After spending a several days in Slidell, LA working on an armed security detail at a hospital there, it was time for me and my passenger to return home. We loaded the Cherokee 140 (N56784) with our gear and taxied over to the fuel station to fill up for the flight home. My flight plan was KASD direct CARAN direct KGVL and was expected to take about 4 hours with wind. My fuel management plan was to keep a close eye on the time and land in NE Alabama or NW Georgia for fuel if we took longer than expected and needed gas.
Our preflight and runup checks were normal. Perhaps the engine ran just ever so slightly rough on one mag during the run-up, but not rough enough to really cause me to take any corrective action. It was a hot, moist day and the mixture was leaned accordingly, so I assumed the slight rough texture to the engine sound was a result of the less than rich mixture during the runup. Still, it was very minor...barely worth mentioning at all. The only reason I mention it is because it was slightly different than I have heard it in the past. With only 15-20 hours in an old airplane though, who can be familiar with every nuance and idiosyncrasy of that individual airplane?...
Wed 9/21/2005
After spending a several days in Slidell, LA working on an armed security detail at a hospital there, it was time for me and my passenger to return home. We loaded the Cherokee 140 (N56784) with our gear and taxied over to the fuel station to fill up for the flight home. My flight plan was KASD direct CARAN direct KGVL and was expected to take about 4 hours with wind. My fuel management plan was to keep a close eye on the time and land in NE Alabama or NW Georgia for fuel if we took longer than expected and needed gas.
Our preflight and runup checks were normal. Perhaps the engine ran just ever so slightly rough on one mag during the run-up, but not rough enough to really cause me to take any corrective action. It was a hot, moist day and the mixture was leaned accordingly, so I assumed the slight rough texture to the engine sound was a result of the less than rich mixture during the runup. Still, it was very minor...barely worth mentioning at all. The only reason I mention it is because it was slightly different than I have heard it in the past. With only 15-20 hours in an old airplane though, who can be familiar with every nuance and idiosyncrasy of that individual airplane?
On takeoff we accelerated and climbed like a slug. It was hot and we were heavy...within 150lbs of max. gross. It took forever to climb to 1000' where I began to turn on course for CARAN. At 2000', I shut off the fuel pump and landing light and contacted New Orleans Approach for our clearance and to check in. A persistent high pressure system throughout the region had given us clear skies and stable air to go with our high temperatures. A scattered layer of cumulus was beginning to develop at about 5000', but at our present climb rate we wouldn't be near that stuff for another 15 minutes.
Cleared to 5000' and on course for CARAN I began to settle into the routine of the flight. It wasn't until about 45 minutes later, after switching fuel tanks and noting the time, I noticed the voltmeter indicated 0 volts. I immediately grabbed the checklist and flipped it to the 'emergency procedures' side and went through the 'low volts' checklist. Alternator - off, alternator circuit breaker - pushed in, wait 2 seconds, alternator back on. Nothing. 0 volts. At the time I had no reason to suspect that it was related, but now want to mention that throughout the last 2 hours of my flight down to Slidell and the entire duration (so far) of the flight home, there had been a persistent radio crackle/interference sound on COM 1 (the GNS 430). The static crackle in my headset was accompanied by an erratic blinking of the 'rx' indicator on the comm panel. Interestingly, when the alternator went off, my headset and the comm panel on the radio immediately went silent...no more static. That suggested to me that the alternator was generating a great deal of static electricity, enough to interfere with the radio.
So, here we are. In an airplane at 7000', above a scattered cloud layer that is gradually thickening to a broken layer with big clouds poking up past me to about 10 or 12000'. The avionics are running on battery power, which will soon run out. How soon is anyone's guess. I shut off the anti-collision light and #2 radio to conserve whatever electricity they were consuming and advised Atlanta Center of the problem.
