Embarrassing approach snafu

Getting mixed up about runways and airports can happen easily, as Roy's post
shows, and it happened to me Friday.

I was picking up an Angel Flight patient at Jacksonville Craig (CRG). The
weather was VMC, I already new from a NOTAM that 14/32 was closed, and the
ATIS was advertising visuals to 23, so I don't have much excuse for what
happened. Here's how it went:

It was about 12:30 local and the airspace around Jacksonville was buzzing
with traffic of all kinds. I arrived on a heading of about 100 and The
TRACON had me at 4,000' coming into town. The airport was hard to see, but
I finally spotted the black strip about 10 mi. out. The freq. was so busy I
had a hard time telling the approach controller I had the airport in sight.
Now I was getting antsy because I was 5 mi. out and still at 4,000. I was
close enough to read the numbers when the controller finally answered,
cleared me for the visual and handed me to Craig Tower. Unfortunately, I was
looking at the brilliant, freshly painted numbers on closed 32, and I was
reading them upside down. Poor old beat up, worn out, active 23 was barely
identifiable as a runway. I was seriously fuddled, and didn't even realize
it yet.

Craig Tower told me to extend my downwind for traffic, which was fine with me
since I had altitude to lose, and I made a sharp right for the downwind to
what I thought was 23. In about 5 seconds a new, very authoritative-sounding
voice came on the freq:

"Cutlass '87D you were instructed to enter the downwind for 23. You appear
to be making a 360. You were not authorized to make a 360. Turn to heading
050 immediately!"

[Oh, dear. Oops. Oh, uh, yeah, 050 *would* be the downwind for 23, wouldn't
it? Ever use that heading indicator you've got, sport?]

"'87D, wilco."

There followed a couple of more careful instructions from the tower to get
the clueless dumbass on the ground without his hitting anybody, and that was
that. Talk about embarrassing; ugh!

Anyhow, that's what I get for taking routine things for granted, like
properly identifying your runway and making sure all your position
indications make sense. *sigh* Live and learn, I hope.
--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM