AEA Pilot's Guide 2022-2023 - 59

" Things would have been a lot different if the
throttle had stuck at idle power. "
The adventure began at zero-dark-thirty when
a friend, Al Owen, an A&P-IA, took off from his
home base at the Richard B. Russell Regional
Airport in Rome, Georgia, to pick up Duncan and
his son, Riley, who will soon turn 21 and is an
avionics tech working at his father's three-tech
repair station. He arrived at Fayetteville with the
preparatory glimmer of sunrise. " It was pretty; he
has the extremely white LED lights, so you can
see them from a long way off, and the Bonanza
looked beautiful arriving in the dark. "
Departing Fayetteville in visual meteorological
conditions, the flight was uneventful. Owen's
V-tail Bonanza is a well-equipped, wonderful
flying airplane, Duncan said, a pilot who has
been too busy to renew his medical certificate.
" We had all the good stuff you need: ForeFlight,
ADS-B In weather and traffic, everything but
the autopilot, " a roll-only Century II. As the
trio winged their way toward Lakeland Linder
International Airport, the cockpit conversation
turned to the weather: Would they arrive there in
visual or instrument meteorological conditions?
Before they flew over the Florida state line,
they were in, over and between the clouds. " We
never saw Florida, let alone the Gulf of Mexico, "
Duncan said. " Going through the MOAs, getting
vectored around, we were getting excited about
" In any unforeseen situation, the
boldface responsibilities are to aviate,
navigate and communicate. By reducing
the hands-on requirements of the first
two, modern autopilots give you time to
analyze what's going on and figure out
what you are going to do about it. "
arriving at the show. And then we couldn't slow
down. "
As air traffic control vectored the Bonanza for
the approach to Lakeland, Owen retarded the
throttle for a descent to 6,000 feet, which put
the airplane between layers. Then he pushed
the throttle forward to halt the descent. When
he retarded the throttle to configure the V-tail for
cruise at the assigned altitude, the lever moved
aft but the engine instruments confirmed what the
engine noise told them; there was no reduction
of power.
He pulled the throttle all the way back - still
with no change in power. " Then the throttle would
not move forward, " Duncan said. The Bonanza's
engine had flown 120 hours since its overhaul,
more than enough time to reveal any immediate
problems related to that effort. The stuck throttle
was " one of the lessons that no matter how good
your maintenance is, stuff can go wrong, " Duncan
added.
" He went into mechanic mode for a while, "
and the Century II autopilot provided only roll
assistance, which divided his attention. A Garmin
GFC autopilot is the only thing really missing
from the Bonanza's panel, which has a pair of
Garmin G5s in it, Duncan said. " We're waiting for
it; Garmin is sure to pop it out of the (approved
model list) oven here in the next couple of
months. It would have been nice to punch the
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