He landed in a hedge, and his broken aeroplane stopped on a road - fortunately with no traffic on it.

The other was a glider pilot flying a glider with flaps and airbrakes. He closed the flaps when he meant to close the brakes, and landed in a tree. Both were experienced pilots, and both were on check flights with instructors. Check what your hand is on before moving it!

[Kellvin]

Lost again

Since the confessional is open, time to get it off my chest too.

Had just got my PPL and was so eager to get out and about with it, But, it was winter time and the weather just kept getting in the way.

I really wanted to take the wife flying, looked out one morning and saw that the weather was sort of ok to fly.

Rushed out to the aerodrome, put together a rapid flight plan and got up as fast as possible...could see that the weather was not going to stay flyable for long so was doing a quick 20 minute out from the aerodrome and back again.

About ten minutes out the cloud was getting worse, I was getting concerned but, I could still see the ground so figured all was ok. Until I saw the tower, right in front of me.

I recognised it straight away, I was close to my home airfield after all and had flown this way lotsa times...but what was it doing here, I was miles off track and heading right for a MATZ which I would enter in about 5 minutes.

The wife looked at me....You don't know where you are do you!..I could at least answer that I did, and now I had to work out a plan to get us back again.

Incredible self doubt hit me, If I was such a loser navigator how in gods name was I to get this little machine back again.

Pleased to say I did and the wife still flys with me.

She has also got better with navigation after insisting that she learns it before we went up again!

[Sassenach]

Aerobatic Flyer, you are right that this is not the right thread to be discussing instructors, so I have created a new one: http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...readid=122097.

Whirlybird, I understand your point of view. However I'm sure that your skills as an instructor inspire your students more than your uniform does.

[Juliet Papa]

So my story - my first flight post PPL, with 'Ms JP' in tow. I have to do a circuit with my instructor for club currency, then Ms JP joins me and we fly along the coast for a bit. A nice bimble, and the nerves that I'd been feeling at the start of the flight have by now gone.

So we return to the field, ask for a crosswind rejoin and recieve instructions. I proceed to position myself, and then all of a sudden the radio comes alive with a message to say someone is in the wrong place, and I'm thinking 'oooh dear, wouldn't like to be on the recieving end of a barracking like that'....when I realise its me. I'd completewly screwed up my crosswind join, joining at the crosswind leg of the circuit, rather than over the numbers. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Fortunately no-one got hurt, save for my pride. Following a safe and spot-on rest of circuit, and a nice landing, I got a deserved telling off on the radio. I can only put it down to the fact that in the increased workload, my associating crosswind with the circuits we'd done earlier overrode my reasoning, as I knew damn well that a crosswind join was over the numbers. As they say, ILAFFT.

Keep safe,

JP

[equissg1]

My 2nd Solo cross country was also my first solo land away.On the way out the DI kept drifting alarmingly and needed constant attention to keep it aligned.Returning to my home airfield it got to the point that it was free wheeling almost as fast as the prop.Until that stage of my flight training the only time i had glanced at the compass was to check the DI was correctly aligned with it,I had certainly never tried to use it to steer onto or maintain a heading . After I had entered the zone on the way back to the airfield and got the necessary clearence from radar I hit some tubulance which caused to compass to bounce all over in its fluid and I stupidly ended up trying to follow the compass , radar must have been watching as they offered a QDM "just in case".Landed uneventfully and informed my instructor what had happened and he asked if the vac guage had shown anything,trouble was i hadn't thought to check it,Iwas too busy tring to fly my headings off the compass to stick my head into the office,in fact after the di failed the only instruments i used were the compass and the airspeed.turned out the vac pump had failed!

[Thief13x]

Wow, intresting stories so far, lets hear more!

