Sick + Single Pilot IFR + Trapped above ice

[hais]

51 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

Water in the filter, or a congealed filter. How often do you exercise the system? How old was the fluid in the tank? When was the last time you replaced the filter?

 

 

 

I exercise about twice a month. Tank was topped in April, and again September with a freshly bought batch.

I don't know when the filter was replaced last, I'll check the logs.

[hais]

9 minutes ago, exM20K said:

This.  I posted on another thread how I had the same sort of failure after leaving the plane out in heavy rain for 2 days.  Climbed to FL200 and hit the system.  No worky.  Worked fine on the ground and ever since.  In my case, I believe the membrane in the panels themselves got soaked with water that froze, but it could have been anywhere in the system, I guess.

Cheap Fix, though, LOL

-dan

Mine ran fine though before departure, and ran fine during the climb. Kept the wings wet and clean. I could also see that the leading edges of horizontal stabs were free of ice during the climb. I know the system was working during the climb because windscreen was iced up.

[hais]

7 hours ago, carusoam said:

Rob,

How about that auto-throttle servo connected to the Garmin auto-land system…?

Similar to auto lean in complexity… 

Providing auto-land capabilities for Mooneys?

 

PP Dreaming out loud only… 

Best regards,

-a-

Could it line up for a glide, kill the engine, and glide down to the runway? Gear up if flaps are not electrically operated. That would work without auto throttle. I wonder though if they would afford the demos

[CAV Ice]

@hais I sent you a PM. 

It is recommended to run the TKS system at least once a month.  I prefer systems be run twice a month.  The high pressure light could have been caused by a number of things... ambient temperature (below -30 C) can cause it due to the viscosity of the fluid, EMF can cause it, power surge to the high pressure switch, faulty ground on the high pressure switch.  As long as the high pressure switch was able to be reset I wouldn't consider it a filter issue.

[smwash02]

@CAV Ice How much fluid do you suggest running through the system during the test runs? I currently run mine monthly until I see it on both wings.

[CAV Ice]

@smwash02 we run ours until all the panels fully wet out and have even flow.  If you have a stubborn spot on the panel wipe the entire length of the panel with a lint free rag while the system is running.  This tends to "help" any areas that aren't wetting out. 

Another thing we do is run it during cruise on the outbound leg of a trip.  You can see it wetting out the length of the wing (see attached picture).  Then leave it off on the return trip if possible.  This prevents a mess on the hangar floor.

[glafaille]

Glad everything worked out and you finished the flight safely.

I realize I will probably get some “pushback” for the following “armchair quarterback” paragraph, but here goes.

Personally this flight would have been a bit too “sporty” for me.  Too many risk factors.  Moderate ice, single engine piston airplane, mountains, and lowish ceilings make for a bad day unless everything falls exactly your way.  Any small problem or change in conditions can easily become a big problem.

[1980Mooney]

Glad that you landed safely.  It sounds like you came perilously close to becoming a statistic and a subject of "Safety & Accident" discussion for a different reason.  I think it highlights how risky flying is, especially single pilot IFR.  It also highlights how we tend to normalize that risk.  In your first paragraph it doesn't sound like flying over fully cloud obscured Rockies is an impediment or show stopper for your flight planning.  I am curious if this event changes any of your planning for risk mitigation. - either when flying alone or with passengers.

[Hank]

So many flatlands are afraid of flying over mountains at night or in IMC, some at all, and now apparently some are afraid of mountains under a layer beneath them. For people who live in the mountains, they are simply part of life. If it's so dangerous flying over mountains, why are there so many people who live in mountainous areas that fly? How did I find a flight school when I lived in West Virginia? Why did my silly CFII fly with me all over WV with me shooting approaches under the hood at airports I'd never been too, mostly at night after work?

The whole country isn't Florida, east Texas or Kansas (thank God!),  and airplanes are quite useful and fun in an awful lot of the U.S. and Canada that also aren't like those boring flat spots where roads are laid out using lasers and T-squares.

While the OP certainly had himself a situation, mountains only figured into ruling out one alternate. Other than that, he could have been in central Wisconsin and everything else would have been the same. Viruses, O2 issues, CO leaks--none of these know what's under the plane. My money would be on O2 / CO for the root cause. Dan slept his C into the ground from CO over flat, flat Minnesota, after all.

[N201MKTurbo]

When I bought my first Mooney, I was doing service calls for Raytheon Data Systems out of Denver. I committed to not flying IFR over the divide. One day I took my girlfriend with me on a call to Granby CO. When it was time to return to Denver, the clouds had lowered and all the passes were obscured. I told my girlfriend we would need to spend the night and fly back in the morning. She had a son in daycare and explained in no uncertain terms that we must be back by 6:00. Well, I had an oxygen bottle with 1 mask and current charts so I took a deep breath and filed. I told her we would need to share the O2 mask. She would never take it, she insisted I keep it on. The trip was uneventful and a NA M20F can fly just fine at the 16000 ft MEA.

That was in 1987.

[philip_g]

21 hours ago, hais said:

What could have caused TKS high pressure followed by failure? It was running just fine up to that point, and I already was out of visible moisture.

agree, clogged filter.

