oh #$%@ !!!

Well obviously as stated in my last post my plan was to fly my long cross country from Dayton, to Muncie, to Shelbyville, to Dayton. A nice day finally arrived here in Ohio so I took the day off work and decided to have at it.

Got out to the airport close to 1:00 and was in the air by 1:30. Everything was uneventful, had all my planning on the seat beside me, and was enjoying the trip to KMIE. Muncie has a control tower so I was a little nervous about talking to the controller. I knew exactly what I needed to say and do, so there really wasn't any reason to be nervous... just first time jitters is all. There's a lake about 10 miles out from the airport and this was my checkpoint to make the initial call up to the tower. The visibility was excellent so I could see the runway off in the distance. Everything was going according to plan.

About the time I decided to switch over and get the ATIS info, I started to get some static on the radio. First thought was that the squelch needed adjusted. I played with the knob and it didn't help. Switched frequencies and the static persisted. Even on the ATIS channel where I knew there should be a voice, I got static. Through the static I could barely hear the ATIS recording, but something definitely wasn't right. I changed back to the tower frequency and was still getting bad noise over the channel.

Then all of a sudden the radio (including the navigation radio) lights started flickering off and on. My VOR needle also jumped back and forth. The low voltage light on the dash also came on. I turned the radio power knob off and on a couple times hoping it would fix itself. It did seem to stay on after that. The low voltage light was still on, but I seemed to have a static free radio for the time being. It goes without saying I was a little nervous at this point, but I moved on to what needed to be done.

I quickly got the ATIS info and make my call to the tower successfully. The tower told me to report my 3 mile final for the active runway, which I did and landed without any problems. I'm very glad this didn't happen while I was further away from the airport. The runway was in sight the whole time, so that was a bit of a comfort.

After I got to the ramp and shutdown, I made a phone call to my home FBO and talked to one of the mechanics. He advised me to cycle the master and see if it fixed itself and I could then have one of the Muncie mechanics look at it. Well, when I turned the master back on, a god awful popping and clicking sound came from the speaker in the plane. At that point I decided I wasn't going anywhere.

So... for the next 3 hours I sat in the pilots lounge while the plane was being fixed. They had to replace some contacts and the battery. It was 5pm by the time it was ready to go. It was too late in the day to continue on to Shelbyville, so I plotted a course back to Dayton.

My long cross country would have to wait for another day. But, I got another short one out of the way and some tower work under my belt. All and all, it was a good flight and some good real world experience. Its good to know that I don't freak out or anything when shit starts to break. :)

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Today is a beautiful day. The clouds have moved out of the area and its a brisk 60 degrees. Unfortunately the winds are a little much. I'd really like to get out and try the trip again, but I'll wait for a calmer day.