IFE

I was working on a long-overdue update post, but this story takes priority.

God certainly had His hand on me yesterday. Any pilot readers are already cringing. They know that IFE means In-Flight Emergency. I had one last night after an already moderately stressful day. I’ll tell about the rest of the day in the update post whenever I get around to finishing it. This will cover the emergency itself.

I was flying back from visiting my mother, who lives about 250 miles from 2GC, the airport near Fayetteville, where I currently train. I was about 20 miles northwest of RDU when the yellow annunciator light for the engine monitor illuminated. The alternator amperage had dropped to zero, and the battery voltage was 12.5, which triggered the yellow light. It had probably stopped charging a while before that, but didn’t set off a warning light until the voltage dropped below 12.6.

I unplugged and turned off what I could to extend battery life, but that wasn’t much. It was night, so anti-collision and nav lights had to stay on. I was on Flight Following and talking to Raleigh Approach as I was coming up on their class Charlie airspace, so the transponder and comm radio had to stay on. I could’ve popped the breakers for the AI and DG to force them to use their internal backup batteries, but I didn’t. Mostly because I didn’t think of it.

ETA at 2GC was one hour and eighteen minutes later. I quickly decided that I wasn’t going to try to make it there and do my first night landing on their tiny runway with nonstandard lighting with questionable electrics. I immediately reset course to TTA, which is my official home base and an airport I’m very familiar with. It was only about twenty minutes away by then.

I informed Approach of the issue and advised that I would be diverting to TTA instead of continuing to 2GC. They asked if I required assistance, which I answered in the negative. A proper aircraft battery is supposed to be able to support essential functions for two hours, so I was pretty sure I could get at least twenty minutes, even though the voltage was already down to 12.4 by then.

I tried to set up the GPS for RNAV 21 into TTA as a backup to my eyeballs, but it didn’t seem to pull it up. It said KTTA RNAV 21, but I didn’t see any of the available fixes on the plate. Looking at it after I got home, I realized my mistake. I was looking for the IF or FAF, neither of which are options when picking a starting point for an approach in the GPS. Both IAFs, which were available choices, are only shown up towards the top left/center of the main section of the plate, not in the final approach diagram at the bottom of the plate where I was looking.

I then set it up for the Visual 21 approach option. It loaded that, but the glideslope still didn’t activate. I was within ten miles, but either that is still too far out to get any vertical guidance, or the nav indicator had stopped working due to low voltage, which was down to 12.3.

All this time, I was clicking away on the PTT, trying to get the runway lights to come on. The radio kept giving a repeating click feedback through the headset, so I took that to mean that it wasn’t transmitting anymore. The GPS was working and displayed the correct course on the AV-30 HSI, so I knew that I was going in the right direction. I saw the beacon right where I expected to, but no runway lights. I tried the appropriate PTT clicking on my handheld comm as well, with no success.

Eventually, probably about three miles out, I saw runway lights. I’m not sure if they were on the entire time after I started clicking, and I just wasn’t at the correct angle/distance to see them or if God turned them on for me. I sent God a quick and very grateful Thank You and started praying that they wouldn’t time out and turn off before I touched down. They stayed on, and the landing was uneventful, if not my prettiest. Once I got taxied to the parking spot and shut down, the first thing I did after I climbed out was to get on my knees and pray a quick prayer of thanks.

I went back up this morning with jumper cables, got it running, and flew it around/under Fayetteville’s Charlie with no avionics to 2GC. I await the mechanic’s diagnosis.