A Stimulating Adventure
It was a beautiful, clear day at my home airfield, and I was bound for Seattle to leave the airplane there for my two partners. The forecast the night before had sounded excellent, but now there appeared to be some low weather along the way. My preflight briefer had no pilot reports, though, so all I knew was that the two airports on my route most prone to clouds and fog were well below landing minimums. There was no way to tell how high up the cloud layer extended, and so no way to tell if I would be in the clouds if I flew at my accustomed altitude. I had preliminarily filed an instrument flight plan. Just before I was ready to go, still dithering over whether to fly on instruments, I had an opportunity to talk to the pilot of the scheduled flight that had just come up from my destination. Seattle’s Boeing Field was now clear, and the layer at the foggy places hadn’t extended to his 6,500 foot altitude. I didn’t need to file an instrument flight plan.
I launched, deciding it would be prudent to climb fairly high, both to be sure I cleared whatever clouds still remained and to give myself lots of glide leeway over the water.
As I climbed to 5,500 feet, I reflected once again on my great fortune in living where I do and being able to fly an airplane. It was clear and beautiful, with a very low-lying layer of clouds in some spots below me. The winds were from the north, and I was making excellent time. I should easily get to Seattle before my husband, who was driving the car down. I leveled off and leaned out the fuel mixture.
As I neared the metropolitan area, I realized I had been enjoying the smooth flight a little too long and would have to either descend fairly quickly or give back the minutes I had gained in the tailwind. I decided to sideslip, a quick, safe way to lose altitude in smooth air. I needed to get down to 3,000 feet before crossing Puget Sound to begin my approach to Boeing Field. I reduced power and started down.
The altimeter began to unwind. The sideslip was working. I didn’t want to do anything drastic, so I wasn’t descending at a dramatic rate. I still had more to go if I wanted to avoid circling to lose altitude further from the airport.
As I approached 3,000 feet, the sound of the engine changed abruptly. I was losing power! My mind worked furiously. Was the engine still running at all? I wasn’t sure, but I thought so. I leveled the wings, neutralized the rudder, and pushed the throttle to the firewall. No change. The propeller seemed to be going slower. Prop forward, into climb pitch. Nothing. Mixture rich. Oh, help! Carb heat. Still to go were switching on the fuel pump and a fuel tank check, though I had switched to the fuller tank just moments before. I raised the nose of the plane to achieve its best glide speed, turned to go further inland, and started to look for a spot to make an emergency landing if those adjustments didn’t work.
Then, like a dream come true, more slowly almost than I could bear, the sound of the engine came back to normal and the sensation that the prop was slowing ceased. The airplane seemed normal again. I was not.
I have often said that I have never been seriously afraid in an airplane. By that I sometimes meant that I loved flying too much to be frightened, and sometimes that I was too complacent for appropriate fear. My reaction to this emergency surprised me, and pleased me in a strange way. After I became satisfied that whatever was wrong had been corrected, my heart was pounding, my lungs were pumping, and I was trembling, to be sure. But I knew that along with the fear had been a great deal of adrenaline, and that I had done most of the right things, the things I had been practicing for over 18 years. I knew that I hadn’t been paralyzed with fear, and that I would have tried to fly the plane all the way to the ground.
Now, almost a week later, I think I know what happened: I had fuel enough for a trip to Seattle plus more than an hour’s additional fuel, but no more. The Socata Tobago I fly has one fuel tank in each wing, and they are separate. In keeping one wing down for a while, I was, of course, also keeping the other one up. And I was probably running off the tank of the wing higher in the air. (Funny the things you don’t remember after a fright . . .) My flight instructor later said he bet that if I looked carefully through the airplane manual, I would find a caution against doing that; and he was right. He is an excellent instructor, and we have practiced engine-out procedures every time I do my biennial flight review with him and other times as well. That practice might just save my life another time.
Nothing is ever certain in life or in flying. But in flying, we prepare for the unknown the best we can. Would that we could be so prepared for the uncertainties of life.
