Timbeck2
Final Approach
Been planning this ever since I got my license to go see a buddy of mine who is the airport manager at Aransas County Airport AKA Rockport. Now I know what I need to bring on these trips and a piddle pack is just one of the items. We had originally intended to fly into Marfa TX for the refueling stop but it was socked in so we continued to Winkler County Airport. Over El Paso my bladder sending unit turned on the "start to be concerned" light. We were about two hours out of Winkler. By the time we were about 50 miles out I was in agony with nothing to pee in. I don't know how many times I thought of just hanging it out the storm door but I didn't want the entire left side of the plane covered in urine.
About ten miles out I made the radio calls but it didn't seem like I was transmitting...strange but I pressed on. I landed, pulled off the runway and shut it down and made a beeline for the door. I must have peed for about 10 minutes. The fuel pump was about a quarter mile away so I climbed back in to taxi to the pump. Just a click...no start. Battery dead...how'd that happen? I broke out the tow bar and pulled it to the pump and to get it off the taxiway. After refueling, I tried it again, this time I got a half turn before it started clicking again. I opened up the cowling and found nothing immediately apparent that anything was wrong. The second item I'll never be without is a multi meter which I didn't have. I called my mechanic who told me that it sounded like I lost the alternator. I was in the middle of nowhere, with no mechanic on duty let alone an alternator. Luckily the FBO manager was there...he sort of had to be since his house was the FBO.
He berated me at length for "getting what I paid for when I bought those old planes" then offered to take us into "town" which at this point was nowhere to be seen-just a bunch of oil and natural gas wells. I asked him if he had a battery charger and he hooked it up to an extension cord and ran it from his house. I charged the battery for an hour and made a bunch of calls in Midland to find a mechanic. I finally got in touch with Paul Armstrong out of Skywest Aviation (not the airline) and he said that he had an alternator and would meet me at his hangar in an hour.
She started right up and I shut off the master and took off for Midland. At ten miles out we turned on the radio and called the tower and was cleared to land. I taxied to the hangar and Paul's daughter Mia met us and told us Paul was running late. So we broke out the screwdriver and took off the lower cowling to save time. Paul arrived a little later and looked it over, jiggled a wire or two and asked if it had enough juice to start which I replied "yes." He climbed in, hooked up some test equipment and started it up. He then mouthed the words, "it's charging." Great, I thought, NOW what's wrong with it? He shut it down and then looked at the engine again. He then reached in and came back with a wire and said "I bet this is the problem." The mechanic that had worked on it before I bought it had installed a connector that was much too big for the wire to the alternator and it was hanging on with just two of the wires out of the strand. He put a new connector on it, started it up and it charged normally even with a full load at idle. We then put the cowling back on.
He told me I didn't owe him anything but I insisted. He then said, "well my shop rate is $105 and that it didn't take all that long." I was so happy I pulled out my wallet and gave him the $100 bill that I'd got from my in-laws for Christmas plus another 5. It was well worth it to me.
We took off again and then started running into weather so we dropped down and landed at Hondo where we refueled and waited for two hours in the plane until the weather cleared and then continued on to RKP where we landed at midnight. Had a great visit with my buddy and even took the ferry out to Mustang Island where I went to Jay's hotel. Jay wasn't there but we got a look at a the Apollo and Airshow rooms. I then took my buddy up for a short flight which was only the second time he'd ever flown in a small airplane and went out for seafood that night. The next morning we took off for Tucson and again at El Paso started running into weather again. We made it to Wilcox AZ where we had to wait another three hours until the weather cleared up enough to make it to Tucson.
All in all a good trip considering but a HUGE learning experience for this pilot. I'll never be without a piddle pack or a large empty bottle, a multimeter, and Foreflight which luckily, I had on two devices. Almost 19 hours of flying, 10 of which on the first leg on a trip which should have lasted 6 hours and twenty minutes.
Tim
About ten miles out I made the radio calls but it didn't seem like I was transmitting...strange but I pressed on. I landed, pulled off the runway and shut it down and made a beeline for the door. I must have peed for about 10 minutes. The fuel pump was about a quarter mile away so I climbed back in to taxi to the pump. Just a click...no start. Battery dead...how'd that happen? I broke out the tow bar and pulled it to the pump and to get it off the taxiway. After refueling, I tried it again, this time I got a half turn before it started clicking again. I opened up the cowling and found nothing immediately apparent that anything was wrong. The second item I'll never be without is a multi meter which I didn't have. I called my mechanic who told me that it sounded like I lost the alternator. I was in the middle of nowhere, with no mechanic on duty let alone an alternator. Luckily the FBO manager was there...he sort of had to be since his house was the FBO.
He berated me at length for "getting what I paid for when I bought those old planes" then offered to take us into "town" which at this point was nowhere to be seen-just a bunch of oil and natural gas wells. I asked him if he had a battery charger and he hooked it up to an extension cord and ran it from his house. I charged the battery for an hour and made a bunch of calls in Midland to find a mechanic. I finally got in touch with Paul Armstrong out of Skywest Aviation (not the airline) and he said that he had an alternator and would meet me at his hangar in an hour.
She started right up and I shut off the master and took off for Midland. At ten miles out we turned on the radio and called the tower and was cleared to land. I taxied to the hangar and Paul's daughter Mia met us and told us Paul was running late. So we broke out the screwdriver and took off the lower cowling to save time. Paul arrived a little later and looked it over, jiggled a wire or two and asked if it had enough juice to start which I replied "yes." He climbed in, hooked up some test equipment and started it up. He then mouthed the words, "it's charging." Great, I thought, NOW what's wrong with it? He shut it down and then looked at the engine again. He then reached in and came back with a wire and said "I bet this is the problem." The mechanic that had worked on it before I bought it had installed a connector that was much too big for the wire to the alternator and it was hanging on with just two of the wires out of the strand. He put a new connector on it, started it up and it charged normally even with a full load at idle. We then put the cowling back on.
He told me I didn't owe him anything but I insisted. He then said, "well my shop rate is $105 and that it didn't take all that long." I was so happy I pulled out my wallet and gave him the $100 bill that I'd got from my in-laws for Christmas plus another 5. It was well worth it to me.
We took off again and then started running into weather so we dropped down and landed at Hondo where we refueled and waited for two hours in the plane until the weather cleared and then continued on to RKP where we landed at midnight. Had a great visit with my buddy and even took the ferry out to Mustang Island where I went to Jay's hotel. Jay wasn't there but we got a look at a the Apollo and Airshow rooms. I then took my buddy up for a short flight which was only the second time he'd ever flown in a small airplane and went out for seafood that night. The next morning we took off for Tucson and again at El Paso started running into weather again. We made it to Wilcox AZ where we had to wait another three hours until the weather cleared up enough to make it to Tucson.
All in all a good trip considering but a HUGE learning experience for this pilot. I'll never be without a piddle pack or a large empty bottle, a multimeter, and Foreflight which luckily, I had on two devices. Almost 19 hours of flying, 10 of which on the first leg on a trip which should have lasted 6 hours and twenty minutes.
Tim
