AEA Pilot's Guide 2022-2023 - 62

AVIONICS INTELLIGENCE
Continued from page 60
the Bonanza's panel. Without them, the reliability of
the weather and traffic information, not to mention the
IFR and VFR charts and other navigational information,
depended solely on the iPads' internal batteries.
" If you want something in the air but you left it on the
shelf and didn't put it in the airplane, it is invaluable, "
Duncan said. " There is no amount of money you can
spend at that moment in the air to get something
you need. Not putting something in the airplane that
enhances safety is not a wise financial decision. "
And neither is cutting your fuel too close. Working
the numbers provided by the EI MVP 50 engine
monitor, " we'd have 9 gallons
left in the tanks if we flew all
the way back to Rome. That
was too close, " so they started
looking for a closer alternate.
Owen and Duncan were
both searching for a suitable
alternate airport, with the
former working ForeFlight
and the latter adjusting the
nearest runway criteria in the
Bonanza's GNS 430. " I know
how to go in there and change
the nearest runway length for
sorting so we could find the
nearest hard surfaces off the
nose, " Duncan said. They both
found the Henry Tift Myers
Sam's Burger
Deli at Rome's
Richard B. Russell
Regional Airport
Airport and its 6,506-foot asphalt Runway 16/34, in
Tifton, Georgia. That would leave them with 25 gallons
in the Bonanza's tanks.
The Bonanza flew into visual meteorological
conditions about 12 miles outside of Tifton, Georgia.
The next challenge was figuring out how to land. " If
you're a pilot, go figure out how you'd land with full
power; it's a good exercise, " Duncan said.
Staying high wasn't good, according to Duncan,
because you need to pull up to bleed off some airspeed
to get the landing gear and flaps down without exceeding
their operating limitations. Owen " pulled the mixture back
a little bit and pulled the prop back with high RPM, and
that helped a little bit with the bite of the blades so the
Bonanza wasn't quite so screaming along. "
With the gear and flaps down, Duncan said, " we
crossed the numbers at 130 mph or something (close
to that), pulled the mixture to kill the engine, and
floated until we burned off all that speed, and landed
uneventfully. "
Unbeknownst to the trio in the Bonanza, Owen's
father, " being a dad, was following us on Live ATC, "
Duncan said, and " when he realized that we were
turning back to Rome as we filed in the air for Tifton,
he asked a friend with an A36 Bonanza to pick us up
there. He landed 15 minutes after we dead-sticked into
Tifton and rolled off the runway. "
Owen got his Bonanza in a hangar at Tifton and
looked at it a little bit before their A36 ride back to
Rome. " At the moment, he wasn't sure what pinned the
throttle linkage in one position, " Duncan said. " He left
the V-tail there and said he'd come back the next day "
to discover and resolve the problem.
After the A36 friend (whose name Duncan never
learned) dropped them off at Rome, they retired to
Sam's Burger-Deli for a late lunch. After lunch, Owen
flew the Duncans back to Fayetteville in a Piper
Cherokee, " which is a lot slower airplane, by the way. "
After 30 years of working on airplanes, Duncan
still hasn't been to Sun 'n Fun. " I've been too busy
answering the phone and questions about the new stuff
my customers have seen there, " he said. But his first
attempt, in three different airplanes and three different
airports, made it memorable. " Maybe next year, " he
said. q
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