Question: *There is [another question](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/8986) about airliners and if someone not qualified could land them. My question is about the steps I should take to stay alive in a small GA plane.*

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Let say a friend of mine invites me aboard a small aircraft (like Cessna 172 or equivalent).  

At some point my pilot friend passes out for some reason. What should I do considering the following: 

* I'm not a pilot.
* I'm seated in the co-pilot seat.
* I spent hundreds of hours on Flight Simulator (a few years ago).
* I've been initiated to fly a small aircraft (1 session covering the very basics), but no take-off/landing exercises.
* The weather is good.
* Aircraft is in good condition.
* The tank is full.
* Area has ATC and I know how to operate the radio.

This is my guess:

1. Hold the plane's level and heading
2. Slap my friend to try to wake him up
3. Send "Mayday" asking for assistance and technical guidance
4. Try to follow ATC instructions as well as I can

Does this look good? What should be done differently?

Answer: 
Just thought I'd add an answer about "aviate", "navigate", "communicate" which is discussed somewhat in the comments and is a big part of what you should do.

It's simply a matter of dealing with the most important things in order.

Aviate - fly the aircraft (keep it flying) - if you fail to do this, it will almost certainly kill you.

Navigate - fly where you want to go. In this case, do as little as you have to to avoid obstacles, terrain and clouds. Don't worry about bimbling into controlled airspace - someone else will take care of it. Don't try to be clever and fly circuits or boxes or whatever. Without at least a few hours proper training, trying to navigate could well lead to you forgetting or failing to aviate. Not navigating away from clouds, obstacles etc is the second most likely thing to kill you.

Communicate - tell someone about it. Not doing this won't kill you but could stop you getting help with one and two not killing you.

Mayday on the frequency already tuned. Use the mnemonic "Rest In Peace Louis Hoy" if you can remember it. R for reason, I for intent. P for position, L for level (altitude), H for heading. If you can't handle it, a simple "mayday" will start the ball rolling. If all you say is the word "mayday" or "emergency", if anyone hears you, they will reply "station calling, say again" or "station calling, pass your message" or similar. This just means they got it, but don't know who you are. The conversation has started, let the person you're talking to do the work and ask questions as needed.

If no-one replies, and you can remember the frequency, tune 121.5 - the international distress frequency for VHF. Someone will hear that and quite likely be able to triangulate your position. Tuning the transponder to 7700 will also get a lot of attention. 

Do not communicate, even if someone is calling you, if it takes your attention away from aviating and navigating. If you can, a simple "standby" in response will tell the caller all they need to know.

Sadly far too many people have died because they failed to follow this simple advice which has been proven over many, many years and 10s of thousands of urgent situations.

Remember. In the ongoing battle between the Earth and aircraft arriving in other than controlled conditions, the Earth has yet to lose.
The feel of the controls is one of the things that you will really have to get your head round really quickly if this is the first time you have touched them. 

You don't move the controls you just apply a little bit of pressure, unlike a flight sim which has a totally unrealistic feel on the controls, and this alters with the airspeed of the aircraft. You have to be able to handle the aircraft quite precisely to be able to safely land, whereas most people even with flight sim experience take quite a few hours of instruction to be safe enough to go solo.

I read about a crash in the UK where the pilot was incapacitated and the passenger had been shown how to bail out. He couldn't get the hood open because it was heavy and the aircraft hit the ground with him clawing at the hood. All he needed to do was pull the stick back and he would have had more time.

I would say, feeling the controls, just try to get the aircraft level and under control and at a constant speed, will be more difficult than you think it might be, and also to stay calm so you can think and relate to what air traffic are saying. This is a lot easier said than done given that you are just about to die if you do something wrong. 

Just a small thing like not already talking to air traffic and not knowing the emergency frequency (or not knowing where the transmit button is) could panic you and ruin your whole day, or pulling the mixture back instead of the throttle. There are loads of things that could go wrong in real life even though you can fly the sim through a keyboard.

On the other hand if you can reach the ground under control at the correct (slowest safe) speed - about 1.2 - 1.3 times the stall speed, you don't need to speak to anyone or do anything else, the chances are you could live, especially if you reach the ground on an airport where there are emergency services to extract you from the aircraft. But then, you might know the stall speed in the sim, how do you really know it in the real aircraft you are in at the time? None of this is as easy as you think!