[Anon]

A long trip from the south coast to Scotland went well with no problems except orbiting near my destination for a couple of Ryanair doing circuits so on landing and being mindful that my mate had been waiting a while I shut down and vacated the aircraft as quickly as possible, mistake 1 on leaving was to accidentally catch my emergency bus switch with my foot and knocked it on,
I built the aircraft and fitted two Battery and busses to give redundancy because
The aircraft is electrically dependant (no mechanical fuel pump}

On returning to the airport three days later the weather was marginal VFR so waited at the FBO until early afternoon before it looked doable, Refuelled and completed my walk around, Mistake 2 was realising I had knocked the switch on was trying the secondary bus and finding it having enough power for a start so climbed aboard,

With start-up I had presumed the primary bus would be able to come back online,
My main avionics panel remained completely dead with a good number of instruments Not working but being a idiot that didn’t stop me,

I pulled out my emergency Icom radio and plugged in my headset and called the tower
For departure clearance all the time thinking that the primary bus would come back
Online when it received enough charge,

Taxied to the Intersection and given clearance to take off and to call on leaving the CTR, I acknowledged and advanced the throttle, On leaving the ground I got a warning of turbo over boost so reduced power quickly to stop any possible damaged to the engine leaving me with a marginal climb potential (turbo waist gate is electrically driven) so some slight manoeuvring to avoid the high ground to the east, I headed south to clear the CTR
When just above the VRP the Battery on my Icom died, the last message I heard
Were three inbound jets on the ILS so decided? Mistake 3 to carry on,

It was also the time that I realised that my trim didn’t work and I needed a constant push to keep her level, and my Constant speed propeller wouldn’t coarsens up properly switched to manual and managed to drop the RPM to a sensible level,
At this point I had a four hour trip ahead after discounting going back into the CTR
With No radio/transponder so pushed on around the coast now avoiding all the airspace I would have normally asked permission to transit, North of Birmingham
The weather went rapidly downhill with low cloud base and rain with poor vis,
I picked my way around Birmingham followed by London and tried to make up my
Mind what airfield would be safest to divert into, Engine was running well and I had plenty of fuel so decided to press on, with 30 NM to run to my base I turned on my mobile phone and imputed the ATC number in readiness, then switched the prop control from manual to auto to check its operation all the time trying to remain VMC,

Suddenly the engine rpm shot into the red arc and I pulled the throttle right back to idle, I tried to go manual again but she wouldn’t respond so as the airspeed dropped towards 70kts my decision was made for me,
Headcorn was left and 4 NM a straight in approach to runway11 with luckily no one
In the circuit because of the weather and 20kts crosswind, Never have I been
So pleased to get her on the ground, As I taxied her off the runway my phone
Starting to ring, It was D&D trying to find out were I had got too,

All in all a salutary lesson was learned


After the event it was found that the motor for VP prop had burnt out, not sure if it was due to low voltage, but this caused the propeller to go fully fine, with hindsight she would have kept flying fully fine but with only 800ft altitude I considered the sudden drop in airspeed and height to put her on the ground as soon as possible,

The primary bus could never come online because the contactor for that circuit only received its power from the primary battery, (which was dead flat)
The trim emergency circuit hadn’t worked since I had the panel out last winter and
Was on my to do list this winter,
Make sure my Handheld Icom is fully charged and I carry the 12volt lead to plug into the ships power,
My emergency bus switch is now guarded,

[geehils]

"The primary bus could never come online because the contactor for that circuit only received its power from the primary battery, (which was dead flat)"

So might you get the same problem in the future if the battery went u/s as against simply flat?

I've landed and taken off on that runway with a monster cross wind and it crossed my mind later that life would have been far easier using the shorter cross runway.

Clearly you found many holes in the cheese on that flight, but none that made you decide to actually land en route. Perhaps if they had started to align, you would have done so, but you give the impression that you handled each one OK. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[Anon]

Geehils

In answer to your questions,

I am modifying the wiring to incorporate a Mechanical switch between both primary and auxiliary batteries, (Only to be used if one of the batteries went u/s)

I did consider landing earlier as I passed overhead Ashcroft south of Manchester
But it looked waterlogged and the grass uncut so decided not too,

The Propeller went fully fine as I crossed the Ashford to Reigate railway heading about 130 degrees,
The sudden loss of thrust and dropping airspeed with Headcorn only 5 Nm
To my East left me with little alternatives, IMHO
03 at Headcorn is only 296m
And with no flaps (electrical) it might have proved too short but I must confess
I didn’t give it a thought at the time,

The Bottom line is I shouldn’t have taken my aircraft into the air with a multitude
Of known and unknown electrical faults!

[Lowtimer]

Excellent post, thanks, it really made me feel your anxiety as things kept going wrong. For sure you won;t be doing that again!