"Minor" emergency.

[aviatoreb]

Well I had a slightly exciting flight yesterday.  I went up to do "6 approaches" under foggles with a pilot buddy.  I only did 4 approaches since then I got to practice a minor emergency.

Well - minor because I love the we have backup systems which of course came to the rescue when the primary had failed.

My electric gear failed.  So I broke off the approach to debug and ended the practice approaches - meaning removed the foggles since yeah its fun to practice emergencies while practicing ifr but ... well getting real.

Electric was dead as a door nail when I tried to lower it upon a practice approach into KMAL.  Moved the switch back and forth - nothing.  No change in feel of aerodynamics as it would move - no indication on the annunciator, and no indication on the floor it had move.  Checked braker.  Not popped.  Everything else electrical in the plane was working, voltage meter happy, engine happy, so concluded - broken electric gear.

So to the manual gear extension cord between the seat.  Seemed to work fine after what - a dozen or more pumps as it takes to extend the gear, and the annunciator was working while gear was in transit (gear unsafe light) and the when the pull cord ran out, the gear safe light lit and the floor indication was good.  So I elected to fly the 25 mile from KMAL to home KPTD and setup to land.  I was still a tad worried the gear wasn't really down - even though that is exceedingly unlikely with the floor indicator showing properly.  I told myself if somehow it was not and I was floating too long as if I were trying to land with gear up, I would go around and go to Burlington KBTV - 75mi - to land gear up if I must, where there is available big air field fire trucks if somehow a belly up turned bad.

But I had a nice wheels landing and headed to the hangar.  Hardly a big emergency but I figure anything where you stop what you are doing to handle a mechanical problem is still at least some kind of emergency and should be dealt with as such.

So good training flight - got in some approaches and practiced an emergency.

Problem not yet diagnosed. Stay tuned.

 

[Fly Boomer]

2 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Problem not yet diagnosed. Stay tuned.

Good to hear plane and pilot all okay.  Now we really want to know what failed.

[201er]

21 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Well I had a slightly exciting flight yesterday.  I went up to do "6 approaches" under foggles with a pilot buddy.  I only did 4 approaches since then I got to practice a minor emergency.

Well - minor because I love the we have backup systems which of course came to the rescue when the primary had failed.

Did you declare a "minor" emergency to ATC?

[EricJ]

Glad it wasn't worse!

I'm guessing it's something simple like a failed relay, broken wire, limit switch or something like that.

[Hank]

Great job, Erik! I had an electrical failure dropping my gear on a VOR-A approach with my CFII as an instrument student. We had broken out of the clouds on the outbound leg, and I foggled up, turned inbound, crossed and dropped gear. Pop! Everything went dark . . . leveled off, removed foggles for troubleshooting, gave Owners Manual to DFII and turned to follow the Ohio River back to the airport [normally ~20 minutes away, but between Vge and not going direct, it was somewhat longer]. Turned out to be an electronic component on a circuit board attached to the instrument lighting rheostat.

The other time, I had flown friends to lunch and was waved to parking. When I got out, the lineman pointed at my nose gear doors, one of which was flapping with the linkage dangling down. So again I flew home slowly with gear down.

Hope your problem is as simple!

[aviatoreb]

17 minutes ago, 201er said:

Did you declare a "minor" emergency to ATC?

Hi - no I did not.  I guess the phrase emergency to ATC must mean that I am asserting that I require special handling of some kind?  Meaning get me to the runway now.  Or put me in front of other traffic because I have an emergency.  If I had been talking to ATC then I would have notified them I have an issue but that it is not currently an emergency.  But that said, you have me thinking - maybe I should have talked to ATC in this case - where I am located the kind of flying I am describing, local approaches all rural airports, we aren't generally talking to ATC and furthermore there are often not a single other aircraft in the air for 50 miles around.  Might have been a good idea now that I think of it if I had tuned in to ATC at this time and notified of my "minor problem".

[A64Pilot]

You declare a Pan Pan for a “minor emergency” They know exactly what that is, and they will give you priority handling and be watching out for you, They will be prepared for it to get worse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-pan

[carusoam]

Any stop for sushi after the flight?

fuzzy memory check…

-a-

[201Mooniac]

Great to hear you handled it so well.  I was wondering if you tried the red safety override button?  I had a similar sounding failure once and all it took was to push the red button (a failed airspeed safety switch).  I also had one where the circuit break popped when I tried to put the gear handle down (a wire shorted).  Both were definitely minor events but do get your attention.

