Becoming a father was the coolest thing I have ever done. Amidst a veritable sea of cool things, nothing else really comes close. When some deadbeat abandons his family, he’s the one who misses out the most. Never before have I worked so hard on something so satisfying.
The Army taught me how to fly, and I maintain a sexy cool little fighter plane today. My Vans RV-6A has enough space for two people and a little luggage. It cruises at 155 knots or around 178 miles per hour. I live in north central Mississippi. I can have breakfast at home and enjoy lunch in Chicago.
My wife doesn’t care for my adorable little plane. She christened the machine Tommyrot. I had to look that up. It is a British term meaning “foolish, silly, or ill-advised.”
The Setting
My plan was to fly up to Ohio where my son went to school, treat him and his girlfriend to lunch, and bring him back home for the Christmas holidays. The trip was about three hours each way. We could avoid the TSA and set our own schedule. The first crisis was the weather guessers.
The weather was crummy overnight but predicted to clear at 0800. Except that when I got to the airfield the weather still sucked. I stretched out on the couch in the hangar and took a nap.
By noon the weather was finally agreeable. No worries. I used to fly night vision goggles for Uncle Sam. I love flying at night. Now I’d fly up, we’d do dinner, and then we’d trek home enjoying the stars above the canopy. Life was good.
The Problem
The first leg was uneventful. It’s a simple plane without a lot of extraneous instrumentation. Everything operated as advertised. Dinner was sublime.
We took off headed south to a bit of a headwind. Maybe twenty minutes into the flight the radio and transponder spontaneously died. That was weird but not alarming. I turned them back on again. This happened maybe three times. Then the cockpit lights began to dim.
The circuit breakers were all good, and the engine instruments looked fine. However, the volt meter was a little low. The alternator was dead. I had likely been running off the battery all day, and it was only now letting me know.
Military pilots train incessantly to manage emergencies. You come to expect things to fail. However, it’s fundamentally different with your kid in the right seat.
An electrical failure in a small airplane really isn’t that big a deal. The engine doesn’t care. It has twin redundant engine-driven magnetos that will keep the prop turning no matter what. I navigated off of an iPad and could use my phone as a backup in a pinch. The problem was the radio.
We were in uncontrolled airspace. I didn’t need to talk to anybody. However, in the dark you must have an operational radio to turn on the runway lights on an unmanned airfield. That was actually a big deal. You can’t land a blacked-out plane in the dark if you cannot see the runway. I also had little interest in blasting into Memphis International in a doodlebug-sized airplane without radios. This would take a little pilotage.
Throughout it all, my son remained great company. We talked through the challenges as each arose. I shut everything down and made a beeline for Lexington, KY—the nearest airfield of any decent size. I keep a green lens flashlight in the plane, but naturally it was dead. I got lined up on final, fired up the radio, and clicked the mike seven times. To my relief, the runway lights burst to life.
I couldn’t see my flight instruments and had no landing light. Additionally, the flaps are electric so we landed really fast. In retrospect, we both honestly enjoyed the adventure. No lasting harm was done. Except that I had to call my wife and tell her we were in Kentucky and not Mississippi. I’m not sure she will ever forgive me for managing a total electrical failure in the dark with our son by my side.