Next, I pulled VFR sectionals from my bag and found our area of southwest Alabama. My passenger was familiar with maps and was therefore a great deal of help. We plotted our intended course line from our present position (which we knew precisely from the GPS which was still working) off toward the northeast. I instructed Hal to look out the window for landmarks beneath the clouds. When he identified a landmark on the ground that he could fix on our course line on the map, he marked it and noted the time. That way, by the time the GPS quit, we still knew more or less where we were and how fast we were going.
I pulled my handheld transceiver from my flight bag and attached it's headset adapter. If you are a pilot reading this and don't already have a transceiver, get one. We continued on and I explained to Hal exactly what was going on and what to expect. He was a champ and showed no signs of distress or discomfort. He just used the sectional to plot our progress up our course line and waited to see how it would work out.
About an hour after first noticing the voltage at 0, the battery died. The first symptom was the GPS shutting off and then rapidly turning back on. I also noticed a flag on the turn coordinator and gradually shrinking indicated fuel on the fuel level indicators. Oh sh*t, that reminds me! When did I switch tanks? I looked at my notes and noticed it had been over 45 minutes. I quickly switched tanks and sunk back into the mire of managing the workload: keep my scan going, make sure I stay on intended heading, keep track of what Hal is doing with the map, attempt to raise Atlanta Center with the handheld radio, repeat.
After 30 minutes of trying Atlanta Center and Mobile Approach on the handheld and unable to reach anyone, a lady in a jet helped me out by relaying messages for me. I was able to let them know that I'm total electrical failure, on course at 7000' and looking at a map to try to figure out where we're going to divert to. The lady in the jet let me know that Center acknowledged and just wanted me to keep them apprised of my intentions. For the next 30 minutes or so we flew on like that, above and across the middle of nowhere, Alabama.
Our course took us within about 20 miles of Selma, AL, which was depicted on the sectional as having a huge runway and a large (yellow) urban area adjacent to the airport. I figured this was our best bet for maintenance, without taking us into a busy Class C area or TRSA where our lack of a transponder and radios would screw up all of the IFR traffic in that airspace. Little did I know what a ghost town of an airport Selma would be, my mistake.
As we got closer to Selma, we were again unable to communicate with ATC. The little handheld transceiver, with it's 8" antenna inside the airplane, just isn't powerful enough to reach out across long distances. One of the things I came away from this flight with was a strong desire that these general aviation aircraft we fly have an antenna patch cable under the dash that would allow us to connect backup radios to the airplane's external antennae in an emergency. This seems like it would be relatively simple to do...but would have GREAT benefit. Finally, after struggling through lots of intermittent IMC and trying to get ATC on the radio, someone in a Bonanza was able to relay for me again. We advised center, through the Bonanza, that we'd be landing at Selma and would contact them once on the ground. Center had us turn 30° to the right for radar identification and approved our diversion to Selma.
I looked over to Hal to try to figure out where we were and how we would get to Selma. To my absolute amazement he was ASLEEP! How on earth can you SLEEP at a time like this!? I punched him in the leg and told him the plan. We both tried to figure out where we were on the chart. I really should have pulled out the whiz-wheel and estimated distance from our last fix, but since we'd been having such good luck with identifying landmarks on the sectional, I didn't think it was necessary. As we descended below the clouds, we entered the thick, cruddy haze layer and were immediately lost. Down here at 3000', we weren't really high enough to see very far...and the haze was so thick we couldn't see more than about 5 miles anyway. It became MUCH more difficult to identify landmarks on the ground. We started heading east, guessing that was toward Selma and tried to find ourselves on the map. For 20 or 30 minutes we went on like that. We were lost.
Eventually, I dug out an approach plate for Selma, since the sectional had a RCO depicted on the field. The RCO depiction mentioned a VOR, which was not depicted on the sectional. It was depicted on the approach plates! I dug through my flight bag again to find the manual for the radio and figure out how to tune a VOR. A few seconds later, I was listening to faint but clear morse code on the Selma VOR frequency! I jammed the radio up against my side window and a few seconds after that, a radial to the station blinked onto the little handheld's LCD screen. We turned over 100° to the right to track the radial inbound, in our confusion we had overflown Selma. I rejoiced as the morse code became clearer and louder in my headset. We were found.