[KLRDMD]

4 hours ago, Hank said:

So many flatlands are afraid of flying over mountains at night or in IMC, some at all, and now apparently some are afraid of mountains under a layer beneath them. For people who live in the mountains, they are simply part of life. If it's so dangerous flying over mountains, why are there so many people who live in mountainous areas that fly? How did I find a flight school when I lived in West Virginia? Why did my silly CFII fly with me all over WV with me shooting approaches under the hood at airports I'd never been too, mostly at night after work?

1) I fly in mountainous areas and have decided I need a twin for my comfort.

2) The highest point in WV is 4,863 ft. Around here that's barely over pattern altitude. Those are hills around here, not mountains.

[glafaille]

We all have different comfort levels when it comes to risk.  Just be sure you understand ALL the risk factors you are accepting before departing on a flight.  In aviation the term “You don’t know what you don’t know” can be all too true.

[donkaye]

For me flying over the Sierras even at 17,000 in VFR conditions, I'm uncomfortable for the 10 to 15 minutes where there are no good landing options. I've done an Ovation cross country with a student from Vancouver into the Canadian Rockys to CYVX where he had a home and the mountain are rough.  I've done lots of mountain trainings with the Mooney PPP when they were doing mountain checkouts.  I guess I like to have some options.  Flying the Rockys single engine over an undercast with icing conditions (even with TKS that could and did fail) would be a little too much risk for my tastes.   I'd save the flight for a VFR day.  Symptom wise, add the bends in combination with low O2 saturation level as another possibility.  I've had a passenger experience the bends at an altitude as low as 13,000 feet.  By the time vision starts to go, it's time for a Hyperbaric chamber.

I'm glad things worked out for you.

[hais]

13 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

Glad that you landed safely.  It sounds like you came perilously close to becoming a statistic and a subject of "Safety & Accident" discussion for a different reason.  I think it highlights how risky flying is, especially single pilot IFR.  It also highlights how we tend to normalize that risk.  In your first paragraph it doesn't sound like flying over fully cloud obscured Rockies is an impediment or show stopper for your flight planning.  I am curious if this event changes any of your planning for risk mitigation. - either when flying alone or with passengers.

What changes for me is risk assessment for single pilot operation. My consideration before this incident was fatigue and workload for IFR in IMC. My mitigation has been resting, reducing IMC time (don't cruise in IMC), and automation (A/P + glass). 

So now I will factor in "what happens if I get sick" to my mission assessment, focusing on being able to get down while impaired. And hopefully someone will combine unresponsive pilot detection and emergency autoland as a panel upgrade option.

Second, I will use mask if flying alone and use an alerting pulse oximeter. No cannulas. No oximeters that you need to put on and read the display. Here's the lesson: 

The most probable cause was that I had a viral infection which caused runny nose. Unconsciously I used my mouth, which caused hypoxia. Once impaired, it never occurred to me to recheck my O2 saturation or question my O2 setup - after all, my saturation was at 98% just before the incident and I still was wearing a cannula. 

[CoffeeCan]

On 12/11/2021 at 3:54 PM, hais said:

What changes for me is risk assessment for single pilot operation. My consideration before this incident was fatigue and workload for IFR in IMC. My mitigation has been resting, reducing IMC time (don't cruise in IMC), and automation (A/P + glass). 

........

The most probable cause was that I had a viral infection which caused runny nose. Unconsciously I used my mouth, which caused hypoxia. Once impaired, it never occurred to me to recheck my O2 saturation or question my O2 setup - after all, my saturation was at 98% just before the incident and I still was wearing a cannula. 

Good analysis!

I have mild allergies that sometimes make me unconsciously switch to mouth-breathing on occasion. I usually am not aware of it until I notice my mouth/lips getting dry. This is potentially a dangerous situation when you're flying high with a hose in the nose, and I have made a point of consciously monitoring my breathing up high. 

A lot of things can affect your blood O2 saturation, not just mouth-breathing. This is particularly true if you have even mild respiratory illness such as asthma or COPD. I have mild intermittent asthma, requiring occasional use of a rescue inhaler (less than 3X weekly) and I've noticed that if I get a touch of a cold or cough, not even enough to require me to start using my inhaler, my SpO2 will be significantly lower than expected as soon as I climb above 8000' MSL. I don't begin to feel at all short of breath unless my sats drop down below 90-92%, which is pretty much normal for most people. But at that point I know that I am in a significant oxygen debt situation, and my brain is not functioning as well as it should. For this reason I put my oxygen on whenever I'm flying above 8000' for more than a few minutes. (Personal minimums are all well and good, but there is solid science behind the FAA recommendation that you use O's when you fly above 8000' at night, and when you think about it, it makes some sense in the daytime, too.) 

I like to cruise in the teens, selecting altitude based on wind, but usually getting as high as I can because of the efficiencies up there and the paucity of traffic. When I switch on the autopilot on the panel, I have to make sure I don't switch my brain over to autopilot as well. That means doing a constant scan of instruments, external environment, AND of my own status:  as in, monitor my breathing (through the nose), check my pulse oximeter on a regular basis, check my Oxymizer bubble to confirm gas flow, etc. 

