eventful trip

[gmpaul]

After a great weekend at Fredericksberg, TX (T-82) Hangar Hotel, my bride and I flew to Hondo (HDO) for some cheap fuel and the start of our last leg home (BYY). 5 miles out and climbing I got a whiff of something hot & asked Jean: ?Do you smell something?? she said ?yes.? A quick 180 back to HDO. After looking and sniffing till our snuffers were worn out, finding nothing we decided that we must have flown over some factory or something on the ground causing the hot smell. OK off we go again. Around the same place as the first time, the odor returned. I scanned the engine page (full glass panel GRT (don?t need no stinking round gauges)) everything looked good Yep, must be something on the ground. We were cruising 7500ft 150 kts just to the south of San Antonio when the proverbial S? hit the fan. My panel went black. Jean asks ?What are we going to do?? My immediate response (fly this airplane). There were three things still working happily in the plane, 0-320 purring like a kitten, 496 fat and happy, and a compass pointing our way. First priority: turn off all electrical (which was already not working), second explain to my bride what we were going to do, talking loudly because our ear muffs were really EAR MUFFS no powered voice any more. Conversation went something like this: Mom we can go back to HDO and be 200nm from home with a broken plane or we can fly home (BYY) and fix it there. Remember we built our plane with backups, Look at the 496 it doesn?t care if the plane doesn?t have power, if that fails the compass was made by the Lord it will always work. The engine has two mags for its own power.
Her Response: ?OK! Let?s go home.? I must have sounded cool, calm, and collected which doesn?t explain the button holes in my seat.
Somewhere on our way home I explained that we were going to land faster than normal with no flaps, no altitude and no air speed. We would be going across the runway to downwind and I needed extra help looking for other aircraft in pattern.
After using all the runway to land, here?s what I found: Odyssey battery 9.8 volts after trying to charge it. Alternator Van?s 60 amp. dead.
After running different scenarios through my head I still don?t know what died first.
My panel is going to have two round holes in it (grin) an altimeter and an air speed. Best of all my bride still wants to go flying with me.
G.P.
RV-9

[Mike S]

Originally Posted by gmpaul

Best of all my bride still wants to go flying with me.
G.P.
RV-9

Ya done Good

By the way, I have 4 round holes in the panel

[Ron B.]

Glad you made it down safely. Does the GRT have a backup battery available like the Dynon has. We installed one and also a second 680 backup battery for just such an occasion. Are you saying that the battery would not take a charge with a battery charge.
Ron

[Ironflight]

Great job flying the airplane - the most important thing to do....

I'm curious if the GRT was giving you low voltage warnings in advance of the problem - did you have the limits set? It certainly could have been just a sudden short/failure that might not have tripped anything. Just wondering - no criticism at all intended!

Paul

[DakotaHawk]

Great job getting you and your SO safely back on the ground. Once the smoke escaped from the wires, there's no reason to drag out repairs by stopping at an unfamiliar airport. As long as you were safe, might as well head for home.

Back-up steam gauges... I sure like having mine. I've realized that I fly on the steam Airspeed and Altitude, and use the Dynon for everything else.

[Kokemiller]

I have experienced some screen issues with my Dynon but no failure and Dynon has since fixed the problem. I have a round altimeter and airspeed indicator for back-up but regret not putting in a small round oil pressure gauge for peace of mind for when (not if) the screen goes dark.

Excellent job handling the situation!

[gmpaul]

Ron: The battery would never charge over 9.8 volts on the bench. Apparently the battery lost a couple of cells.

Paul: I do not remember seeing anything out of the ordinary while scanning the engine page. No alarms.
The odd thing about this is the only instruments that were affected were certified, the experimental were unharmed.
G.P.

[Chris Hill]

On that note, anyone reading this please let me know your thoughts

In regards to a back up system, I am thinking between a Garmin 496 and an Ipad with skycharts installed. I am familiar with the 496 capabilities, but not with iPad and skychart. Would skychart be a comparable back up on the iPad with the GPS in it?

Thanks for the info!

[pierre smith]

...and I know for a fact that an experienced IFR pilot with plenty of IMC experience can control the airplane's attitude and airspeed with only the 496.

For VFR flying, between what you SHOULD know, as far as the pitch attitude for an approach to a landing, its groundspeed readout can be helpful in a calm condition.

The iPad with Skycharts has a lot more detail than the 496 and the two should enable you to get just about any place.

Best,

[erich weaver]

My two cents:

The focus here should be on what malfunction occurred and why you had no warning of it (other than an odor). It would seem likely from your description that your alternator failed, which later resulted in low voltage from your battery. If this is correct, a properly set up engine monitor would deliver a low voltage warning shortly after the alternator failure, and yet you either did not get the warning or did not see it. Either way, some change is necessary to prevent a similar occurrence in the future. You might want to consider a back up alternator or battery in addition to the engine monitor review.

Good job flying the plane

erich