Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: earl1937 on June 12, 2014, 05:15:57 PM
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:airplane: Back in the early 60's, flying on demand charters, giving free lance lessons, doing anything to make a buck, I had an interesting experience with a Aero Commander 500A.
(http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l488/05263739/imagesCAHXBG7D.jpg)
I was contracted to deliver a almost new Cessna 337 to Harrisburg, Pa and pick up a 500, which had been traded in on the 337. Flight up was uneventful, some weather, mostly just low ceilings along the route, but nothing to be concerned about. Landed, taxi over to fixed base operator, shut it down and walked in flight ops. No body knew anything about the 500, which had been sitting for 3 years on the ramp. Oh, crap, now I have to wait while getting a AI to inspect for ferry permit.
Next morning with new batteries, AI in tow, we started the engines, they were smoking so bad, both engines, had to move to far corner of field, away from active runway to run them for 30 minutes or so, check hydraulic system operation, radio's, 2 of which actually worked pretty good.
After a day of inspections, access doors opened and closed, had to have nose tire replaced, per AI, then he signed off on the ferry permit. Filed flight plan for 6AM departure and went to bed.
Up at 4:30AM, grabbed some breakfast, got 2 sausage biscuits to go, with a couple of cokes, for in flight lunch, cause this thing is sloooooooooow! Uh, oh, no stars, but ceiling not very low, so should be no sweat! No tower this morning, use the pay phone by front door of operations, activated flight plan for 6AM lift off. Taxied out, took off and called up FSS with airborne time and heading,
Now climbing through 6500MSL, assigned to 8,000, contacted Washington center, established radar contact, dialed up the transponder code they wanted and requested any weather up ahead, said everything was quite, but I was still in the crap at 7500 feet, but things were getting lighter and could see the pink sun rays to my left, so knew I wasn't to far from the tops. Yep, in and out of the tops at 8K, so settle down and fiddled with the Mitchell auto pilot this thing had in it. Hmm, every time I engage, it wants to make a left turn, so retrim, but does no good, so I guess will be Manuel flight all the way to ATL Finally started getting some separation between me and the tops, they were now about 2,000 below me.
Good daylight now, and I can see some CB's up ahead, but scattered so shouldn't be a problem to work my way around them. Next 3 hours pretty boring, a little bump every now and then working my way through some buildups. Low pressure area forecasted to fill into East Tenn and Southern Kentucky must be a little stronger than forecast.
Been in the air about 4 hours now, time for a biscuit and coke! As I scanned the panel, I notice one of the VOR's is starting to show a warning flag of off. What the heck is the all about? Now I notice the other one is also showing signs of quitting! I keyed up the mike to Atlanta center and nothing but stone, cold silence! Uh, oh, this is not going to plan, I reset generator switch, nothing on the amp meter but zero! Reset all circuit breakers, still nothing! What the heck, as a cold reality set in, I have a comm and nav failure, so got to start navigating by DR and figure out where I am. Best I could figure, without landmarks, somewhere North of Snowbird VOR, with a MEA of 7000 feet, but I am in the clear for now, so no problem, just keep on going as best I can. Reset transponder, just in case it happened be working, but no little winking green light, so I knew it was not being interrogated by anybody.
After about an hour, I figure I am in the Atlanta area, but where? Now, I have to earn my bucks the hard way! Tops of clouds are about 6000 and I see a DC-8 decending up ahead into the clouds, so I know I am in the Atlanta area. Fuel is now a concern, about 50 minutes left, if burn time is right, gauges looks about right. Last report on ceiling in this area is 1500 feet and 5 miles, so should have plenty of room to let down, but where? I looked to the East and it looked darker that way, which told me the clouds were not as thick that way, so off I went, 090 degrees and a 300 foot per minute on the ROC. At about 4,000, I could see the ground, looking straight down, so continued the decent and had decided that 2000MSL would be my "floor", then I would turn to 180 and then just keep on descending. Atlanta area is 975MSL, but lower to South, so should be Ok, just hope I have enough fuel to find a runway somewhere. Ah, a nice big hole up ahead, going to have to do some tight 360 degree turns to stay out of the stuff and I notice during one of the turns, a football stadium, whoa, that's Stanford stadium at the University of Georgia!! Now down to maybe 10 or 12 minutes fuel, but knew right where the airport was at Athens, just a matter now getting down. Decent landing and as taxiing into fixed base operator location, right engine started spitting and quit! I got almost onto his ramp area and the left quit!
After refueled by truck, charged batteries overnight, filed for extension of ferry permit, kicked the tires, lit the fires and finished the trip to Atlanta with no problem, but still generators not working. Found out later the generator switch had gone south and was the problem. Boss not happy about extra night in motel and dinner and breakfast, so I told him not to send me after any more aircraft which had been sitting for 3 years.
Sent me to St. Pete that afternoon to pick up Aerostar, a Ted Smith design, which by the way, also designed the Aero Commander aircraft which I just delivered!
Morale of this story? Wish I could do it all over again! Next time around, wouldn't let Nesbitt get away to a Piedmont pilot! LOL
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Cool story :aok
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More great stuff Earl. Just when ya think everything is well planned, thought out, and contingencies covered, something always crawls out of the wood work. Thanks for the story! :aok