It goes without saying that if you own a cell phone, don't leave the airport without it. If you're flying over any expanse of uninhabited terrain, bring water. But let's say you were feeling invincible, and you brought neither. What then?
If it's more wasteland than wilderness, it's often best to ignore hunger; you can last weeks without food, but not water! Searching for sustenance may cost you more energy than you will gain. You'll have to evaluate the cost against the benefit of burning energy to find food and water, versus being inactive and conserving both. When in doubt, stay put. (And if you do find something questionable, eat sparingly, for diarrhea could leave you worse off.)
Avoid exertion if water is scarce. Also avoid hot spots, and eat little, because digestion uses up intestinal fluids. Conserve energy and stay warm; you burn energy during activity (voluntary), or shivering (involuntary). Have a weapon handy, whether it's from something salvaged or found. And if you normally talk to yourself or whistle to try to cheer yourself up, don't! That's another great way to offer up water (as vapor) to the atmosphere.
In cold weather, seeking shelter is critical. It's especially important if you are weakened by injury. With injuries, shock can take up to an hour for symptoms to appear. If you feel weak or nauseous, try to stop any external bleeding, lie on your side, and try to keep warm and dry.
Start a fire. Actually, have materials for three of them (for signaling, if and when rescuers are in the vicinity. Use rubber, oil (salvaged from the aircraft), and green foliage to help generate smoke. Find tinder and dry wood for starting a fire quickly. Good sources are bark, tree resin, rotted logs, dried moss, leaves, pine needles, and animal droppings. Your aircraft battery can be used to start a fire, by briefly touching the cables together to create a spark.
Most often, a shelter can be made from whatever is handy (branches, stones, or dirt). In snowy areas, shelter can be found under lower tree limbs. Work steadily, but avoid perspiring. Stay off any game trails, and don't set up house near running water (should you be so "fortunate"), as that can drown out sounds of both rescue and danger from wild animals. (Be wary of snakes, which are sluggish in the early morning, and often camouflaged.) Stay warm and dry; remove any wet clothing. Keep your body insulated from the ground. Keep your head covered! In warm weather, most of these same rules apply.
As for water, you might get lucky; it could rain. But you can obtain water by other means. If you don't find any lakes or streams, plants with green leafy growth indicate a water source, and digging at the outside bends of dry stream beds can also yield moist soil. (Also, the clear sap in many fleshy plant tissues is chiefly water.)
You can make a solar still by digging a hole and covering it with a weighted tarpaulin, draining into a container. Watch movements of any grazing mammals; most can lead you to water. Bees and wasps also live within range of water. There is also harvesting dew in the morning, checking cavities of any living or dead plants, and water will condense on the inside of a plastic bag wrapped around a leafy branch. With ground water especially, boil before drinking! If it is winter, keep in mind that ice produces more water for less heat than snow.
Concerning food, there are several widespread plants without poisonous mimics: pine cones (when roasted, eat the seeds), dandelion leaves and roots, oak acorns, and clover (the entire plant is edible, raw or cooked).
If you're really desperate for something to eat, most insects are edible (without hard shells and appendages) when mashed into a pulp, raw or cooked. Most reptiles, amphibians (avoid toads), and fish are edible, once gutted and cooked.
If you encounter a large carnivore, stay calm. Talk in a low voice, never avert your eyes or run, and back away slowly. If attacked, aim for the eyes and nose.
As far as your environment, avoid high ground in storms. But shun low-lying areas, as well. In desert areas, avoid walking or camping in depressions or low areas because of flash flood danger. Assuming you knew where you were before the fall (and you're still lucid and ambulatory) you may have some idea which way to head afterwards:
At night, the stars forming the outside edge of the Big Dipper's bowl (known as the "Drinking Gourd" a century and a half ago on the Underground Railroad) point North, toward Polaris. By day, if you have an analog watch, and you hold it horizontally with the hour hand pointed at the sun, halfway toward 12 o'clock is the North-South line. Even without that, a line connecting the tips of the shadow from a three-foot branch stuck in the ground, taken at each end of a one-hour interval, will be generally east to west.
A pilot cannot completely eliminate the possibility of a forced landing, but there's a lot that he or she can do to make the experience less arduous.
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