[Ragsf15e]

46 minutes ago, 201er said:

Did you declare a "minor" emergency to ATC?

Ha!  They love that.

[Ragsf15e]

12 minutes ago, 201Mooniac said:

Great to hear you handled it so well.  I was wondering if you tried the red safety override button?  I had a similar sounding failure once and all it took was to push the red button (a failed airspeed safety switch).  I also had one where the circuit break popped when I tried to put the gear handle down (a wire shorted).  Both were definitely minor events but do get your attention.

I have a different model (F), but I thought the red bypass only put the gear up, not down.  Yes it skips the airspeed switch, but that switch doesn’t keep your gear from coming down, only up.

[Ragsf15e]

31 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Hi - no I did not.  I guess the phrase emergency to ATC must mean that I am asserting that I require special handling of some kind?  Meaning get me to the runway now.  Or put me in front of other traffic because I have an emergency.  If I had been talking to ATC then I would have notified them I have an issue but that it is not currently an emergency.  But that said, you have me thinking - maybe I should have talked to ATC in this case - where I am located the kind of flying I am describing, local approaches all rural airports, we aren't generally talking to ATC and furthermore there are often not a single other aircraft in the air for 50 miles around.  Might have been a good idea now that I think of it if I had tuned in to ATC at this time and notified of my "minor problem".

Here’s my cfii/5000hrs take on it. Never wrong to declare an emergency… however, if you weren’t already talking to them and with the failure and plan you had, I wouldn’t bother calling them up to declare an emergency or tell them anything.  If you’re already talking to them and you wanted to start circling and working the issue or then needed priority or emergency vehicles, then sure, declare.  No harm, no foul.  But in your described situation, great job!  

Fingers crossed for an easy fix!

[aviatoreb]

29 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

You declare a Pan Pan for a “minor emergency” They know exactly what that is, and they will give you priority handling and be watching out for you, They will be prepared for it to get worse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-pan

Huh - I never heard of that.  That's really a thing?

But why a code like that - I would be inclined to just talk to ATC in plain English and tell them I have a gear issue that I am problem solving.  Then once sufficiently solved as I have it I would want to say that I am proceeding to KPTD now.

[aviatoreb]

8 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

Here’s my cfii/5000hrs take on it. Never wrong to declare an emergency… however, if you weren’t already talking to them and with the failure and plan you had, I wouldn’t bother calling them up to declare an emergency or tell them anything.  If you’re already talking to them and you wanted to start circling and working the issue or then needed priority or emergency vehicles, then sure, declare.  No harm, no foul.  But in your described situation, great job!  

Fingers crossed for an easy fix!

Thanks!

The only thing different I think is if I had been at a towered airport, I may have asked for them to take a look visually if my gear is down.

My co-pilot is a professor of electrical engineering - actually chair of the department and he owns and flies a C206.  We were talking about mirrors used in many high wing airplanes.

...but how easy would it these days to make a micro remote camera that speaks to a mini tv by blue tooth inside the cabin for a visual of the gear.  Why not?  Like a backup camera in a car.  To do this on the cheap for a car would be like $50.  But the cost in aviation terms as a certified unit, add two zeros

[carusoam]

Pan Pan….

Used frequently with boats and coast guard broadcasts…

Have not heard being used in aviation lately…?

Best regards,

-a-

[201Mooniac]

13 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

I have a different model (F), but I thought the red bypass only put the gear up, not down.  Yes it skips the airspeed switch, but that switch doesn’t keep your gear from coming down, only up.

Maybe I'm confusing the cause but at least in my J using the red button did allow the gear to come down in that situation. I guess it makes sense though for the AS switch to only matter when bringing the gear up.

[aviatoreb]

31 minutes ago, carusoam said:

Any stop for sushi after the flight?

fuzzy memory check…

-a-

Oh my gosh no!!!  That was a sushi AND sakii night for sure after that very intense scary but good outcome real McCoy emergency.

Yes that crossed my mind yesterday.  As it does sometimes even on entirely uneventful flights. 

Good outcome then - and this time too!

[Ragsf15e]

10 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Huh - I never heard of that.  That's really a thing?

