So there I was....

simtech

simtech

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Simtech
Sunday afternoon, just dropped my buddies mother in law off in Tennessee after an uneventful 1.5 hour flight. We were flying back at 6500ft enjoying the scenery while flying over the sipsey wilderness. As soon as I saw open fields again I felt this slight stumble in the engine, no rpm loss but a defined stumble. I enriched the mixture some and it smoothed out. Whew dodge bullet number 1!

Then I looked down and feared the worst, I lost all vacuum and was in solid VMC! In a panic I looked at my attitude indicator to find it spinning about aimlessly in space. In a moment of horror I look outside at the horizon and find im straight and level which contradicted anything my instrument was telling me. Lucky my training kicked in and I looked outside... Whew I thought and I had dodged bullet number 2! I thought I was going to have to declare as losing vacuum in VMC is some bad stuff!

When I finally got back to land I made the most beautiful landing I've ever done with no attitude indicator and in solid VMC. It was so beautiful I got to share it with another individual. Bullet number 3 dodged as I don't have to tell a tail of a greaser landing.

Taxi back to the hangar to realize that flight just cost me $400 bucks which negates the 3 dodged bullets. But overall it was a great day to fly!
 
At least it wasn't IMC and you didn't have to go to partial panel. Only time that happen to me I was IFR from MEM to GTR. Had to hit IGB, outbound to intercept the loc, and PT to fly the ILS 18 at GTR. All that and I broke out around 7-800' I think.
 
The dreaded single engine CAVU day...how did they do it for the first 50 years without an AI?
 
mscard88 said:
At least it wasn't IMC and you didn't have to go to partial panel. Only time that happen to me I was IFR from MEM to GTR. Had to hit IGB, outbound to intercept the loc, and PT to fly the ILS 18 at GTR. All that and I broke out around 7-800' I think.
Click to expand...

Tell me about it. The flight before this one I was socked in at 7k ft in solid IMC for 1.5 hours out of a 2 hour trip. That would have sucked. It's funny how and when these things fail.
 
Cirrus guys would have pulled the chute.
 
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