Canuck
David Megginson
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2016
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Does anyone here have stories of flying partial panel (for real) in a Cherokee in IMC or night VMC? I'd be interested in the range of experience.
In my case, I have two stories.
1. Night VMC
My only full vacuum pump failure was in night VMC, which was a complete non-event (the bright annunciator light is hard to miss in a dark cockpit). I was about 20 minutes from the airport, so I just covered my AI and HI with post-it notes and landed normally.
2. Day IMC
The second time didn't involve the vacuum pump, but was a bit trickier. I was hand flying in low IMC about 30 minutes from the airport after a long flight from Boston, when my heading indicator decided to fail at the same time as I got a pitot-line blockage.
I confirmed that it wasn't the vacuum pump and that the static system was still OK, covered the airspeed indicator and heading indicator, then flew on, using pitch and power to approximate airspeed, and timing my turns with the mag compass. It was never a big problem (the PA-28 is an easy and stable partial-panel IFR platform, even for a just-average pilot like me), but it was still nice finally to see the runway lights pop out of the fog ahead of me on the ILS.
In my case, I have two stories.
1. Night VMC
My only full vacuum pump failure was in night VMC, which was a complete non-event (the bright annunciator light is hard to miss in a dark cockpit). I was about 20 minutes from the airport, so I just covered my AI and HI with post-it notes and landed normally.
2. Day IMC
The second time didn't involve the vacuum pump, but was a bit trickier. I was hand flying in low IMC about 30 minutes from the airport after a long flight from Boston, when my heading indicator decided to fail at the same time as I got a pitot-line blockage.
I confirmed that it wasn't the vacuum pump and that the static system was still OK, covered the airspeed indicator and heading indicator, then flew on, using pitch and power to approximate airspeed, and timing my turns with the mag compass. It was never a big problem (the PA-28 is an easy and stable partial-panel IFR platform, even for a just-average pilot like me), but it was still nice finally to see the runway lights pop out of the fog ahead of me on the ILS.