As we approached Selma and made visual contact, I thought we must have been lost again. It was simply too big an airport with too big a ramp to be anything other than an air force base. My handheld didn't display any DME info but we were right on the 072° radial...heading 072°. It had to be it. I tuned the UNICOM frequency and announced position and intentions and my call was met by a pleasant female voice. I advised her of our difficulties and she said she had been advised by Montgomery already and would help however she could. Thanks.
Out came the checklist again, and another problem. Mixture -> rich. The engine shuddered and vibrated as if it would fall off it's mounts. I jerked the mixture lever back to lean and it smoothed out. Reduce power a little and try again. Same thing, rough engine! So, I left it where it was until we were on the downwind then reduced power and made small adjustments to the mixture to keep the engine running. It wasn't 'smooth'...but it was bearable. When I tried advancing the mixture even a little bit it went all rough again. This got Hal's attention. He was visibly concerned. I kept a tight pattern that would have allowed a landing without power and just fiddled with the mixture to keep it as smooth as the engine would allow.
We landed.
There was not another plane on the whole ramp.
The Unicom lady helped me taxi to near her location and a guy came out to greet me. Afraid to turn off the engine and be totally stranded there, I asked for fuel to be delivered to our still idling airplane, advising of the situation with the alternator. Before the fuel truck got there, the engine quit. My first reaction was to recognize that one option (continuing VFR to Gainesville) was now off the table...then it occurred to me that I had run a tank dry.
We got out of the airplane totally relieved to be on the ground and started negotiating with Lucas and Phil back at LFC over how we would get home. I noticed oil dripping from the engine cowling onto the nose wheel cover and popped the cowling. The first thing I saw under the cowling was a blue streak running down the intake manifold of one of the right cylinders. I never did identify the source of the oil, maybe it was just a rocker plate cover...but maybe it was an exhaust leak. Wherever it came from, it wasn't much of a leak, the dipstick recorded the same amount of oil I had departed Slidell with. I was just glad that the engine had quit and glad that I wouldn't be flying this airplane anymore today.
What I learned:
1) Handheld transceivers are invaluable, even if they don't work all that great. Electrical systems can fail. When they do, they take all of your nav and comm capabilities with them. It's important to know where you are and be able to talk to ATC on an instrument flight. Have a backup radio.
2) Have a GPS with fresh batteries. Yes, I know we should all be able to pull out a sectional and know instantly where we are and how to get to where we want to go. My experience on this flight though, was that weather, visibility and workload can make this very difficult. A yoke-mount, backup GPS would have made my flight SO MUCH easier. I am buying one before my next XC.
3) Just because you're managing an in flight emergency doesn't mean you can ignore regular operating procedures. I almost had a fuel starvation incident on top of my electrical system emergency just for forgetting to keep track of which tank was burning for how long. Even though the crap is hitting the fan in the cockpit, we still have to maintain awareness of fuel usage.
4) When ATC communicated that they had me on radar, I should have immediately asked for a vector to my divert destination. Somehow I was so wrapped up in my workload and navigating via pilotage that I simply forgot that this was even an option! That would have solved the scariest problem we had, the confusing transition from IFR to VFR flight.
5) Be prepared for emergencies and use non-emergency flight time to better prepare yourself. Engine out drills are great...but there's a lot more that can go wrong in an airplane. Train hard so you can win when it's your turn to make command decisions in an emergency environment.
It was a great day for learning about flying and I am supremely thankful that I got to go through that experience and learn what I did. I was also very thankful for the forgiving conditions: it was daylight, the scattered clouds were up high, my wife and child weren't with me, my passenger was very helpful with the map...God smiled on us this time.
Posted by johnpeace at September 26, 2005 10:22 AM