Having a mask on hand makes a lot of sense. 

[CoffeeCan]

On 12/11/2021 at 7:37 AM, Hank said:

So many flatlands are afraid of flying over mountains at night or in IMC, some at all, and now apparently some are afraid of mountains under a layer beneath them. For people who live in the mountains, they are simply part of life. If it's so dangerous flying over mountains, why are there so many people who live in mountainous areas that fly? How did I find a flight school when I lived in West Virginia? Why did my silly CFII fly with me all over WV with me shooting approaches under the hood at airports I'd never been too, mostly at night after work?

The whole country isn't Florida, east Texas or Kansas (thank God!),  and airplanes are quite useful and fun in an awful lot of the U.S. and Canada that also aren't like those boring flat spots where roads are laid out using lasers and T-squares.

While the OP certainly had himself a situation, mountains only figured into ruling out one alternate. Other than that, he could have been in central Wisconsin and everything else would have been the same. Viruses, O2 issues, CO leaks--none of these know what's under the plane. My money would be on O2 / CO for the root cause. Dan slept his C into the ground from CO over flat, flat Minnesota, after all.

4 months ago I would have been thumping the table and crying, "Hear, hear!" to your post. 

Today, after having a Sept. 30 engine-out forced landing in my 231 with only 450 hours SMOH on my engine, I'm not so sure I can endorse your position at all. I am much less trusting of single-engine aircraft flight now than I was previously. Yes, I know, it's a matter of personal minimums. Let's just say mine have changed substantially since then.  

I had 6500' of clear air below me when my engine died.  Even though that gave me close to 10 miles of glide range to choose a landing spot, at the end of the rollout I realized I had been damn lucky to have as good a spot to land as I did, even in the flatlands of eastern Colorado. If you have only 500' of air under you when you can finally see your spot, and rough ground to choose from; or if landing spots are 15 miles apart between mountain ridges; or if you can't see the ground at all until the last few seconds due to it being nighttime, or dense IMC,  the time and flexibility I enjoyed in my forced landing may not be available to you, and the difference could be mortal. 

I have been flying routinely at night over the Texas hill country 2-3 times per month for the past couple of years. This is not something I will be doing in the future. But when it comes to terrain that can kill you, the peaks don't have to be 14,000 feet high... a 10' deep gully  or a 60' maple tree on your landing rollout will kill you just as dead a Pike's Peak. Likewise, flying over IMC with low IFR landing conditions under it isn't something I care to do again. 

Basically, I've revised my personal minimums for single-engine operation to situations where I will have a minimum of 1000' of clear air above all potential landing spots on my route of flight. That doesn't rule out mountain flying for me, but it certainly tightens the parameters. 

 Again, it's a matter of personal minimums, and everyone has to set their own. 

[carusoam]

Hais,

Thanks for supplying all the details…. Continuously checking back, and filling on more….

 

CCan,

Same for your details….  That I have caught in two threads…. And just getting caught up on…. (Have you started a specific engine out thread regarding your challenge?)

Please do if you can… start from the top.  

Best regards,

-a-

[CoffeeCan]

16 hours ago, carusoam said:

Hais,

Thanks for supplying all the details…. Continuously checking back, and filling on more….

 

CCan,

Same for your details….  That I have caught in two threads…. And just getting caught up on…. (Have you started a specific engine out thread regarding your challenge?)

Please do if you can… start from the top.  

Best regards,

-a-

Hmm.  I have not started a specific thread on engine-out ops, but I did post a detailed account of my incident here on this forum... titled "09/30 N5779R Engine Failure at 12,500'." 

But it may be a good topic for general discussion elsewhere

I 

Edited December 20, 2021 by CoffeeCan

[rbp]

On 12/11/2021 at 10:51 AM, N201MKTurbo said:

She would never take it

she is pretty smart

[rbp]

On 12/19/2021 at 1:20 PM, CoffeeCan said:

engine-out forced landing

this might be of interest to some people

>>>In the event of engine power loss in flight, pilots can activate Smart Glide with an optional dedicated Smart Glide button or by holding the Direct-to button for two seconds to initiate an activation². Once activated, Smart Glide recommends an airport estimated to be within glide range and automatically creates a direct-to route. Smart Glide considers several factors when choosing the recommended airport within glide range including runway length and condition; proximity; terrain; and available weather from sources such as FIS-B, SiriusXM³, and Garmin Connext^® weather³, in addition to current measured winds calculated by the primary flight display (PFD). If the aircraft is appropriately equipped with either a GTX^™ 345/GTX 345R transponder or a GNX^™ 375 acting as a transponder, or a GSR 56/GDL 69/GDL 69A with an appropriate weather subscription, Smart Glide can even consider VFR/IFR conditions when recommending the most suitable airport. Alternate airports within glide range can also be selected if the pilot desires. In the event the system estimates there is not an airport within glide range, Smart Glide provides an aural and visual alert to the pilot, while continuing to search for an airport in range, and automatically pitching for configured best glide speed in aircraft equipped with a compatible Garmin autopilot.