There are those who have (originally posted 5-10-07)

So, my first aviation post of this blog is also about my first hair-raising experience in an aircraft (well, second if you count the door popping open during my solo cross country, which I didn’t complete due to wore-than-forecast weather conditions…perhaps I’ll save that for another time). It wasn’t exactly an emergency situation, although the controller hinted at it; “do you require any assistance?” were his exact words. I’ll get to that in a second.

Today’s mission was a relatively short Angel Flight, departing Richmond to Raleigh-Durham Int’l to pick up a passenger, transport her to Norfolk Int’l, and then make the return trip to Richmond. I had a pretty tight timetable, as once I got home we were off to our friends’ house at the river for some rest and relaxation for the remainder of the weekend. How many dangerous flying situations have started with a tight timetable? The day started with a low sitting off the coast, pulling moisture in from the Atlantic and spreading it over coastal and central Virginia in the form of low clouds and visibilities. The weather close to home was actually pretty good, and left me flying beneath a 7000′ overcast for the trip to RDU, with the occasional cloud allowing me to log all of .3 of actual. Off to my left the picture was a little different; thick gray clouds descended from the overcast above me to about 2-3000 feet below me. It was almost like flying below a shelf of terminal airspace, with the airspace being filled with rolling wet clouds. The sight left me hoping it would improve in the next couple of hours, which the forecast assured me it would. After a quick turn and a departure into clear blue - but windy on the backside of the front - skies at RDU, we pointed to the northeast for the trip to ORF. It was only an hour with a generous tailwind, and at first it looked like it would be clear sailing for the duration. About 50 miles out, we found ourselves in solid IMC and just starting to receive vectors to the ILS to runway 5. As thick and dark as the clouds were, it was the smoothest flying of the entire day, and quite peaceful even with streaks of rain streaming across the windshield. About 20 miles out, I caught the slightest flicker of red from somewhere on the panel; it was so quick that I wasn’t sure at first where it came from. A minute or two later, I found out as the low voltage warning light came on and stayed on. As we were given the final vector to intercept the localizer, I realized that the radios were crackling and fading fast. We were still solid IMC in the bottom of the layer, with a fleeting glimpse of the ground from time to time, so I knew we wouldn’t have to descend too far down the glidescope to break out…if we even had a glidescope, that is. After a quick “great…this is just great” moment, my second thought was “turn off the landing light, that’s a hog”. Turning off the light extinguished the warning. With that done, I quickly radioed my situation to approach control, hoping that I would get some sort of early landing clearance or “rush processing” in case the radios went. This is when the controller asked if I needed any assistance. Short of a battery charger, I couldn’t think of anything so I politely declined. In retrospect, I should have asked for that early clearance - although I may not have gotten it, it never hurts to ask. As the localizer started to come alive, the low voltage light came back on. Shutting off the beacon and nav lights turned it back off. Turning down the localizer now, and waiting for the glidescope to come in so we can descend out of these clouds, and the low voltage light comes back on. The autopilot is one of the few remaining powered items on, so off it went, along with the nav/comm 2 radio. We intercepted the glidescope and started our descent. I should mention that as soon as I contacted tower they gave me the landing clearance I was hoping for, along with taxi instructions in the event that I lost comms. They were very accomodating, and I was very grateful. As predicted, we broke out about 1000′ above minimums, but it was so hazy below the clouds that I could barely make out the airport. In fact, the only thing I could really see was the coastline on the other side of the airport, and tracing it led my eyes to the runway. The low voltage light was on now, and with nothing else to turn off, I had to hope the comms would stick with me for the duration, which they did. We made a smooth landing and taxied into the ramp to find that all mechanics had left for the weekend. No matter: by now I had called my wife and told her I’d just meet her at the river when I could. I was determined to not become the next Get-There-Itis victim. If I had a choice I’d prefer to be an I Learned About Flying From That article and not an Aftermath column. At any rate, after about an hour on the ground the ceilings rose enough for me to contemplate a VFR trip home. It was about an hour into the wind, and I knew that the weather was better to the west, which a call back to my home FBO confirmed. I made an uneventful VFR trip home under increasingly scattered clouds, albeit with the low voltage light shining brightly all the way. By the time I got back, Comm 1 was, again, the only electronic device on in the aircraft, besides my handheld GPS, which was whining about a low battery as well.

To add insult to injury, the winds were 260 at 13 gusting to 19, which put them at 80 degrees to my planned landing runway. Hadn’t the flying gods had enough fun with me today? I fought the crosswind all the way through the pattern, sure that after all I had been through a ground loop would by my ultimate demise. As luck would have it, the winds died down precisely at the time I crossed the numbers, affording me the smoothest landing of the day. Thanks flying gods, I appreciate that.