But why a code like that - I would be inclined to just talk to ATC in plain English and tell them I have a gear issue that I am problem solving.  Then once sufficiently solved as I have it I would want to say that I am proceeding to KPTD now.

Usually used overseas (Europe for sure).  It may be icao standard, but I suspect atc here would be confused by it.  

[Ragsf15e]

9 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Thanks!

The only thing different I think is if I had been at a towered airport, I may have asked for them to take a look visually if my gear is down.

My co-pilot is a professor of electrical engineering - actually chair of the department and he owns and flies a C206.  We were talking about mirrors used in many high wing airplanes.

...but how easy would it these days to make a micro remote camera that speaks to a mini tv by blue tooth inside the cabin for a visual of the gear.  Why not?  Like a backup camera in a car.  To do this on the cheap for a car would be like $50.  But the cost in aviation terms as a certified unit, add two zeros

No doubt.  How about a very small Bluetooth camera secured (3m velcro?) inside a wheel well or maybe even back of the nose wheel truss to see the mains?  That would be awesome!

[Ragsf15e]

11 minutes ago, 201Mooniac said:

Maybe I'm confusing the cause but at least in my J using the red button did allow the gear to come down in that situation. I guess it makes sense though for the AS switch to only matter when bringing the gear up.

Yeah, for how simple the gear is, the wiring, switches, CBs can get complicated quickly with a fault… the “override” switch was originally added to the models with squat switches on the left gear to override them if they didn’t expand on takeoff.  Those models didn’t even have airspeed switches.  Later models went back to airspeed switches, but I’m not 100% sure what their override switch overrides, so you could be correct?

[aviatoreb]

3 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

Yeah, for how simple the gear is, the wiring, switches, CBs can get complicated quickly with a fault… the “override” switch was originally added to the models with squat switches on the left gear to override them if they didn’t expand on takeoff.  Those models didn’t even have airspeed switches.  Later models went back to airspeed switches, but I’m not 100% sure what their override switch overrides, so you could be correct?

That's my feeling - 

we already have an emergency mechanical elbow grease method to lower the gear if the electric method fails.  I am inclined to thing that once the electric method has failed as it did then that is something to solve in the shop later on the ground and I don't really want an extra button or fault logic to think about other than I was able to lower my gear manually - for which I was very grateful!

[aviatoreb]

10 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

No doubt.  How about a very small Bluetooth camera secured (3m velcro?) inside a wheel well or maybe even back of the nose wheel truss to see the mains?  That would be awesome!

Let's do it!  We could be rich!

Actually ironically - I was shopping for just this kind of stuff a few weeks ago thinking about it for sculling which is my rowing sport which has one annoying feature. You go backwards!

[Hank]

19 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Actually ironically - I was shopping for just this kind of stuff a few weeks ago thinking about it for sculling which is my rowing sport which has one annoying feature. You go backwards!

That's what the coxswain is for!

But no, I don't want to carry a coxswain or similar on all of my flights . . . . .

[jaylw314]

44 minutes ago, carusoam said:

Pan Pan….

Used frequently with boats and coast guard broadcasts…

Have not heard being used in aviation lately…?

Best regards,

-a-

I'd probably reserve the pan-pan call for if I felt ATC was ignoring me.  If I had to let them know I might have an issue and need their help, I'd probably just tell them.

34 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

No doubt.  How about a very small Bluetooth camera secured (3m velcro?) inside a wheel well or maybe even back of the nose wheel truss to see the mains?  That would be awesome!

IIRC, the floor indicator is essentially impossible to show down if the gear is not down (which is why my POH says always verify by the floor indicator).  On the other hand, I suppose it will not tell you if your gear has completely fallen off or something, but then your problems would be in a whole different category...

[Ragsf15e]

2 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

I'd probably reserve the pan-pan call for if I felt ATC was ignoring me.  If I had to let them know I might have an issue and need their help, I'd probably just tell them.

IIRC, the floor indicator is essentially impossible to show down if the gear is not down (which is why my POH says always verify by the floor indicator).  On the other hand, I suppose it will not tell you if your gear has completely fallen off or something, but then your problems would be in a whole different category...

Yeah I agree, if the floor indicator is good, it’s down, but it’s pretty comforting to actually see the gear down like the mirrors show on high wing ac.