Canuck
David Megginson
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2016
- Messages
- 7,085
- Reaction score
- 3,903
I've been reviewing my log books to set up an index card with the history of each component or system.
In the past, I wrote here that I was once partial panel in low IMC after losing the ASI and DG, but after checking the logs, it was actually my attitude indicator and airspeed indicator that I lost. I was flying back IFR from Boston in late May 2008, with surface visibility around 500+1. Everything about the forecast had been wrong: winds aloft were far higher than forecast, forcing us to make a precautionary fuel stop in Plattsburgh NY. Conditions in Ottawa had gone from forecast MVFR to lowish IFR; and to top it off, the freezing level was a few thousand feet lower than forecast. When I was about halfway from Plattsburgh to Ottawa (a one-hour leg), in solid IMC at minimum altitude, watching very light ice accumlation on the leading edges, my pitot line got blocked, killing my airspeed indicator, and (according to the logs), my attitude indicator also failed.
I had no A/P at the time, so I was hand flying, and no backup attitude info except for my turn coordinator. For all of that, I don't remember it being a high stress endeavor. I set my tach to a position that i knew would give me decent airspeed in level flight, then diverted to the big Ottawa airport and flew the ILS 32 down to a comfortable landing, albeit with what must have been an extra ~10 knots of airspeed to bleed off from erring on the safe side without the ASI (no big deal with a 10,000 ft runway to glide it off).
The thing is, with fixed gear, a PA-28 is not excessively demanding to hand-fly in solid IMC without an attitude indicator (still having the DG for heading helped too, vs an actual vacuum-system failure). I know it would have been a very different story trying to control a retractable under those circumstances (it's one time I appreciate the drag of the landing gear sticking out, like a speed brake to inhibit spiral development).
The lack of stress or urgency then is probably why I misremembered which instrument had failed. In retrospect, given that I lost both the AI and ASI, I absolutely should have declared an emergency. I am not scared of ATC, and have no aversion to doing so, so I can't imagine why I didn't. My best guess 10 years later is that because I wasn't especially stressed, I didn't feel like it was an emergency (I was wrong; it was), and that maybe I just didn't want another thing to think about besides maintaining an unusual scan, setting up the plates for an approach, and monitoring the ice.
My daughter was with me, and she doesn't remember anything special about the flight (except a free tee-shirt from the FBO at Plattsburgh), so I must not have seemed stressed to her, either.
D
In the past, I wrote here that I was once partial panel in low IMC after losing the ASI and DG, but after checking the logs, it was actually my attitude indicator and airspeed indicator that I lost. I was flying back IFR from Boston in late May 2008, with surface visibility around 500+1. Everything about the forecast had been wrong: winds aloft were far higher than forecast, forcing us to make a precautionary fuel stop in Plattsburgh NY. Conditions in Ottawa had gone from forecast MVFR to lowish IFR; and to top it off, the freezing level was a few thousand feet lower than forecast. When I was about halfway from Plattsburgh to Ottawa (a one-hour leg), in solid IMC at minimum altitude, watching very light ice accumlation on the leading edges, my pitot line got blocked, killing my airspeed indicator, and (according to the logs), my attitude indicator also failed.
I had no A/P at the time, so I was hand flying, and no backup attitude info except for my turn coordinator. For all of that, I don't remember it being a high stress endeavor. I set my tach to a position that i knew would give me decent airspeed in level flight, then diverted to the big Ottawa airport and flew the ILS 32 down to a comfortable landing, albeit with what must have been an extra ~10 knots of airspeed to bleed off from erring on the safe side without the ASI (no big deal with a 10,000 ft runway to glide it off).
The thing is, with fixed gear, a PA-28 is not excessively demanding to hand-fly in solid IMC without an attitude indicator (still having the DG for heading helped too, vs an actual vacuum-system failure). I know it would have been a very different story trying to control a retractable under those circumstances (it's one time I appreciate the drag of the landing gear sticking out, like a speed brake to inhibit spiral development).
The lack of stress or urgency then is probably why I misremembered which instrument had failed. In retrospect, given that I lost both the AI and ASI, I absolutely should have declared an emergency. I am not scared of ATC, and have no aversion to doing so, so I can't imagine why I didn't. My best guess 10 years later is that because I wasn't especially stressed, I didn't feel like it was an emergency (I was wrong; it was), and that maybe I just didn't want another thing to think about besides maintaining an unusual scan, setting up the plates for an approach, and monitoring the ice.
My daughter was with me, and she doesn't remember anything special about the flight (except a free tee-shirt from the FBO at Plattsburgh), so I must not have seemed stressed to her, either.
D
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