Sunday, September 2, 2012

What a day! In Flight Failure...

Have you ever walked out of your plane shaking from excitement and fear? I can now say I have. Today I was interviewed by a local tv station about aviation and being a student pilot. After being on camera and answering some questions it was time for me to fly so they could "catch the action" on camera. First of all the plane wouldn't start, dead battery. Anxiously rushing with my instructor to charge it I was sweating by the time the camera was on me to fly. I hop in the plane, crank the key and wait... finally it started! End of my problems right? Wrong. Shortly after take off I had a complete electrical system failure. Lights, radios, flaps, all gone. I could hear what sounded like a winding down humming noise in my headphones. Trying to stay calm I turned off all the radios and lights in order to see if that would help the flaps come down for landing. I kept monitoring the engine rpms and oil pressure as I didn't know what else could be wrong with the airplane. I kept saying to myself "just fly the airplane and stay in the traffic pattern". I extended my downwind in order to avoid dropping the plane in with high speed and no flaps. I floated the plane to the runway and let out a sigh of relief when I heard those tires hit the ground. Keep in mind all of this was caught on camera and will be on the local news tonight. Unfortunately, the news crew had no idea anything was going on so my landing will be showed as a normal landing when it was far from that. This just goes to show anything can happen anytime and you have to stay calm and remember your training. I will throw up the video from the news station later tonight!

1 comment: