by Doug Rozendaal
The trip down the night was before the first real thunderstorm of the season. I had flown nearly every heading on the compass to travel the 105 miles from MCW to CID. There was deep low in northeast KS with a cold front extending northeast across my route with a 40 degree temperature in about 60 miles and numerous level 3,4,& 5 thunderstorms along it. A month earlier and this would have meant a 2000 foot thick layer of light to moderate rime ice and little more. The last weeks 85 degree temperatures had put enough energy into the system that vertical development was occurring in a grand fashion. The frequent cloud to cloud and occasional cloud to ground lightning lit up the night well enough that with the help of an old controller friend the trip was a smooth ride.
It was raining lightly when I landed and the lightning in the west from where I had just came told that the cold front in all its fury would soon pass. I went to the office turned in my times and returned just as the last packages were being unloaded and put the old Beech to bed.
In the old terminal building on the third floor all of the freight haulers have offices with beds for our overnight. The Caravan drivers were watching TV and we all discussed our various tactics to get through and around the weather to our destination. We watched the news and saw the radar picture and marveled at our great talents in traversing a well developed line of intense thunderstorms. Freight Dogs like fighter pilot seem to have a profound lack of humility. The weather prophet spoke also of the low clouds and scattered showers that were in store for the entire state in the morning. As we retired for the night the rain had gotten stronger and the wind had switched to the northwest.
The 4:30 a.m. arrival of the 757 with our return freight awoke me. Looking out the window I could see that low IFR was to be the order of the day. I got dressed and went down to freight office and called weather. There was nothing significant in the briefing. The freezing level was 5 to 6000 feet. The entire state was 500 and 3 or below, not improving until eastern NE.
The freight was sorted, weighed and sent out to the plane. Loading the plane is the job that usually wakes up enough to face the task of flying home. This morning my back was out of joint so one of the ramp guys loaded for me. I climbed up the wing and through the crew hatch into the cockpit. After nearly 5 years and 700 hours of part-time flying in this airplane it is comfortable. Settling in to the seat I prepared for the 55 minute ride home.
Starting a radial engine is half the fun of flying it and starting it well is even better. The proper amount of fuel, air and ignition must be brought to gather at the proper time to ensure that 1: the engine will start, and 2: it will not backfire. The engines both fire off and with out the backfire that would tell the whole airport that I screwed up. This is however not always the case. The radios are turned on and set, flight instruments are set, the heater is lit, clearance is obtained, the temperatures are up high enough to taxi and so taxi clearance is granted and off to runway 27 we go. It was still dark and the moisture in the cockpit from last nights rain condensed on the cold inside of the cockpit windows making the outside visibility marginal at best. When the oil temperature reaches 100 degrees the cooler bypasses are closed and the temperatures drop again as the cold oil in them returns to the tank. In the run up pad the heater had cleared the windows and I locked the tailwheel, set the brakes and brought up the power a bit more to speed the warmup. The oil returned to 100 and I cycled the prop twice, punched the electric feathering button on the left, the generator showed a load, the RPM droped and I pulled out the button. Same story on the right, cycle the props once more, check the mags and carb heat and I began my pneumonic check list. I learned these checklist hauling freight in a DC-3. "Can I Get Flaped, (you pick the adverb here) Pretty Reasonable Tonight". Which translated means, Controls, Instruments Gas (Quantity & Main tanks), Props, Radios, Trim. Taking the runway it's "LET'S GIT". Translated to, Lights, Engine Gages, Trim again, Shutters (oil coolers), Gas (boost pumps), Instruments again, Tailwheel locked & Time. Having completed both of these I taxied into position, asked for a wind check, 320 at 11, cranked in some right aileron brought up the power to about 32", checked the temps and pressures, 50 mph, raised the tail, brought the power on up to 36", 90 mph, eased the old Beech into the air, gear up, accelerated to 120, powereed back to 31" and 2100 RPM, temps and pressures looked good, into the clouds, over to departure.
"Over 310 up to 3000 direct when able Double Oh Delta". A Twin Beech will accumulate more carb ice in less time than any other Aircraft ever built. So much so that in addition to carb heat they have carb alcohol. The conditions were absolutly perfect for carb ice and It was forming at a pretty steady rate. This is not any particular problem an occurs frequently. Day was breaking and even in the clouds you could see around the cockpit now. After leveling at 3000 I called up the Caravan that departed immediately before me on his company frequency. He was also headed to MCW hauling boxes for "the other guys". We were discussing the weather and anything that might have been interesting when it happened.
We have all heard about it, we have all thought about it, most of us have reasons why it won't happen to us, but it did. It happened to me, in my favorite airplane. Complete Electrical Failure. The Beech 18 is an electric airplane. The Gear, the flaps, the prop feathering, the carb alcohol, not to mention the regular items like the radios.
First was denial, I don't need this, then I thought, Get to work. I turned off the radio master, then gangbared the battery and generator switches. I shut off all the switches on the left sub-panel, pulled the breakers on the left side and neutralized the start selector switch. The start selector switch doesn't do any thing except decide which engine will turn when you push the start button. Then to the right sub-panel all the breakers and switches over there. I was established on the 310 radial off CID and flying a 315 heading. I looked at my watch, 6:30, I've been flying for 12 minutes so I'm about 20 miles NW of CID. I shut off all the radios except the #1 com turned on the battery switch and the radio master and nothing, back off with both. 40 miles will get me over ALO and there are only two 300 feet towers between there and MCW. 20 minutes and I'll start down and see what I can find. Another thought goes though my head At day break with close temp dewpoints the weather is often much worse than forecast and deteriorates rapidly across the entire area. "How low do I go?" I ask myself.
This is somebody's idea of a bad joke early in the morning right? I tried the second radio master relay and heard a faint crackle in my headset. The battery is recovering, I had a short not an open circuit and I have isolated it I surmise. The radio light was becoming dimly visible. More low voltage static cracked in my headset. The first readable words I heard were "...delta if you read Cedar Rapids Contact Waterloo on 118.9". I dialed up ALO and said "This is Twin Beech Double Oh Delta, do you read me?". The happiest sound in the world was "loud and clear". "Sir we (the airplane and me) just had a complete electrical failure, It appears to be a short I have limited battery energy I need a heading and distance to the final approach fix."
"Double Oh Delta you are 20 miles S of SONNY fly heading 360." "Roger 360 I'm going to shut down I'll be back in 10 minutes."
Before establishing radio contact there was little to do and a lot of time to do it. Now things got busy.The carb ice was continuing and the heat on right engine was not keeping up. The manifold pressure was down from 28" to 26" and when the power came back for an approach that engine would quit. If the battery gave up on the approach or I missed for some reason I could not have the gear out and do a miss with a sick engine, and no prop feathering. May be I should try to put a generator back on? There are only a few things that have wire heavy enough to kill the whole system, and the generators are a prime candidate. If the short is there and I short the battery again it is all done. The generators were my last resort. The carb ice continues and the right is down to 25" and the carb heat is not doing it. I push in the carb alcohol circuit breaker and put some to it. The 450 Pratt & Whitney coughs on the mixture of alcohol and water and shakes and comes back to full 28". 8 minutes have passed 10 was to many anyway "Waterloo Double Oh D, how am I doing" the radio was sounding better. "Double Oh Delta, turn left heading 340 you are 5 miles from SONNY." "340 Double Oh D". Another freighter had heard my initial call and went to FSS to find some better weather for me. "Double Oh Delta this is Sub-Air 12, Fort Dodge advises that they have breaks in the overcast and Des Moines is improving as well. "Okay, If I loose you I am going westbound at 2500, look for me around Fort Dodge."
The radio continued to work very well for an and a very busy controller did an superb job of vectoring me for an uneventful surveillance approach. The vocalizer would not come of the peg due to the low voltage. I broke out in to fair visibility but could not see the airport initially. An Ambulance was going up the freeway and I thought I'll follow him to the field. The approach lights appeared dead ahead and I began to lower the gear. I advised tower that I would need to fly by to check the gear because I would have no gear light.
Every year I take a 135 ride in this airplane and every year I go up to 3 or 4000 feet and crank out the gear. In addition I have trained or help train several other Beech 18 pilots and have taught them the procedure as well and it is a very simple one. So simple that I just did it instead of thinking it though. Flying around at altitude in a warm airplane with a check pilot sitting next to you and cranking out the gear is a very different experience than doing it 300 feet off the ground with no cabin heat a whole host of other problems.
I came by the tower at 200 feet and they said that every thing looked good. I flew downwind and there was the ambulance pulling up the driveway. I began to think about putting in the breaker and risking that the short was not in the gear system and getting that lovely green light. Pushing in the breaker caused the low voltage static in the radio and I instantly pulled it out. Turned final and said "check my gear". "Go Around Go Around". I had done everything correctly except selecting Down with the switch. Pushing the circuit breaker in caused the gear to come back to a trailing position. Now which way do I turn the crank, an arrow on floor tells which way to turn the crank but the crank is mounted horizontally and do they mean the crank turns back on the top side or on the bottom to put the gear down? The same crank turn the flaps and I could see them so I turn it the way It said on the top and got the desired result so the same must work for the gear. Down to the stop, Clutch Engaged, Circuit breaker in, No green light. I flew by the tower and they confirmed that all three were down. I rechecked the crank, the clutch, gear switch, and the circuit breaker, still no light. My radio quality was deteriorating steadily. People can fix airplanes I thought, turned final said "check gear down" They replied "looks good" touched down on the right main hopped once and rolled to a stop.
The Controller Rick Bohling did a tremendous job. He did not burden me with questions. It was be fore the 7:00 shift had arrived and there were only 2 people on duty. The other was busy coordinating the rescue equipment. He had a full scope of traffic as well and gave an excellent ASR Approach to a primary target on a Daylight scope in the tower cab.
The problem was the start button shorted energizing the starter. The innocuous start selector switch should have been in the neutral position. the starter ran briefly until it failed to a short. The starter on a Twin-Beech is feed with 2/0 wire. That took the entire battery and both generators in a moment. A seemingly harmless switch could very easily have had catastrophic consequences.
The reason I lucked out in this case was because I 1, Flew the Airplane 2, Divided and conquered the problems 3, Anticipated the next problems. A better solution may have been to put the start selector switch in neutral before I took off.
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