Ups….

Looks like today’s flight wasn’t meant to have nice ending from the beginning.

First, the weather. Four miles visibility with clear sky and beautiful haze. Then the wind – 10 knots gusting to 20. I was quite close to cancel it right there, but decided, that it was a perfect opportunity to get familiar with it. Especially nice one as the wind was blowing directly down the runway, so the only hard part was supposed to be base itself and flare just before touchdown.

Then the fuel. It turned out our club run out of 100LL fuel and basically less half filled tanks were all I was left with. Quick consultation with POH and the Boss and we decided that there is still plenty of fuel for at least 2 to 2.5 hours of flight in the pattern.

In the end I started the engine and taxied to the runway. So far so good. First round was completely screwed. Everything was going great but then, when I was preparing to flare sudden gust of wind lifted me about 5 feet up in the air so I decided there is no point in trying to save it – full power, one notch of flaps up and go around. Second and third attempts were much better and I scored pretty nice landings. Fourth screwed again (exactly the same situation – sudden gust and ballooning plane), fifth and sixth again quite nice considering gusting wind – stabilized approach, speed kept a little bit higher to compensate gusts and touch down point a little bit further down the road to get rid of this nasty tunneling effect we have on 15 approach between trees.

Then on seventh takeoff I experienced my first real, not simulated, in flight problem. The whole avionics died. Radios, fuel gauges, turn coordinator, autopilot and GPS. Just died.
- Oh! We’ve got a problem, I figured out (what a brilliant mind!).
Not so big, as the fan was still working and I was in the pattern on proper altitude ready to execute dead stick landing if needed, but still a problem. Trying to be as calm as I could, I finished the round, made probably the nicest touch down today and taxied back to the hangar.

Then I called Don and we started to look for what happened. It turned out that main alternator field circuit breaker popped out again (it happened once last week, but they couldn’t find the cause) sometime after my first takeoff and I flew more or less whole time without charging. I was actually mad at myself for not noticing it earlier and allowing the battery to go flat. I should have noticed that there is no charge and either push the circuit breaker in again or stop flying where there was still some juice in it left.

Another thing to remember about in the future – periodically scan all engine gauges (not only pressures and fuel) to make sure it works as it should.

Looks like she didn’t like the shower…

0.5h/0.0h inst : 5 to/ldg logged
26.3h/0.8h inst : 144 to/ldg total