I think i'm starting to notice a trend here, one so obvious that I might reconsider my first few post PPL flights. I'm not trying to point the finger at anyone, but simply trying to raise the awareness level, that according to this thread, many of these incidents are occuring very early after one receives his/her PPL. Now certainly, this time period is probably a very busy flying time for everybody, but it does raise some suspision, as very few of these posts have occured in the early solo period(like i would think would be the most hazardous). Of course, i havn't experienced the thrill of obtaining my PPL yet, but i have been visualising "all the trips i'm going make," "all the people i'm going to take," "all of the thing's i'm going to do" and "all the girls i'm going to take " the instance i get my license!

Looking at this thread, i'm starting to realise how foolish this idea may be, all the way from the guy who took his wife into questionable weather, to the guy who took his parents to see his grandparents. These are all things that i've been planning on doing (minus taking the wife, its more like "take the potential girlfriend for a brainwashing"). However, i cannot imagine the confidence i'm going to feel after walking away from that final checkride, and at the same time, i'm starting to imagine all the disasters it might lead to. I think now, i'm defenatly going to be doing some solo PPL training before I attempt dealing with all the distractions of impressions conversations, and schedules

T13x

[LowNSlow]

Thief getting some solo time in after your PPL and before taking your nearest and dearest up is a good idea. Get comfortable with your flying before adding the distraction of passengers.

One of my "white knuckle moments" was during my PPL. I had a mental block about spins and was dreading doing them. Although not on the syllabus I inisisted on doing them. If I couldn't cope with them I was going to quit the PPL. So, nice sunny day in West Wales, self and instructor climbing to 6,000' ("I don't trust this old heap" says the instructor in a confidence building manner ).
Get to the top of the climb, settle down and go through the actions required. Do first spin following through on the controls. Fantastic fun. Climb back up to 6,000'. OK now you do one says the instructor. Pull back power, nose up, boot full of left rudder, over she flicks and then instead of closing the throttle completely I open it wide. Amazing how the timid little Cessna speeds up the spin when the engine is going flat out. Instructor by now is very white as am I. He closes the throttle and lets me sort it out. In the climb back up to 6',000' he simply says "try not to do that again old chap" before letting me do another one. Never did it again and enjoyed spinning immensely

Another pucker inducing moment was when, five hours post PPL I bought my first aeroplane. She was a sound but scruffy Cessna Aerobat with peeling paint and an ancient Cessna radio. This was complemented by a nearly new Narco radio though.
I leave the airfield where she was based with OK communications. As I'm trundling along I change frequency to my destination airfield 20 minutes away. I can hear them talking to an aeroplane in the circuit. As I approach the ATZ I call them up. No reply. I mooch around in circles calling them up. I can occasionally hear them talking as the circuit is very quiet. At this point I start to realise that I am completely unfamiliar with my new aeroplane. I don't know how accurate (!!) the fuel gauges are and I obviously have a problem with the radio. The fuel gauges are starting to march towards zero and I am getting concerned.
I know that you are not supposed to enter the ATZ without contacting ATC, I know there is an a/g field 10 minutes to the North which will accept me non-radio. What do I do? I am starting to panic as I watch the fuel gauges nearly reach zero, I am preporgrammed to go to my destination, there is no circuit traffic and I know the runway in use (or at least I think I do). I approach transmitting blind. As I am on very short finals I get a clearance to land and a request to report to the tower. I taxi in followed by the fre engine. I manage to stop them dousing me in foam. With a grin one of the firemen says that I'd better hurry on to the tower.
In the tower I was informed that I had:
a) Enterered an ATZ without permission
b) Approached the airfield without permission
c) Landed on the downwind runway (I'd confused 20 with 02)

The Senior ATC Lady gently roasted me over a slow fire for a while and let me off feeling hugely embarassed and unprofessional. If I had conflicted with any traffic I'm sure I would have been hearing from the CAA. Needless to say I have never done anything like this since.

Lessons learned:
a) When buying or renting an unfamiliar aircraft get a proper briefing on how the comms work. It turned out that mine was so badly wired up that either BOTH radios had to be tuned to the frequency in use or one of them had to be turned off!
b) Have your alternative plan already fired up in your head when things start to go wrong. Remember an alternative is exactly that.