Flying Lessons

It was not supposed to be a particularly long flight, about two and a half hours from the Eastern Shore of Maryland to Detroit.  We were fully loaded with all the usual stuff plus binoculars, cameras, and spotting scopes -- three people in a single engine high- performance four-place airplane.  Carolyn had given over the copilot seat to Lester, an expert birder and close friend.  Lester serves as our personal bird guide on these pilgrimages each May to Point Pelee, Canada, when thousands of songbirds funnel up and cross the Great Lakes at this particular spot on their way North. Their spring migration offers some of the most spectacular bird watching in North America.

Lester is about the only person to whom Carolyn would surrender secondary control.  She has completed the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Pinch Hitter Course and is confident that, under ordinary circumstances, she would be able to get this little airplane back on the ground if something happened to me.

The takeoff was normal.  We were relaxed, happy to be on our way. The weather was solidly overcast across the Eastern half of the United States, but I wasn’t concerned, as no turbulence or icing was forecast at our planned altitude of 8000 feet and I had had many hours of instrument flight time behind me. This sort of flying in a modern, well-equipped small plane has sometimes been described as “hours of boredom, punctuated by moments of sheer terror.”  With the autopilot set, our path through the gloom cleared for us by air traffic control, and nothing visible in the clouds, we were in that quiet state, completely unaware that we were rushing headlong into one of those moments of sheer terror.

It happened this way.  We had just angled across Lake Erie from over Cleveland.  I had readjusted my seat and was reviewing the approach plates in preparation for an instrument approach into the Detroit downtown airport.  The landing would need to take place in nearly the minimum required visibility.  Suddenly, without warning, we had a total electrical failure.  The entire panel of lights went blank: no sound in our earphones and no outside horizon to align with. I heard my old flying instructor’s voice loudly saying: “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate” (always in that order).

So the first thing to do was to keep the wings level.  Because I had an artificial horizon, an airspeed indicator, and an altimeter (none of which are dependent on electricity) I could, with great concentration, theoretically keep us flying and not spin out of control.  The engine would also keep running, I hoped, since it had its independent magneto-supplied current.  I say this to share information; these were not factors from which I was deriving any comfort at the time. 

It’s amazing how many pictures can quickly go through one’s mind when death seems imminent.  The week before, I had read an article called “Spatial Disorientation: The Deadly Killer,” which detailed the many fatal accidents that happen when a pilot becomes disoriented during an emergency in the clouds.  An image flashed in my mind of an experience I had had in a simulator designed to induce vertigo.  I had been given the simple task of reaching down to put numbers in a transponder, and I totally lost control of my simulated airplane. Now, concentrating on very small head movements, I busied myself trying to keep at bay all thoughts of fatal accidents and to manage this predicament.

In these first seconds of panic, I was doing what I could to Aviate (keep the wings level and the altitude constant) and to Navigate (“in times of radio failure, continue to fly the last assigned heading and altitude”).           

It was time to attempt to Communicate. I tried to reach behind for the backup hand-held transceiver (radio) I keep in the armrest without waking Carolyn.  I discovered she was not sleeping.  She was thinking, “This is the end, but I have had a very good life,” she later reported.  All I saw at the time was her face buried in the pillow she clutched to her breast.

Communicating through a little hand-held radio is not easy at best and can be disorienting in a loud cockpit.  I could not believe how LOUD it was. Nonetheless I was able to establish contact with Air Traffic Control, declare an emergency and state our problem.  The standard phraseology ATC uses in such a situation is marvelous:  “Zero Foxtrot Quebec (our call sign), what are your intentions?”  I mean, cut me a break!  What are my intentions?  It was hard not to reply in dead earnest:  “My intentions?   Hopefully somehow to live!”

Trying to sound calm, and doing the best I could to lower my tone several octaves; I replied that I would like to have vectors (directions) to the nearest VFR airport (one with good visibility under the clouds).  ATC: “State available fuel.”   The fuel gauges are electric in my plane, but I had been trained to keep track by time, so I knew I had about an hour and a half left, which I reported.  There was a long pause on the other end.  Then a second moment of terror: “Zero Foxtrot Quebec, there are no VFR airports within