Hello All,
Glad to see the blog views have managed to hit 420 so quick! I will have to stop hitting refresh over and over.
Well, today was much better. We briefed we would go to Jerez today, so we completed the Jerez 1C Standard Instrument Departure. Wind was about 20kts off the runway, so there was a bit of work to be done. Once above the terrain, I got an ATC vector to an intersection point on the departure, this would be a lot shorter and brought us straight to Jerez.
I have been told by others, that this airfield is not a popular Skills Test airfield, as Flight Training Europe are based here, and they are forever doing touch and gos, leaving it impossible to get some approaches in.
We went overhead the beacon, with a direct entry and proceded with the approach. The missed approach point is based on timing from the Final Approach Fix, which in this case, is when you pass over the beacon.
Went good, managed to descend to Minimum Descent Altitude a little early, so i was flying straight and level at 600ft for 30 seconds. No runway in sight, so did a go around and followed the missed approach procedure.
Due to weather being below minimums for the NDB approach, we completed an ILS approach, which has a reduced minima of 200ft AGL on this particular type. Again, no runway in sight so we did a go around and went on our way to Seville, where the weather was a little better.
First approach was the ILS Z/ LOC Z approach, we started from the airway intersection called "RUVEN", Once established at RUVEN, I followed the procedure in to Seville, shortly after passing the waypoint, I received a red flag on my attitude indicator and I saw the world slowly topple. I would not like this to happen to me for real, Its basically when your artificial horizon fails, and this is usually coupled by a direction indicator failure, but in this case, we have an electronic HSI. So, using the turn co-ordinator to determine your rate of turn and your airspeed/vertical speed to maintain your level flight attitude.
I made a PAN call to atc, which is an Urgency call. I requested vectors to an area where Visual Meteorological conditions prevailed. Then my Instructor, who was actually ATC showed me where my electric attitude indicator was and I was saved.
If you ever think that the Attitude Indicator is rubbish, try flying in Instrument Meteorological Conditions without it!
So, I got vectors for the ILS and just about to intercept it i heard a pop! Looked down and saw the circut breaker popped for the right alternator. This meant that the left alternator was picking up the load and was indicating a 70% Load. So i started to do whats called "Load Shed", by turning off any equipment you do not need, such as lights, fans for air, or unused radio equipment.
Just as I solved that out, my left prop started to overspeed! I could hear all this banging through my ears! So, trying to keep the localiser within my tolerance and sort out the overspeeding prop by changing the pitch to a more coarser setting, which seemed to work. As I slowly changed the pitch of my left prop, my right engine stopped. At this point, I almost burst into tears laughing, It was like a circus!
At this point on the approach, I feathered the bad engine, I couldnt start any sort of fixing as we were about 4 miles from touchdown.
We got to minimums and I could just about see the runway, so once visual i started to descend below it. Then I lost it, Then i saw it again, Then I lost it! AAAhhH!
So, a single engine go around, with an overspeeding prop, failed alternator and failed Artifical Horizon!
The missed approach procedure was to follow runway heading, what do you know only we get a HSI failure soon after the go around.
Trying to get the BE76 upto 6000ft above sea level was a struggle, It was maxed out to make it. Soon after my instructor leaned over and said "you know you can use the electronic trim here on the yoke", me trying to be nice said "oh yeah" - Knowing well it was there, I decided to operate it just to keep him happy. When i released my finger from the switch, I could hear the trimmer motor still running and my Instructor with a grin on his face! So much for that set up, Circut breaker pulled and back to my manual trim wheel.
With some time on the approach, I did some fault finding to find out that there was something wrong with the fuel tank on the engine that had failed, and no, it did not magicaly become filled with air!
Crossfeed on, and got the engine back into life!- Was I a happy camper or what.....
Back to Malaga for another approach to a full stop!
In the sim again at 10am, hopefully not to sweat as much.
Andrew
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