Page 50 - Volume 15 Number 9

48 • TWIN & TURBINE SEPTEMBER 2011
From the Flight Deck by Kevin R. Dingman
Batteries not included
One of my favorite things for which to use the Duke is golfing. No, not as a cart. Although, I have told some of my FO’s when asked where I go in the Duke: “It’s my golf cart.”
My brothers, Dad and I planned a golfing trip to Mt Pleasant, Mich., (MOP). At the time we were all pretty busy so the coordination to get us together for the better part of a day, especially a holiday, was substantial. The Pohl Cat course next to the MOP airport has a special rate on Memorial Day; you know us airline pilots...frugal.
I was on the waiting list several years for a hangar in Kalamazoo so on the day of the golf outing the Duke was in a community hangar at the Niles airport; a 45-minute drive to the south. I’d take my brother Mike to get the plane, fly it up to Kalamazoo and pick up my other brother Jim and my dad Ron.
The course is very busy on Memorial Day due to the reduced rate, so tee times are a must. This necessitated planning the takeoff time as you would a Space Shuttle launch: Leave home: 0545, Niles takeoff: 0715, Kalamazoo landing: 0740, depart AZO for Mt Pleasant: 0800, arrive MOP: 0835, shuttle to course: 0950, etc.
Hey Captain, you say, I can’t help but notice the flight from AZO to MOP is only about 0.5 on the Hobbs. Why the heck didn’t ya’ll just drive? Shame on you. In the grand tradition of the $100 hamburger, need you ask? I flew the Duke from Niles to Dowagiac for a pancake breakfast once. That was a 0.3 and included a VOR approach in IMC. I admit though my most not-fun trip was
from Niles to South Bend at night in ice to an NDB approach. Another 0.3 – won’t do that again.
Granted, most of my trips are two hours or so. But hey, flying is flying. I know, what about that “frugal” thing? Frugal everywhere else so I can “splurge” on flying!
I Have an Issue
I pulled the Duke from the hangar and before you know it I’m engaging the starter for the left engine. After start checklist complete for the left, cranking the right. Spin, spin, spin...nothing. Crap. Did I flood it? Throttle one-third forward, mixture cutoff; spin, spin, spin...Darn, five- minute starter cooling. Start switch engage; spin, spin...
The quick trip to Kalamazoo is not going to happen; I have an issue. In desperation (not a good word in a pilot’s vocabulary) I try a few more start attempts until the spin, spin becomes: spin......spin...... spin where your voice drops an octave as you read the second and third “spin.”
On this golf outing day we were almost a half-hour early arriving at the Niles airport because Mike arrived early at my house. So, maybe there is more slack in the launch sequence I thought, hum, ok, we were here 30 early, there’s a bit in the loading time at Kalamazoo and Mt. Pleasant, and we can forget the driving range warm-up. Wow, that’s almost an hour and a half; this can still work.
We pull the battery and borrow a 24-volt charger – an amazing feat in itself. Not many 24-volt chargers lying around at 0700 on Memorial Day. After a quick hour-and-ten on
the charger we put it back in the plane. Once installed, I flip on the master switch before buttoning up the nacelle panel.
It works! It works?
Master switch on – nothing. Re-check the battery terminals and circuit breakers. Nothing. The battery wasn’t dead, just really weak. Now it’s dead. Like a good pilot I ask myself what I’m doing wrong. It’s always something we’ve done wrong, you know. I go to the nose baggage compartment and turn on the interior light. It works! It works? Why does it work? For a nano- second I think the baggage light must be one of those stick-on AA battery-operated lights. No, that’s dumb. But it works and nothing else does. Now I’m confused.
At this point I’m sure you A&Ps are thinking: Well “Captain,” first of all, leave that electrical stuff to a mechanic. And second you’re thinking, the baggage light must be on the battery direct bus, like a clock or cigarette lighter. You’d be right to both. I didn’t know until later that a regular old light bulb in a DC system (apparently) can work with the circuit polarity reversed...oops.
Chain of Events
I’d figure out later that when, in my haste, I re-installed the battery I had reversed the cables. The airplane circuitry prevented (i.e. pilot proof) the current from getting to anything but the battery direct bus. Back then, while I did have that desperation word in my vocabulary, I also had another word: chain-of-events.
OK, that’s three words but you get the point. This morning’s chain